US liberal Zionists issue no statements on shocking Israeli killing of boy protester
Everyone who comes to our site already knows the shocking news from Palestine. On Friday, Israeli solders suppressing a demonstration against illegal settlements in an occupied West Bank village shot a child of 13 or 14 in the stomach, and Ali Abu Alia was rushed to a Ramallah hospital where he soon died. Photos of the boy tell this story better than anything I can add. Ali Abu Alia was obviously an innocent child, animated by justifiable protest against occupation that denies millions of people all rights. Your kids would do the same if an army and religious zealots were stealing your land.
Of course this killing follows Israel’s murder of the Iranian scientist a week before. It follows the military sniper killings of hundreds of ghettoized protesters at the Gaza fence in 2018. It follows the killings of more than 500 children by Israeli bombing during the 2014 Gaza onslaught. All approved by the U.S. government.
Though there is something singularly affecting about this killing, maybe because it was one boy. And I aim to show you those who were stirred to speak out, and those who are not.
The Institute for Middle East Understnding was forceful:
Ali Abu Alia was killed today by Israeli soldiers in his village of Mughayyir in the West Bank. He was only 13-years-old, a child robbed of his life by the brutal violence of the occupation.
Palestinian legislator Ayman Odeh (using computer translation):
A child was shot dead again by army fire – Ali Abu Aliyah, 12, who went out to demonstrate near his home in the village of [Almughair]. Another murder victim in a long line of brutal crimes in the Occupied Territories. stop the occupation.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib:
No child deserves to die like this.
Jewish Voice for Peace issued a beautiful statement.
End US military funding to the Israeli government now. End US military funding to the Israeli government now. End US military funding to the Israeli government now. End US military funding to the Israeli government now. End US military funding to the Israeli government now.
The Jewish youth organization IfNotNow does not support BDS, as JVP does. It tweeted Abu Alia’s foto and said merely, “Stop killing Palestinian children.”
Nickolay Mladenov of the U.N. tweeted outrage:
Appalled by the killing of a 15 year old #Palestinian boy, Ali Abu Alaya, near #Ramallah today. #Israel must swiftly and independtly investigate this shocking and unacceptable incident. Children enjoy special protection under international law and must be protected from violence.
The EU delegation for Palestinians also expressed outrage and said the Israeli army can investigate:
How many more Palestinian children will be subject to the excessive use of lethal force by the Israeli security forces?…This shocking incident must be swiftly and fully investigated by the Israeli authorities in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Ali Abunimah points out that the EU supplies lots of military support to Israel, citing a comment, “You wanted him dead.”
Middle East Eye published a statement by the great St. Paul congresswoman Betty McCollum calling the shooting a “grotesque state-sponsored killing.” McCollum demanded that Joe Biden’s team investigate the incident.
“Yesterday’s death of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the West Bank by an Israeli soldier who shot the child in the abdomen is a grotesque state-sponsored killing,” McCollum told MEE. ‘This senseless incident must be condemned as a direct result of Israel’s permanent military occupation of Palestine.
“I urge the incoming Biden administration to fully investigate and verify to the American people that no US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel provided material assistance enabling this taking of a child’s life.”
Biden’s team has of course had nothing to say, per my search.
The Washington Post ran the short AP account of the killing. The New York Times has yet to cover the matter.
American liberal Zionist organizations support military aid to Israel and resist calls to condition that aid. New Israel Fund has had nothing to say about the killing on twitter. Neither has Americans for Peace Now. J Street retweeted the Haaretz news article on the killing without comment. Dylan Williams of J Street retweeted Mladenov’s statement calling for an investigation of the appalling killing, but J Street has not issued its own statement. It did send out a newsletter today that says nothing about the murder. Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now retweeted the EU’s statement calling for an investigation, but there is no statement from his organization. Americans for Peace Now has not touched on the killing on its own twitter feed.
Ori Nir was more outspoken in a Facebook post from New Yorker Doug Chandler.
The 13-year-old boy was unarmed and, according to evidence, didn’t risk the lives of any soldiers, says Ori Nir, the spokesman for Americans for Peace Now and a source I trust… “This [Ruger] weapon is deadly[, Nir said.] “And yet we continue to use it in situations where there is no life-threatening for soldiers.”
Today, AIPAC is touting Israel’s work to help babies left homeless by hurricanes in Honduras. “When disasters strike and people need healthcare and humanitarian support, our partner Israel is there. #ThisIsIsrael: 7,000 miles away from home, among the first to arrive and last to leave.”
And the JCC in Manhattan is bombarding my phone with ads for The Other Israel film festival. The main film they are pushing is some kind of drama involving Israeli soldiers. Please tell me what the “other Israel” is at a time like this?
I can only add that the politics of Palestine in our country will only change when Palestinians are regarded by mainstream voices as human beings deserving of rights. The blank spots in this account show that nobody who counts in D.C. really gives a —.
h/t Scott Roth, Adam Horowitz and James North.
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