Vanguard News Desk Editor
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Dept. of Justice lawyers, according to the wire service Zeteo Monday, have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland in a letter to “investigate [obtained exclusively by Zeteo, the letter suggests, said the wire service] increasing internal discontent over the DOJ’s silence as the Israeli government, supported by US citizens and organizations, allegedly violates US and international laws.”
The lawyers, Zeteo wrote, said the lack of action of DOJ to Israeli killings of Americans stands in contrast to the department’s willingness to announce charges against Hamas leaders over the Oct. 7 attack, noting, “It also comes as the Israeli government responds to US requests to heed US and international laws by escalating its violation of them.”
“We honor the Department’s commitment to investigating and prosecuting crimes regardless of the perpetrator’s race or nationality and regardless of political considerations. We know you do too, Attorney General Garland,” the letter’s authors write, said Zeteo.
And, in an NPR story last week, host Ryan Lucas also noted, “Last November, just weeks after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland made clear that the Justice Department was taking action in response to the more than 40 Americans who were killed or taken hostage in the assault.”
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said he also has doubts, telling Lucas of the killing of a Palestinian-American journalist in 2022, shot and killed while covering an Israel military raid in the West Bank, even though wearing a blue vest with press written on it
Lucas reported Israel initially claimed Palestinian militants could have killed the newsperson, but admitted later an Israeli soldier likely did it but no one was being punished, and “Van Hollen says there was never an independent investigation into Abu Akleh’s death, nor was there any accountability.”
Zeteo said the DOJ attorneys’ letter cited a speech Garland delivered to the department last month.
In the speech, Garland discussed, said the letter writers, “the importance of the ‘fair and impartial application of our laws’” (and) “quoted the Principles of Federal Prosecution and reminded us that, as attorneys for the government, we should not be influenced by…a person’s background, our feelings concerning the victim, and the effect of a charging decision on our professional and personal circumstances.
“You told us that ‘we must treat like cases alike,’ … And finally, you insisted that, guided by these norms, ‘we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics.’”
Zeteo, in its story, said the attorneys’ letter suggested the DOJ could investigate the “killing of US citizens by Israeli citizens and soldiers in recent years…Israel’s illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, assisted by US citizens and organizations.”
The letter also allegedly noted DOJ could probe “[e]vidence that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and engaged in torture – including killing thousands of civilians, forcibly displacement and starvation, unlawful confinement, torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, and mass destruction of civilian property and infrastructure.”
Zeteo, wrote the DOJ, in 2022 launched an investigation into “Israeli forces’ killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh. Any results of the probe, however, remain to be seen nearly two years later, noted Brian Finucane, senior adviser of the International Crisis Group think-tank.
“We don’t know to what extent the FBI has been tasked, more broadly, to look into the IDF’s killing of Americans in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon – or to examine the conduct of Israeli officials who visit the United States,” said Finucane, who Zeteo claims previously worked for the State Department, advising the US government on legal and policy issues.
In Monday’s letter, the DOJ attorneys added, Zeteo said, DOJ
Lucas, in the NPR story, reported, “The Biden administration has urged Israel to conduct credible, transparent investigations into the Americans’ deaths. Israel’s military and Shin Bet security agency did not offer comment after multiple requests from NPR about the status of the investigations. But Israel has previously said it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians.
“Israeli rights groups, though, say complaints rarely lead anywhere, and soldiers are rarely prosecuted. The families of the slain Americans say they are deeply skeptical that any Israeli investigation will deliver justice, in large part because of the country’s track record in these sorts of cases.”
Van Hollen, in that NPR interview, added, “The United States and Israel are close partners. Israel is the largest beneficiary of U.S. taxpayer assistance in the world. And the United States government should expect and press for full transparency in the killings of American citizens (including) the Justice Department investigating and prosecuting those cases. But that standard should apply for Americans killed by Israelis as well.”
