Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has added to a growing chorus of voices in Congress demanding that the Biden administration open its own investigation into Israel’s killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, saying that U.S. officials have ignored Israel’s pattern of killing Americans — and Palestinians — with impunity for too long.
In a long statement released Friday, Sanders said that the Biden administration is on the wrong path if it truly wishes for “full accountability” for Eygi’s killing in the occupied West Bank, as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have called for. He called on the Department of Justice and the FBI to open their own independent investigations into the attack and the many others in which Israel has killed American citizens.
“Let’s be clear: there will be no accountability if the United States defers to the extremist Israeli government to investigate its own actions,” Sanders said.
The senator directly refuted Biden and Harris’s false claims that Eygi’s killing was an accident, and pointed out numerous incidents in the past two years in which Israeli forces have killed Americans with “no accountability” for their deaths.
Indeed, as many advocates for Palestinian rights have pointed out in recent days, Israeli forces have killed at least five Americans in the occupied West Bank since Biden took office, including 17-year-olds Tawfiq Ajaq and Mohammad Khdour; Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh; retiree Omar Assad; and now, Eygi. Sanders brought up Israel’s targeting of American journalist Dylan Collins, who was shot at by Israeli tanks while reporting in Lebanon in October.
Sanders adds that the U.S. has fueled Israel’s escalation of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, in which Israeli forces and settlers have killed nearly 700 Palestinians since October, including 150 children. The senator has previously called for the U.S. to stop its weapons transfers to Israel as it wages its genocide in Gaza.
“The lack of credible investigations into these incidents, let alone consequences, speaks for itself. The Israeli government’s explanations are routinely disproved by investigative journalists,” said Sanders.
“By continuing to credulously accept the explanations of an extremist Israeli government whose stated goal is to annex the West Bank and push Palestinians off their land, the United States makes a mockery of its values and abdicates its responsibility to investigate and respond to attacks on its citizens,” the senator said.
Also on Friday, a group of 21 House Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressing him to clarify what actions the administration is planning to take to hold Israel accountable for Eygi’s death, as well as for Israel’s increased violence in the occupied West Bank. The letter asks for a classified briefing on the administration’s planned actions this month, and notes that it has thus far “failed to stem the violence and illegal settlement expansions happening in the West Bank.”
The letter effort was led by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Illinois) and was signed by pro-Palestine Democrats like Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri). It comes after two Washington Democrats, Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Patty Murray, called on Blinken to conduct an independent investigation of Eygi’s killing last week.
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