Aviva Okeson-Haberman was only 24 years old when her life was cut short. She was highly regarded for her work as a journalist on the public radio network NPR. On April 23, 2021, a fatal bullet penetrated the window of her Kansas City apartment killing her on the spot. The murdered woman's neighbor said that she knows who the killer is.
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"My ex-boyfriend swore to murder me. I testified about it to the police ahead of time. I am convinced he thought it was me," she told the New York Post.
According to this testimony, Okeson-Haberman was not killed by a stray bullet, as the Kansas police claimed, but by mistaken identity. Nevertheless, 18 months after the killing of the highly-skilled journalist, no one has been prosecuted. No country in the world, not even Israel, has demanded accountability from the American government for not bringing those who killed the Jewish journalist to justice.
But what Jerusalem is avoiding, Washington has been doing recently even more vigorously, and not with force nor harsh condemnations, but with a soft and refined language, the Biden administration is pushing Israel into more and more uncomfortable corners.
Since the collapse of the government two months ago, the American bear hug has only gotten stronger. Killing us softly, as the song goes, is the new US policy.
The case of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is the first link. Since she was killed in May 2022, while standing next to terrorists in Jenin during the exchange of fire, the US administration has not seized to pressure Israel to "accept responsibility."
The demand has been brought up in every meeting between US and Israeli officials and was deliberately made public in messages to the media. The repeated demands, only from Israel, and not from the Palestinian Authority, for "accepting responsibility" has been an ongoing campaign. For this reason alone the IDF conducted a thorough investigation into the incident, above and beyond any similar case in the past. The outcome is not good for Israel.
The IDF first claimed that it was most likely a Palestinian gunman who killed the journalist, and has now changed its narrative. The latest probe would not have been conducted had the Biden administration and its associates not pressured Israel claiming it was an IDF soldier who most likely fired the fatal bullet by accident. In other words, US pressure led to Israel shooting itself in the foot.
So you say, "But we need to know the truth." So, thousands of people, including journalists, are killed every year in the US without the identity of the killers ever being discovered. The blood of Shireen Abu Akleh is not redder than that of Aviva Okeson-Haberman, and if so why does the US administration demand from Israel what it does not uphold itself?
The final word in the Abu Akleh affair has not yet been said. After Israel was forced to bear responsibility, the US now wants to interfere with IDF rules of engagement.
The US will "continue to press our Israeli partners to closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement and consider additional steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, protect journalists and prevent similar tragedies in the future," US State Department Deputy Spokesman Vedant Patel said.
While this affair has not yet concluded, Israel Hayom has learned that Washington intends to "keep an eye" on the Netzah Yehuda Battalion and Arabs and Jews are being questioned about its activities. According to Haaretz, the US plans to give Israel advice on how the batallion should be commanded. And this is not the only "recommendation" they have given. On Sunday night, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides made an irregular announcement in which he detailed that he "expects Israel to make the necessary adjustments" for the entry of foreign citizens into the Palestinian Authority's territories in Judea and Samaria. This is a new experimental procedure, crammed with details and nuances, which was written in recent months by the Civil Administration.
Nides, a supporter of Israel, believes that this procedure discriminates against Americans. After talks behind closed doors were fully exhausted, and since he was not satisfied with the result, he also made public demands to the government, which never happened before. The US is not backing down from pressuring Israel to strengthen the crumbling PA and its thriving economy (yes, it is thriving, and those who doubt this, are welcome to tour the area). These statements have also been heard from President Joe Biden and others, without realizing that no amount of money will prompt the corrupt PA officials to start fighting terrorism.
So the Americans continue to spin the web quietly and consistently. Israel headed by Lapid began to stand on its own two feet at the end of the week.
"No one will dictate our rules of engagement to us when we are the ones fighting for our lives," Lapid said at a graduation ceremony of Navy officers at the Haifa naval base. Gantz too made similar remarks.
But aside from these statements, Lapid's policy towards the US administration is to "keep going without breaking the rules."
He canceled the planned briefing by the Mossad chief David Barnea at the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington. The discussion intended to deal with the inherent dangers of the nuclear agreement. Lapid did not want to take any steps that might be interpreted as provoking the administration. So instead of talking to the entire committee, Barnea had to settle for "preaching to the converted," five senators who happened to be in Israel during the last few days and anyway oppose the agreement. Their associates, who are considering supporting the pact and are the ones who have to hear about its dangers, will no longer be around to hear what the Israeli official has to say.
The same goes for the American investigation against the Israeli cyber company NSO and its blacklisting. Following the report last week in Israel about the affair, a source with the highest level connections in Israel told Israel Hayom that "everyone knows that the US is not willing to allow anyone better than itself to flourish. NSO's technology is ten steps ahead of its own, so they are stopping it. That's the story and everyone knows it, but people don't want to fight with America. We depend on it."
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Accepting the Israeli ruling also extends to other areas. Gantz and Lapid want to strengthen the PA, so the US pressure in this regard is a break-in into an open door. In terms of Iran, Lapid claims that delaying the progress of the nuclear agreement – which Bennett led and continues to promote – is more effective than Netanyahu's confrontation with the Obama administration in 2015.
"The correct policy is the one we have led over the past year ... I say this cautiously but in the meantime, it is working," Lapid said in a cabinet meeting.
It is true that, at the moment, there is no agreement and Lapid has every reason to be pleased. Even so, "in the meantime" is not a working plan and the agreement is stuck, mainly because of Iranian refusal.
While Lapid is still steering situations with the US, the one who is keeping his head upright is former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He too met with the abovementioned five senators. While two of them, Robert Menendez and Lindsey Graham, explained the importance of strengthening Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and establishing a Palestinian state, Netanyahu firmly detailed his philosophies "We will not overthrow the PA, but we will also not strengthen it, because it is not part of the solution, but part of the problem. Security must remain in Israel's hands at all costs, and it doesn't matter how much pressure is put on us,."
We can say many things about Netanyahu, but when it comes to international relations, he knows that not being the nice guy, but being strong, is the name of the game.
