Minnesota Congresswoman demands accountability for Nakba Day killings
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/minnesota-congresswoman-accountability
A month before an Israeli border police officer is set to go on trial in Israel for the killing of Palestinian teenager Nadeen Nawara, Minnesota Congressperson Rep. Betty McCollum has requested the State Department to investigate whether the killings of Nawara and a second teen, Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Abu Daher, both killed during a Nakba Day protest in the occupied West Bank in 2014, constitute a violation of the Leahy Law on aid to human rights violators.
McCollum’s forthright letter on the two killings now known as the Nakba Day killings, asked that a U.S. State Department official be present at the trial “to observe the conduct … to ensure appropriate standards of justice are achieved.” The Leahy Law prohibits the U. S. from providing military assistance “to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” The exception to this prohibition is if “the government of such country is taking effective steps to bring responsible members to justice.”
McCollum, a St.Paul Democrat, references the “brutal system of occupation that devalues and dehumanizes Palestinian children” and characterized Nawara’s death as appearing to be “a blatant example of unlawful killing.” She requested the U.S. impress upon Israeli officials that our government expects a transparent and credible trial; “The person(s) responsible for the murder of this Palestinian youth must be held accountable.”
The Israeli military and their colleagues in the Israeli government have operated in all forms of denial in the face of Palestinian and international outrage over the Nakba Day killings since the day they took place, May 15th, 2014. Although initial medical reports concluded the teens were killed by live fire, the Israeli military denied this, saying that military and border police could not be responsible since only non lethal rubber bullet ammunitions were used that day. When video emerged to confirm live fire, they spun the killings of Nawara and Daher to such an extraordinary extent as to suggest that Palestinians fired the shots, not Israeli soldiers, and claimed the video was “likely forged”.
I bolded that last part since there were a few on DU that suggested the same thing...shamelessly.
= new reply since forum marked as read
