Israeli Defense forces shot and
killed an American journalist working for Al Jazeera.
This took place in the West Bank as she was doing coverage of an IDF Raid.
Her name is Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the face as she
was reporting on the raid that was taking place in Genene refugee camp.
Now we have a graphic video of the aftermath, it is blurred, so you don't see
too much, but I do wanna give a warning before we get to this video.
Let's take a look.
>> Video released by Al Jazeera shows the moments
after Shereen Abu Akleh was shot in the face.
[SOUND] >> Dead.
A spokesperson for Israel's army told a military
radio station that Abu Akleh was likely killed by
Palestinian snipers though he offered no evidence.
Al Jazeera's Jerusalem bureau chief said Shereen Abu Akleh was
targeted by direct shot from an Israeli sniper.
A second Palestinian journalist, Al Coates reporter,
Ali Samoudi was hospitalized in stable condition after he was shot in the back.
Speaking from a hospital Genene, Ali Samoudi said he was among four
journalists pinned down by Israeli snipers.
>> The occupation is murderous and criminal.
They shot us for no reason.
We, a group of journalists were there wearing our full press uniforms in
addition to the helmets,
with the word press written on them in large letters as big as the whole world.
We were obvious.
>> Now, despite what the journalists are saying,
Israel is refusing to take responsibility, saying that it was unclear who
was responsible calling it premature and irresponsible to cast blame at this stage.
Though I listen, I tend to believe the journalists who
are on the ground and you know what they've experienced.
If we're wrong about this, we will correct the record.
But so far the Israeli forces as democracy now noted in their reporting have
provided no evidence to indicate that the journalists were targeted by Palestinians.
Now, who was she?
Turns out that she was actually incredibly brave reporter,
especially given the fact that she's willing to put herself in danger
to do reporting of conflict zones and areas within Israel.
Now, the 51 year old journalists became a household name synonymous with
Al Jazeera's coverage of life under occupation during her more
than two decades reporting in Palestinian territories.
Including during the second intifada or
uprising that killed thousands on both sides, most of them Palestinians.
And we've seen that play out, you see the difference between the death tolls for
Israelis versus Palestinians.
Many of the individuals who end up dying on the Palestinian side end up being
civilians.
Because as we've said a million times before, it is an asymmetrical war.
You have the United States backing Israel with military
funding under the Obama administration.
Israel was given the iron dome that helps protect Israel from any
type of missile strikes coming from Palestinian territories.
Now, although she was also a US Citizen who often visited America in the summers.
She lived and worked in East Jerusalem and
the West Bank where those who knew her said she felt most at home a,
Palestinian Christian whose family was originally from Bethlehem.
She was born and raised in Jerusalem.
She leaves behind a brother and her parents.
Now she was fully aware of the risks associated with doing the work she
was doing.
But felt that it was important and was willing to put herself in harm's way to
ensure that people had some facts from what was taking place on the ground.
In an Al Jazeera video released last year,
Abu Akleh recalled the scale of destruction and
the feeling that death was at times just around the corner.
During her coverage of the second intifada, from 2000 to 2005.
Despite the dangers, we were determined to do the job, she said.
She was also quoted as saying, I chose journalism so
I could be close to the people, it might not be easy to change the reality, but
at least I was able to communicate their voice to the world.
Now, why is it that I tend to believe the journalists on the ground
who say that this was done by the IDF.
Well, remember, I mean, a year ago,
the news building in the Gaza Strip which had both the offices for
the Associated Press and Al Jazeera was targeted by the IDF.
They blew it up, they destroyed it and they got a little bit of backlash for it.
They tried to use the same justifications for doing what they did, but
clearly targeting journalists is a huge, huge problem.
It is considered a war crime, it should be considered a war crime.
And unfortunately,
journalists from Al Jazeera have experienced some of this brutality.
In fact, Al Jazeera posted this tweet today noting Al Jazeera
journalists killed on the front lines.
And you see many names there,
beginning with the first death of Tariq Ayyoub in April of 2003.
