ICHEOKU says the Al Jazeera veteran reporter was not killed because she is a Palestine or because she is a female journalist. No, she was killed for the same reason journalists are killed all over the world, be it in Nigeria, Cyprus, Malta, Mexico, Ukraine, Russia or in the case of Wikileaks Julian Assange who is desperately wanted by the American government for a elimination, albeit technically, through a long prison sentence. Shireen Abu Akleh was killed to silence her, period. She was a threat to what is, an establishment increasingly feeling threatened and vulnerable to her reportage and they marked her for elimination. Time and opportunity perfectly intersected and she was summarily eliminated, case closed.
The cardinal rule of life is to endeavor to stay alive no matter what because when one is dead it is over. Dead people do not bite nor threaten anyone, the reason adversaries are always quick to eliminate their foes in order to solve their problem of insecurity. Shireen Abu Akleh was speaking truth to power and the power were feeling discontent with her stories about the unending struggle, repression and near complete paralysis and asphyxiation of life in Palestine. The world was listening and paying attention to her stories and was beginning to seek the most effective solution a problem, which many have described as and likened to the then South African apartheid which eventually tumbled down.
So, naturally, any seriously minded government of Israel will not stand hands akimbo and watch as an "ordinary" journalist, whose weapon of war were merely her voice and camera which were wreaking havoc to the structural fabric of what is. A decision was reached that a calculated risk of her elimination will be better than to continue suffering the hemorrhage which her reportage is causing to Israel's government's reputation and image. She is now dead and buried and gone and her voice permanently silenced forever and no more a threat to what is.
The message has been effectively delivered, communicated to all other journalists who might be thinking about following in her footsteps that a similar fate awaits them should they dare. Now, they would be constantly shadowed by the fate which befell her and will most likely cautiously hedge their reportage accordingly in order to avoid meeting the same fate. It is the hazard of the profession, especially when one wants to live true to the tenets of the profession by treading where angels fear to walk. Not even her United States citizenship could protect her from harm for her sin of being a journalist speaking truth to power.
In Mexico over one hundred journalists have been killed in the recent past. In Nigeria, journalist Dele Giwa was blown up with a parcel bomb. In Cyprus a female journalist was blown up in a car bomb and in Russia, journalists are eliminated in various ways. In Malta journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up in her car. In Kiev a journalist Pavei Sheremet was blown up in his car. In Jenini Shireen Abu Akleh was eliminated through a well placed sniper's bullet to the forehead, admitted, the story making rounds was that a Palestine's militant bullet killed her and that she died in a crossfire shootout. But whether the fatal bullet came from one side or the other, the fundamental is that she has been silenced and cannot pose any threat anymore, mission accomplished.
ICHEOKU says it was laughable hearing Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas' statement that he will drag the Israeli government to the World Court in The Hague for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. Except that it is a pep talk to a grieving nation of Palestine and the bereaved family of the slain journalist in particular, what does the Palestine leader expect would be the outcome of such a wasteful exercise. Does the Palestine president expect Israel which does not even care about the United Nations and their resolutions to now tremble because of a threat to drag them to the World Court.
The Israel/Palestine conflict will outlive the world as it is intractable and unresolvable. It has been around for thousands of years and it is not going to simply disappear now. The only meaningful opportunity for a final resolution of the conflict came following the Oslo Accord in 1993 when former President Bill Clinton successfully brokered a deal between then Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzahk Rabin but which was eventually reneged on. The Israel leader was later assassinated by an Israeli extremist as a result and Arafat was also allegedly assassinated through radioactive poisoning.
A two States solution is not agreeable to Israel which also rejects a one State solution that will see Palestine fully integrated into Israel. While the fear of Israel of becoming a minority in a fully integrated Palestine Israel is obvious and meritorious, Israel's also rejection of a two States is somewhat irrational as Israel, by necessary implication of rejecting the two proffered solutions, apparently does not want to see the problem solved. The fact of the matter is that the two nations are here to stay as none of them can completely eliminate the other or deprive each other the right to co-exist alongside.
The only decision available to both of them is to decide how they will continue to live, either peacefully or in a constant state of apprehension, restiveness and periodic skirmishes and wars. The Bible placed both of them in that region and none of them is going anywhere soon or yielding the place for the other. Israel is having their way currently because of their military superiority and Washington DC support. But do Israelis want to live their lives forever like this because as for the Palestines, they have resolved to dig in and have somewhat grown used to their suffering deprivation. They have practically lost everything and have nothing more to lose but their Palestine identity.
Only Washington DC could pressure Israel into a concession that would yield a final resolution but the Jewish lobby is too powerful and easily strong-arms any politician who dares to assert the need for reaching a final resolution; and the voice of the SQUAD and particularly, member, radical Palestine Michigan Congresswoman Rashib Tahlaib is rather too shrill to move anything. Anyway may the soul of slain Al Jazeera journalist and reporter extraordinaire Shireen Abu Akleh now rest. She is probably at peace now that her torture, seeing the suffering of her Palestine people, is finally over for her. It is sad.
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