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Israel, Biden, and the FBI’s Shireen Abu Akleh Investigation w/ Mitchell Plitnick
Episode 709

Israel, Biden, and the FBI’s Shireen Abu Akleh Investigation w/ Mitchell Plitnick

Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

December 1, 20221h 10m

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Show Notes

On this edition of Parallax Views, ReThinking Foreign Policy's Mitchell Plitnick returns to the program to discuss the FBI's probe into the death of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as well as his thoughts on the Biden administration's policy towards Israel, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) launching of a super PAC and entrance into direct campaign spending, and the recent Israeli elections that have emboldened Israel's far-right.

Among the topics discussed in this conversation

- The death of Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering as Israeli raid of a Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank; Abu Akleh was wearing full body armor when she was fatally shot; Israel's internal army investigation of Abu Akleh's death; Abu Akleh worked for Al Jazeera and her death reverberated throughout the Arab world

- The FBI's investigation into Abu Akleh's death and the Biden White house administration's response to it; the Israeli objection to the FBI investigation

- The investigation will go nowhere without Israeli cooperation

- Comparing/contrasting the death of activist Rachel Corrie, ran over by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, to the death of Shireen Abu Akleh

- What approach should the U.S. foreign policy approach be when it comes to Israel?

- Military aid and arms sales to Israel

- The rise of the Israeli far-right; the Israeli elections; Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party; the Religious Zionism coalition; Bezaleel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir; Smotrich's homophobia and anti-LGBTQ stances; how did the rise of Israel's far-right happen?

- Human rights and foreign policy

- Noam, the far-right Orthodox Jewish political party in Israel that is part of the Religious Zionism coalition

- Smotrich and Israel's Finance Ministry; Ben-Gvir and the Ministry of National Security ; policing in Israel; the strong right-wing majority in the Knesset

- Combating antisemitism while also being critical of Israeli policies as a nation-state

- U.S. Christian Nationalist, the antisemitic right, and the Israeli far-right

- And much, much more!