And so John it's such a devastating story, and I can't help but
notice the difference in coverage between journalists who died while
covering the war in Ukraine versus how they're kind of handling this
death in the press today, in the American press specifically.
What are your thoughts on what happened?
>> Yeah, I look, I definitely think that whether consciously or not, I believe that
we are probably seeing a little bit more coverage of this particular death
specifically, because there was a lot of coverage of the recent deaths in Ukraine.
I think that there's like a nagging like thing in the back of the minds of
some newsrooms that well, it'll seem really,
really biased if we don't, maybe not consciously.
But I saw a good amount of coverage of this and not just on places like democracy
now in the sorts of places where you would expect to see it.
But yeah, there has certainly been a lot more, but as you'll get to,
I know that you have some tweets from the wright, like trying to minimize this.
Attacking Al Jazeera, attacking the Palestinians, attacking people sticking up
like wanting to tell Shireen story, you're seeing a lot of that.
It is indisputably a tragedy and also a difficult story tragedy because this
courageous journalist has been killed in a difficult story because we can't know for
sure 100% exactly what happened.
We're not inclined to trust anyone, but
we also have common sense and she would not be the first journalist,
the first activist, the first civilian killed by the IDF.
She wouldn't be the 10th or the 100th.
There would be many.
And so we have to factor that into our evaluation.
Now, supposedly a fragment of the bullet is being analyzed, but
again, can we necessarily trust exactly what comes from that?
Not necessarily, that said, I would love to hear a plausible reason as to why
Palestinian snipers would gun down Palestinian journalists.
Or journalists covering the story presumably from the side of
the Palestinian doesn't make any sense.
And so that's sort of frustrating,
is that the people here domestically stateside, who don't want
this to be a big story because they don't want Israel to look bad.
They don't have a problem with Israel being bad morally,
they don't like it looking bad.
They will use the plausible deniability to try to slow the reaction down.
You saw in that statement that you read from the IDF saying,
let's just pump the brakes a little bit and
wait presumably until people have moved on from the story.
And then it'll be you'll be allowed to say something even though no one will be
paying attention anymore.
So all of this is incredibly frustrating.
That last graphic that you show you see that the 12 different journalists just for
Al-Jazeera who have been killed.
And you look at that and
you feel sick knowing the experience of those 12 people there,
their social groups, their colleagues, their family members who knew them.
But then you also feel sick from the knowledge that that list is going to grow.
Because there is a ton of violence against journalists, not just in Palestine,
journalists are killed every year all over the globe.
Journalists and activists and very rarely are their stories told internationally.
We've seen growing acceptance here in the United States of just casual disrespect
threats and violence against journalists.
And this is just in a time when we need the work that they do
more than ever before.
Seeing so much normalization of disrespect and
violence is the exact opposite thing that we need.
>> Yeah, it's interesting because I think what persuaded me
to not like needlessly be overly cautious with blaming the IDF.
Is that the first thing the Israeli forces said was it
was the Palestinians who did it.
It was like they're saying it's super irresponsible to blame this
on Israeli forces by the way, it was the Palestinians who did it, okay.
>> Look, it's not impossible.
>> It's not impossible.
But for now there is no evidence indicating that Palestinians
specifically targeted Palestinian journalists who
clearly had press on their helmets, on their vests.
Like it just doesn't make sense.
It does make more sense that it would be Israeli forces.
Considering the Gaza Tower housing Al Jazeera and
the Associated Press was attacked by Israeli forces just last year.
We talked about that.
I mean, and okay, so now let's get to the official response from Biden
administration officials from the White House.
Jen Psaki put out a statement saying, quote,
we are heartbroken to learn of the killing of Palestinian American journalists,
Shereen Abu Akleh and injuries to producer Ali Samoudi today in the West Bank.
>> We send our deepest condolences to her family, friends,
and strongly condemn her killing.
Ned Price, who is a spokesperson for the Defense Department says this,
we are heartbroken by and strongly condemned the killing of American
journalist, Shereen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.
The investigation must be immediate and thorough and
those responsible must be held accountable.
Her death is an affront to media freedom everywhere.
