Biden’s Decision To Have FBI Investigate IDF Leaves Israelis Feeling Stabbed in the Back

The outgoing prime minister — a liberal — sends a protest to Washington.

AP/Oren Ziv
Members of the Israeli Zaka Rescue and Recovery team and an Israeli soldier at the site of an attack, at the Ariel Industrial Zone, near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel, November 15, 2022. AP/Oren Ziv

Before going to sleep last night, Israelis learned that, as an opening salvo in Washington’s rift with Jerusalem, the FBI is seeking to prosecute Israel’s elite terrorism fighters. They awoke to learn that their enemies had committed a deadly terror attack, and planned at least one another. 

The news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is launching an investigation into the death of an Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh, was first broken by the outgoing defense minister, Benny Gantz. It was later confirmed at Washington, much to the chagrin of Israelis of all stripes. 

The timing, coming just after an Israeli election and America’s midterms, seemed overly political. Abu Akleh was killed on May 11 while covering a gun fight between an elite unit of the Israeli Defense Force and armed Palestinian groups near Jenin. In the six months since the incident, President Biden has been under pressure to put Israel on the docket over the incident. 

This morning at Ariel, a large West Bank Israeli city, a worker in a joint Arab-Israeli industrial zone went on a stabbing spree. Three people were killed, and others suffered injuries of various severity. The country of Georgia, meanwhile, reported that in cooperation with Israeli intelligence officials, the Tbilisi government prevented an Iranian-backed plot to assassinate an Israeli living in the country.  

The Jenin fight Abu Akleh covered last spring was happening when incidents such as today’s — deadly knifings, car-rammings, and shootings — were almost a daily occurrence in Israeli towns. The veteran reporter’s death, though, became a global cause celebre, condemned by politicians and editorial writers, and endlessly investigated by amateur forensics sleuths. 

The IDF launched an investigation, which after months concluded that Abu Akleh was “likely” killed by a stray Israeli bullet. It found no evidence of intent to kill her, and the IDF declined to prosecute any fighter in the anti-terror unit. Around the world, and especially in America, calls grew, however, to launch a criminal, “independent” investigation. 

The Biden administration was caught in a bind. At State Department briefings, reporters almost daily called for American prosecution of Israeli soldiers. Yet, clearly preferring an electoral win by the current Israeli government, the administration declined to investigate during the Israeli election campaign, fearing also damages to pro-Israel Democrats in last week’s midterm elections. 

Once the political season was over, the FBI made yesterday’s announcement. To many Israelis the notion that an American law enforcement agency that closely cooperates with the IDF and with Israeli counterparts in developing anti-terror methods would go after terrorism fighters seems like a stab in the back. 

As Israel swore in its newly elected Knesset today, the election winner, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in complex negotiations with potential partners over allotment of government portfolios. Yet, if anyone in Washington harbored hope that the FBI investigation would cripple the incoming premier and his right wing coalition partners, they missed by a mile. 

Abu Akleh was killed amid an operation ordered by the left-of-center outgoing prime minister, Yair Lapid. Addressing the Knesset today, Mr. Lapid was livid. “Israeli soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any foreign country as friendly as it might be,” he wrote later on his Twitter account, adding that he had protested to Washington “at the appropriate level.”

Mr. Gantz, the outgoing defense minister, made clear that Israel would refuse to cooperate with the FBI investigation. In contrast to the near-universal Israeli outrage, the left cheered — including Americans for Peace Now, an offshoot of a leftist Israeli movement that was voted out of the Knesset in the recent election. 

Abu Akleh’s family “deserves” an investigation and “the US government should know the clear and unequivocal truth about exactly what happened on that day,” APN’s CEO, Hadar Susskind, said, according to a press release from the organization. He called on Israel to cooperate with the investigation. 

Mr. Biden, meanwhile, clearly seems intent on putting the squeeze on America’s top Mideast ally. With the election season behind them, administration officials tell whoever wants to listen that Washington intends to boycott Jerusalem departments headed by two Israeli right wingers, Itamar Ben Gvir, who is said to demand the interior ministry, and Betzalel Smotrich, who wants to be defense or treasury minister. 

“Unconfirmed reports US took rare move,” a Washington Institute for Near East Policy senior fellow with close ties to the Biden administration, David Makovsky, wrote on Twitter, adding that administration officials have “urged” Mr. Netanyahu to avoid appointing a defense minister and police minister “who can’t work with DC.” While Israel will make its own decisions, he added, it should be aware that American-Israeli relations are “based on shared values and shared interests.”

Mr. Netanyahu already faces a difficult task of putting together a coalition of bickering politicians with ever-growing demands for top roles for which they may not be suited. Now the incoming premier has to also fight to stay on the good side of a Biden administration that seems predisposed to undermine him. 


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