For jour­nal­ists who cov­er con­flicts, luck is like a blind trust fund; You can make with­drawals, but not deposits, and you have no idea how much is left.” I wrote that as part of an epi­taph for two of my friends and col­leagues — Paul Dou­glas and James Brolan – who were killed in Bagh­dad on May 29, 2006. I am appalled that 16 years lat­er the death of a jour­nal­ist should be used as a show­case in the hope­less Mid­dle East blame game.

I refer, of course, to the killing of Al-Jazeera’s pre-emi­nent reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh. Paul and James died as a result of the twist of fate that all of us who have cov­ered con­flicts dread, and pre­tend won’t snare us: Wrong Time. Wrong Place.
In their case it was an IED in the form of a car bomb. Shireen was in a bad place, but not the wrong one. She and sev­er­al col­leagues were in the open, removed from the con­fronta­tion line, wear­ing body armour and hel­mets clear­ly marked PRESS. By any mea­sure, they were doing the best that expe­ri­ence had taught them, to stay safe and still do their job.
A painstak­ing­ly detailed inves­ti­ga­tion by the Wash­ing­ton Post con­clud­ed that “analy­sis of avail­able visu­als, audio and wit­ness state­ments shows an Israeli sol­dier like­ly fired the fatal shot.”
But in the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian the­atre of the absurd, no oppor­tu­ni­ty to hog the stage for polit­i­cal advan­tage is ever wast­ed, espe­cial­ly not tragedy. And all sides are guilty of it. The Pales­tini­ans demand­ed an inde­pen­dent inquiry. Then, with the fine­ly honed and incom­pa­ra­ble skill Pales­tin­ian politi­cians have for find­ing a neg­a­tive in any­thing that might be a pos­i­tive for them, refused to release even imagery of the most cru­cial piece of evi­dence, the bul­let that killed Shireen. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Akram Al-Khat­ib jus­ti­fied it as a way “to deprive them (the Israelis) of a new lie, a new narrative.”
In an edi­to­r­i­al head­lined “Truth is Emerg­ing…” the Wash­ing­ton Post opined: “We do not see how Israel could manip­u­late the process if U.S. experts were indeed involved at every step.”

                                              REALLY? 

No doubt U.S. experts would do an exem­plary job. But do the edi­tors seri­ous­ly expect Pales­tini­ans to take it as a giv­en that Wash­ing­ton is neu­tral, fair and bal­anced when it comes to Israel? The U.S. has exer­cised its veto in the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil an unprece­dent­ed 53 times in favour of Israel, which is in vio­la­tion of more than two dozen UN res­o­lu­tions, going back to 1967. Res­o­lu­tions the U.S. vetoed include con­dem­na­tion of vio­lence against Pales­tin­ian pro­tes­tors and ille­gal Israeli set­tle­ments on the West Bank.
For its part, Al-Jazeera’s dogged defence of its jour­nal­ist and insis­tence on jus­tice is admirable. Its head­long charge to judge­ment, announc­ing with­in an hour and that Shireen was “assas­si­nat­ed in cold blood” is less so. Repeat­ing the charge over and over in an ongo­ing crawl doesn’t enhance the network’s cred­i­bil­i­ty as an organ­i­sa­tion that reports fact, not what amounts to spec­u­la­tion, even well-found­ed. Far bet­ter to keep insist­ing that no stone be left unturned, no clue unex­am­ined until the facts are pre­sent­ed in a court of law.

                                ABOUT FACE? OR TWO-FACED?

Sec­re­tary of State Antho­ny Blinken said the U.S. is “look­ing for an inde­pen­dent, cred­i­ble inves­ti­ga­tion”, and “when that inves­ti­ga­tion hap­pens, we will fol­low the facts, wher­ev­er they lead. It’s as straight­for­ward as that.”
If the case ends up in the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, that state­ment may come back to haunt Sec­re­tary Blinken. The U.S. and Israel, in the fine com­pa­ny of Chi­na, Iraq, Libya, Qatar and Yemen, have not rat­i­fied the treaty that estab­lished the court.
The Israeli’s default set­ting is to either deny or jus­ti­fy every charge of wrong­do­ing, from mis­de­meanor to mur­der, then inves­ti­gate if they must. A guilty ver­dict would put them in the kind of com­pa­ny they ought to eschew, not emulate.
Dur­ing the siege of Sara­je­vo, it was wide­ly believed that Serb snipers got a bonus if they killed a jour­nal­ist. How else to explain fir­ing at white, armoured vehi­cles, marked with “TV” in huge let­ters? The round that killed ABC pro­duc­er David Kaplan on Sarajevo’s “sniper alley” in 1992, entered the soft-skinned vehi­cle he was trav­el­ing in between the let­ters “T” and “V” taped on the side.
Since the start of the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine, Reporters With­out Bor­ders “has doc­u­ment­ed attacks direct­ly tar­get­ing jour­nal­ists wear­ing a “Press” arm­band, and has seen more and more of them killed or injured in the course of their work.”
Get­ting killed or wound­ed by artillery or rock­et fire is quite anoth­er mat­ter. We all know that shrap­nel is addressed “To Whom It May Con­cern”.  None of us expect the war to stop just because we’re in the postal (zip) code.
But an emp­ty trust fund should not be appraised for polit­i­cal profit.
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