Crime and the Criminal #11: When Everything is Antisemitic, Nothing is Antisemitic
CNN says Israel deliberately killed Palestinian journalist
An update on the last week’s newsletter about the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Since then, the Associated Press and CNN have published in-depth investigations of the killing which back up eyewitness accounts Israeli forces shot the Al Jazeera journalist, despite the initial claim by the Israelis that Palestinian gunmen killed her.
The Associated Press report says the bullet that killed Abu Akleh—a journalistic legend in the Arab world—almost certainly came from an Israeli gun. According to the AP, an Israel convoy was parked just up the road from the journalist with a clear line of sight. Israel claims Palestinian gunmen were between the convoy and the journalist, but eyewitnesses at the scene denied this and, as the AP notes, Israel has provided no evidence to back up its claim. The only confirmed presence of Palestinian gunmen, according to AP, was on the other side of the Israeli position “some 300 meters (yards) away, mostly separated from Abu Akleh by buildings and walls.”
Review suggests Israeli fire killed reporter, no final word
The CNN report goes further, suggesting that Israeli soldiers deliberately targeted Abu Akleh. CNN reviewed 11 videos, interviewed eight eyewitnesses and consulted two experts, an audio forensic analyst and an explosive weapons expert.
Montana State University’s Robert Maher, the audio analyst, examined the time between the “crack” of the bullet and the “bang” of the muzzle blast, and estimated the bullet was fired from a distance of between 580 and 646 feet, which, according to CNN, “corresponds almost exactly with the Israeli sniper's position.”
Chris Cobbs-Smith, the explosive weapons expert, told CNN: "It appears that the shots, one of which hit Shireen, came from down the street from the direction of the IDF troops. The relatively tight grouping of the rounds indicates Shireen was intentionally targeted with aimed shots and not the victim of random or stray fire,"
New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces
The CNN report poses a problem for the Biden administration. Not only was Abu Akleh an American citizen, but deliberately killing a journalist during an armed conflict is a war crime.
Until now, the White House has said it trusts Israel to investigate its own crimes, but the growing chorus of American politicians calling for an independent investigation is bound to grow louder.
Biden will visit Israel for the first time as president at the end of June.
Predictably, in the wake of the CNN report, some supporters of Israel accused the network of antisemitism. Remember, this is the network that employs pro-Israel stalwarts like Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, and fired former contributor Marc Lamont Hill for saying “free Palestine from the river to the sea” during a speech at the United Nations.
Australian blogger David Lange wrote on his website Israellycool.com: “The report is nothing but a blood libel, a contrived attempt to get to a predetermined outcome, which is to accuse Israel of murder.” Picking up on the “blood libel” theme, British blogger David Collier tweeted: “CNN put a vile antisemitic blood libel on its front page… It isn’t easy being a Jew in 2022.” The International Legal Forum, a group of pro-Israel lawyers, accused CNN of “incitement and blood libel against the Jewish state.”
(“Blood libel” refers to the antisemitic myth that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals.)
But the most preposterous response came from Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States. Oren not only called the CNN investigation antisemitic, he also urged the Israeli government to shut down CNN’s offices in Jerusalem. So much for freedom of the press. Well, at least he didn’t suggest bombing the organization’s offices, as the IDF bombed the Associated Press last year in Gaza.
BTW, this is the same Michael Oren who launched a creepy investigation into Palestinian resistance icon Ahed Tamimi—who was underage at the time—because he believed her blonde hair and white skin meant she couldn’t be a real Palestinian, but an actor paid to pretend she was Palestinian.
So he’s hardly in a position to accuse anybody of racism.
Making false accusations of antisemitism to cover up Israeli war crimes is nothing new. In the aftermath of the Qibya massacre in 1953, in which an IDF death squad led by future Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon murdered 69 Palestinian villagers (two-thirds of them women and children), the Israeli government first denied it happened, and then the Israeli press accused the Westen media of anti-Semitism for focusing on the incident.
As former Israeli Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni said when she was interviewed on the radio program Democracy Now in 2002: “Well, it’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are antisemitic.”
Weaponizing antisemitism against reporters doing their jobs is not only obnoxious and dishonest, it hurts the fight against real antisemitism.
When everything is antisemitic, nothing is antisemitic.
A note to readers: I’m working on a big story about a Black punk rocker who was allegedly murdered by a Hollywood producer, so I’ll be taking a break from Substack for the next ten days. If true, and I haven’t confirmed it yet, this could be huge. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, check out my story for the Manchester Mill about the Ranch Bar, the Manchester punk club that hosted bands like Buzzcocks, the Fall and a nascent Joy Division. Compared to American journalism, British journalism is the pits. The Mill is an exception.
The misfits and mavericks of Manchester’s punk HQ
Also, I am totally psyched to watch the new Danny Boyle TV series about the Sex Pistols set to debut on May 31 on Hulu in America and Disney+ in the UK. Here’s a picture of Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook at the premiere. Yikes!
