The US has only just realised that Israel cannot be trusted to investigate itself

The following article is a comment piece from the International Solidarity Movement

Ten days after US citizen Ayşenur Eygi, a human rights activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier while witnessing a protest in the West Bank, the US State Department finally suggested that trusting Israel to investigate itself may not produce accurate results.

This conclusion may not have required ten full days of deliberation had the US government heeded what Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights groups have been proclaiming loudly and clearly for years: the Israeli military cannot be trusted to investigate itself.

Ayşenur Eygi’s murder by Israel is hardly isolated

This year alone, reports from NPR and the Associated Press (AP) have shown that Israeli military investigations are inadequate.

NPR detailed how questions of misconduct are met with confidential “operational inquiries” wherein no evidence is collected and soldiers can coordinate their testimony, while the AP detailed case-by-case the lack of transparency, inconclusiveness, and rare admissions of guilt in Israel’s investigations of military misconduct.

Relating how ISM activist Rachel Corrie’s death at the hands of an Israeli bulldozer still hasn’t been subject to a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation, Rachel’s parents Cindy and Craig Corrie summed it up best: “Israel does not do investigations; they do cover-ups“.

Without regard to these serious liabilities, the US State Department continues to allow Israel to manage the investigation, promising other action “if those results aren’t satisfactory.”

Meanwhile, Ayşenur Eygi’s family has been calling for an independent investigation since the day Eygi was murdered, along with the ISM and the parents of US citizen Rachel Corrie, who was also killed by the Israeli military.

In the two days since the State Department’s criticisms of Israel’s investigation, there has been no change in the status quo and the US continues to send weapons to Israel to be used in Gaza and in the West Bank against Palestinians.

It is crucial to understand Ayşenur Eygi’s murder in the context of Israel’s oppressive colonial regime.

An oppressive colonial regime

In the West Bank this year, in a dramatic escalation, the Israeli military has wrought mass destruction and displaced many refugees in the camps, destroyed infrastructure with the goal of displacing all the residents of the camps, killed 17 Palestinians on the same hill where Ayşenur Eygi was shot dead, and murdered 13-year-old Bana Laboum in her own home on the same day.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers have perpetrated coordinated assaults on villagers and their property with the allowance and even assistance of the military.

By counting on the Israeli military to continue an investigation that they cannot be trusted to carry out impartially and truthfully, the US remains complicit in Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity.

Featured image via ISM