The UN and the Americans New York Times, Washington Post and CNN, among others, went after and concluded that the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh (below, right), of Al Jazeera, was killed by an Israeli soldier.
But the US State Department issued a short statement and, “in remarkably vague language”, according to Columbia Journalism Review, at Columbia University, said that “there is no reason to think it was intentional” and that it would not charge a criminal investigation.
Abu Akleh’s family released a letter, highlighted by Al Jazeera, demanding that Joe Biden deny the wording of the statement and expressing “our pain, outrage and sense of betrayal at his government’s abject response.”
Biden then traveled to Israel with the secretary of state and refused to meet with the family. It was only to quote the journalist in the passage she made through the Palestinian territories: “The USA also suffered loss. She was an American citizen. I hope her legacy inspires more young people”.
The visit to Saudi Arabia was also preceded by a demonstration by the family of Jamal Khashoggi (above, with Abu Akleh, gathered on social media, via MediaTalks), killed by the Saudi government. More precisely, from Hatice Cengiz, who was engaged to Khashoggi, addressed to Biden:
“You will soon visit Saudi Arabia, where you will dishonor yourself and Jamal by meeting MBS. If you have to put oil above principle, can you at least ask where Jamal’s body is? Doesn’t he deserve a burial?”
Biden met this Friday (15) with MBS, as the Saudi dictator is called, and left talking to journalists who quoted Khashoggi in the conversation: “I indicated [indicated] who thought he was” responsible for the death.
In the CJR’s spotlight, even before Biden’s statements about Abu Akleh and Khashoggi, are “empty words”, misleading.
KNEE
A day after publishing an article signed by Biden, justifying the trip, the publisher of the Washington Post, a newspaper in which Khashoggi was a columnist, attacked the American president.
Fred Ryan writes that he had promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for electoral reasons, in the campaign, and visits the country also for electoral reasons, to try to lower gasoline. That’s why he went to MBS “on his knees”.
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NOW ARE YOU GOING?
The Wall Street Journal reported a week ago that Google had taken a proposal to the Justice Department to try to contain a lawsuit against the group, but without selling companies, as the body wanted.
And Bloomberg is now reporting (above) that the department is “preparing to reject” the proposal, “paving the way for an antitrust lawsuit over Google’s dominance in the advertising market.”
