Pat Taub
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL
“If you harm an American, we will respond.” – President Joe Biden, February 2024
The young woman had large brown eyes and a wide smile. She had a cause: solidarity with Palestine. But unlike the young Palestinian women murdered by Israel over the last 11 months, there was something different about her.
A recent photo of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was an American. A dual national of the U.S. and Turkey, she was raised since infancy in Seattle, with a degree from the University of Washington. A volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Aysenur was involved in the Faz3a movement, standing up for the rights of Palestinian farmers attacked by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
During a protest against illegal Israeli settlements in Beita, Nablus, Israeli military snipers opened fire on the protesters. One shot Aysenur in the head. She bled out next to an olive tree, dead upon arrival at Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus.
The lifeless body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot in the head with a bullet by Israeli forces, is taken to Rafidia State Hospital in Nablus, West Bank, on Sept. 6, 2024 (Common Dreams)
After 11 months of being haunted by images of Palestinian women – screaming, trying to run with their children in their arms, covered in concrete dust, pale and rigid in death – I now cannot get the image of Aysenur’s face out of my head. I have seen no photos of her punctured and bleeding skull, and I hope I never do. I see her smiling, full of energy and charm, rosy-cheeked, her dimpled chin slightly lifted.
All extinguished in a moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Iown-_LYk&t=211s
Aysenur is not the first young American woman to be cut down while trying to stop the Israeli state from attacking Palestinians. Rachel Corrie, also from the Pacific Northwest, was crushed by a bulldozer as she tried to stop the destruction of a Palestinian home in Rafah, Gaza. Her courage and death over 21 years ago are still commemorated by Palestinians.
Aysenur is not more important than any of the over 40,000 Palestinians murdered by Israel. But she is also no less important and worthy of our grief. It was a crime, carried out with impunity.
The State Department’s website has no official statement about the death of Aysenur, but in response to a Washington Post reporter’s question, Secretary of State Blinken said, “… let’s find out exactly what happened, and we will draw the necessary conclusions, consequences from that.”
This “wait and see [what the Israelis tell us]” is a far cry from Biden’s call to “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes” following the death of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a US-Israeli citizen who fought in the Israeli military.
Col. Ann Wright, who served 29 years in the Army and 16 years as a diplomat called out Blinken:
“Blinken doesn’t need time to ‘gather the facts.’ The facts are already known to the Israeli military, the U.S. military, and the U.S. government. The Israeli military has the records of what unit was assigned to Beita every day that a Palestinian was murdered. They have the names of every person in the unit, and they know which persons fired tear gas and which persons fired live ammunition.”
Ann Wright speaking on behalf of Palestinian rights.
Mirroring Wright, political commentator Briahna Joy Gray posted to X: “Biden/Harris Biden/Harris will let Americans be slaughtered with impunity as long as it’s an Israeli bullet.” https://x.com/briebriejoy/status/1832057255812080027
Briahna Joy Gray
By supporting the Israeli state with money, weapons, and diplomatic cover, the Biden Administration is violating its own laws: the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Control Export Act, the US War Crimes Act, the Leahy Law, and the Genocide Prevention Implementation Act. The conclusion I and many others draw: this lawlessness must end.
Let’s stand on the side of humanity, and the rule of law. We all can take action to help stop this carnage, which threatens to become a wider war. Here’s a list: https://uscpr.org/take-action/
Palestinians march to honor American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, September 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Together, let’s join the family of Ayşenur Eygi in demanding the Biden administration order an immediate independent investigation into Ayşenur’s murder and stop letting Israeli soldiers murder Americans with impunity. Add your name now >>
