|
By ZOA National President Morton A. Klein
(JULY 10, 2022 / JPOST) The U.S. State Department’s July 4 statement wrongly asserting that an Israeli bullet was “likely responsible” for killing Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was biased against Israel, ignores evidence, and contradicts the State Department’s finding, in its very same statement, that the bullet’s origin could not be determined, because “ballistic experts determined the bullet was badly damaged, which prevented a clear conclusion.”
Moreover, the department’s assertion appears to be based on a fraudulent “investigation” by the terrorist dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority. The State Department statement says it was based on PA and IDF investigations. But the IDF investigation showed no “likely” involvement of an IDF bullet. Rather, the detailed “IDF investigation concluded that the source of the fire that led to the death of Ms. Abu Akleh could not be determined based on the available information.”
That leaves only the PA “investigation” as the basis for the State Department’s assertion; anti-Israel propagandists, who, among other things, have been the source for phony “investigations” about Abu Akleh that blamed Israel.
The State Department assertion also ignored that footage released hours after the incident, which showed Arab terrorists wearing bulletproof vests shooting indiscriminately and then exclaiming: “they’ve hit one, they’ve hit a soldier, he’s laying on the ground.” The IDF confirmed that no Israeli soldiers were hit by gun fire in Jenin that day. The person that the Arab terrorists exclaimed about hitting and lying on the ground could very well have been Abu Akleh.
The State Department statement also failed to mention the PA’s lack of cooperation; the PA’s refusal and then long delay in turning over an alleged bullet; questions about the chain of custody; the failure to turn over a second alleged bullet fired at the Al Jazeera reporter; and the unlikelihood that a bullet recovered from a body would be that badly damaged.
All these factors evidence the lack of credibility of any PA accounts of the events and call in to question whether the bullet that the PA belatedly turned over to the U.S. was even the bullet that hit Abu Akleh. The terrorist anti-Israel PA would surely never hand over a bullet that was used by a PA weapon.
| 
