Democratic politicians are pushing a blood libel, claiming that Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by the IDF and demanding the US government act.

On Thursday, the relatives of Shireen Abu Akleh held a press conference along with several anti-Israel members of Congress. 

The first politician to speak was Representative Andre Carson of Indiana.

He said, “I believe that this was an attack on the Fourth Estate, the Free Press, which is vitally important to our society. You know we need answers to hold the perpetrators fully accountable. From day one, the Israeli Government has denied Shireen’s murder. There is no reason for them to be conducting an investigation. You may not like that. But that’s the truth. It makes it more important for our government to conduct our own investigation.”

“Shireen needs justice. Every American killed abroad is entitled to our protection. Every human killed, American or not, deserves justice, Palestinians included. Black folks included. “

Rashida Tlaib (MICH-D) also blamed Israel.

“When Americans are killed abroad, it is more or less standard procedure for our government to open an investigation. But when the murders wear Israeli uniforms, there’s complete silence. “

It should be noted that no independent forensic evidence-based investigation has arrived at any conclusion. 

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “The Abu Akleh family deserves accountability. CNN, NYT, etc., found Shireen was shot by an Israeli sniper while wearing a press vest. Yet, the U.S. has done nothing. We didn’t even conduct a thorough investigation into this murder of an American reporter. President Biden must act.” 

The reports cited by AOC were criticized for being seriously flawed and biased. CAMERA, a media watchdog site, described CNN’s report as a “farce,” ignoring most of the relevant facts and relying on “biased eyewitness accounts.” CAMERA was even more critical of the LA Times report, which claimed the Israeli government was involved.

An absurd report by The Daily Star compared “Palestine” to Ukraine, which has been brutally invaded by Russia.

Similar reports by the Associated Press, Agence France Presse, and The Guardian were all retracted and amended.

AOC’s claim that a thorough investigation has not been carried out is accurate but deceptive. The Palestinian Authority refused to participate in any investigation by foreign bodies. The PA refused to allow any inspection of the bullet (necessary for any forensic analysis of the incident), and when they finally did, leading physicist and ballistic expert Nahum Shahaf concluded that the bullet had been intentionally disfigured.

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar also tweeted: “We won’t stop fighting for justice and accountability for the family of Shireen Abu Akleh.”

Similarly, Illinois Congresswoman Marie Newman tweeted: “I was honored to stand with the family of Shireen Abu Akleh and echo their demands for #JusticeforShireen. 

“I am outraged that there still has not been an independent, US-led investigation of her death. I joined my colleagues to demand immediate action.” 

A group of Senate Democrats presented legislation last week that called for State Department funding to Israel to be blocked if an investigation finds that Israeli forces committed human rights violations or war crimes related to the killing of 

The push by Democratic lawmakers was echoed by the White House. In a phone call on Saturday, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken pressed Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to publish the final conclusions of the Israeli military operational investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh as soon as possible. Gantz assured Blinken that the investigation’s final results will be published “within a few weeks,” adding that the army had only announced the “preliminary investigation” results which concluded that “it was not possible” to determine who shot Abu Akleh.

After carrying out their own investigation, the Biden administration said that the results were “inconclusive,” adding the unsubstantiated claim that “Abu Akleh was probably killed by unintentional Israeli fire.”

Either intentionally or not, Biden himself was used as a figurehead to condemn Israel for the killing of Abu Akleh. When the US president met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas on July 15, the meeting took place before a large photograph of the late journalist, in front of journalists wearing Abu Akleh t-shirts and in the presence of her family. He pledged “to stand up for media freedom everywhere in the world,” implying that Israel had denied that freedom. 

It is disturbing to note that Abu Akleh’s death came in the wake of a wave of Palestinian terrorism in which 19 Israelis were murdered. Abu Akleh was killed during an IDF incursion intended to root out the terrorist network in Jenin. The Palestinian terrorists who engaged the IDF were illegally armed with automatic weapons. Disturbingly, the Democratic lawmakers never commented on those murders.