And it reminded me of Ned Price flailing during a press conference,
when war broke out in the area last year, when we learned about
innocent civilians on the Palestinian side dying as a result.
When we learned about children on the Palestinian side dying as a result.
And he was asked a very simple question that he had a lot of difficulty answering.
Let's watch that.
>> Talk about what you said about the principle of self defense.
Does that in any way apply to the Palestinian?
Do they have a right to self defense?
The Palestinians have a right to self defense?
>> I'm in broadly speaking side, we believe in the concept of self defense.
We believe it applies to any state.
I don't think that, I certainly wouldn't want my words to be construed as-
>> I understand, I want to ask you and
I don't wanna harp on this either.
But the Israelis killed 13 people just now, including maybe five or six children.
Do you condemn that?
Do you condemn the killing of children?
>> Saeed. >> I'm asking do you condemn the killing
of Palestinian children?
>> Obviously, in these reports are just emerging.
And I understand, I was just speaking to the team.
I understand we don't have independent confirmation of facts on the ground yet.
So I'm very hesitant to get into reports that are just emerging.
Obviously, the deaths of civilians, be they Israeli or Palestinian or something,
we would take very seriously.
>> Okay. >> Yeah,
Ned Price's answer there to a question that should have just been a layup is
unacceptable and pretty disgusting.
Okay, it's not hard to condemn the deaths, the killing of children.
Okay, it's not a difficult thing to do.
Yeah, one would think, but the US government not only rhetorically but
financially supports what the IDF does.
Remember we were already allocating tens of billions of dollars in
military aid to Israel.
And last year, congress decided in the middle of a pandemic where
they were nickel and diming the american people,
they decided maybe we should just allocate another billion dollars.
Why not a little extra something?
>> Yeah. >> That's what we support, and
by the way that money is our taxpayer money.
Every time you get paid you look at that stub,
your pay stub, just know some portion of that helps to fund the brutality
that we're seeing on the ground in these Palestinian territories.
>> Yeah, 100%.
I had actually forgotten about that clip although like a few seconds,
into it I remembered and just like,
when he was asked specifically about condemning the deaths of the children.
He looked like he just wanna say, come on man, what are you trying to do here?
You want me to pretend that I think that these are equal sides and
it's a reminder there, especially with a question about
self defense that words don't have absolute meanings.
Dictionaries imply that there's a meaning that can be applied across everything.
And I put probably an undue amount of time into my own commentary and
try to make sure that people realize that words aren't objective.
That when you hear something like cancel culture or like politically correct,
those are not broad standards that can be applied to everyone.
They are designed, they have a narrative baked into them.
Self defense does as well.
Self defense is for the better people, the better people,
people we consider superior or innocent in some way get to do it.
Those we don't like don't have those same rights.
There is no broad standard objective that can be applied to everyone equally.
They don't get to do self defense because we've decided that they're wrong,
they're wrong politically or strategically or ideologically or whatever.
But whatever it is, they don't get to defend themselves.
>> Yeah, that you're exactly right.
I mean, that is the right interpretation of what is transpiring
right now in terms of US foreign policy toward Israel.
We as the voters, there are plenty of voters who are against it, but
our government supports an apartheid state.
Our government is totally fine with the occupation.
I remember when Obama very mildly,
gently asked Benjamin Netanyahu to stop building illegal settlements.
Because it's actually leading to more war, more violence, more innocent people dying.
Netanyahu was furious, held it against Obama forever.
He never forgave him, even though Obama provided the iron dome, so
Israel could defend itself.
Palestinian territories don't have an iron dome.
>> Yeah.
>> The US is not nearly as supportive toward Palestinian civilians as
they are toward the Israeli government.
>> Yeah.
>> And I wanna be clear about that.
It's about emboldening the Israeli government regardless of who is in charge.
It doesn't matter how right wing the Israeli government is.
Does it matter how brutal the Israeli government is toward Palestinian
civilians.
We just have a blanket policy of supporting the Israeli government,
regardless of what they do.
And I'm sorry when we see our own people suffering in this country, and
then we take a look at the military aid that's provided to Israel,
knowing that they use that military aid in these ways.
How do you not get furious about that?