The U.S. Government Doesn’t Seem to Care

“The money I pay in my taxes as a teacher probably funded the bullet they have run through me.”

PREM THAKKER, ZETEO, AUG 31, 2024

Three weeks ago, Israeli forces shot an American teacher from New Jersey. In the aftermath, Amado Sison told me that while Palestinians showed him “so much warmth and love,” he has heard little from his own government. This despite President Joe Biden declaring in February that “If you harm an American, we will respond.” 

Sison, a pseudonym he uses for his safety, was in the occupied West Bank to demonstrate against illegal Israeli settlement activity when he was shot. A State Department spokesperson told me they are aware of “reports involving a US citizen in the West Bank and are in contact with local authorities to gather more information,” adding: “we are greatly concerned when any US citizen is harmed overseas and work to provide consular assistance.” Neither the White House nor any of his home-state lawmakers have reached out. 

“My trust is in the movement and the people rather than politicians, because we see time and time again what they vote for. But at the same time, as an international volunteer that gets hurt by an ‘allied army,’ I would like for some kind of admission that they condemn it or something, even though nothing else happens,” Sison told me. “The money I pay in my taxes as a teacher probably funded the bullet they have run through me,” he said.

New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Robert Menendez (who resigned this month), and Gov. Phil Murphy did not respond to my requests for comment. The Kamala Harris campaign and the White House also did not respond to requests for comment.

Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department last fall in protest of US policy toward Israel’s war on Gaza, told me that such silence from the US would be “highly abnormal” if it was in response to a shooting of an American from any other country’s security forces. 

“In the case of Israel, we are of course still waiting for a condemnation 2 years after the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, but all we get from the podium is a referral to, and a faith in, Israel’s ‘ongoing investigation,’” said Paul, who is now a senior advisor for Democracy for the Arab World Now. “I don’t think there’s a great mystery here. Just as it is harder in this country to criticize Israel than to criticize America, it is harder for this government to criticize Israel than to stand up for the life of an American.”

Sison was shot near the northern West Bank village of Beita, where Israeli settlers have attempted, for more than 10 years, to seize Palestinian land. He was there as part of the activist group Faz3a’s international campaign to provide a protective presence for Palestinians. 

“If Israeli soldiers are willing to shoot a non-violent unarmed American citizen from behind, just imagine the level of violence they direct at Palestinians when no one is there to document the settler and IDF’s violence,” Sison said in a statement from his hospital bed after the shooting. “That’s why protective presence is so important. This incident will not deter us from supporting Palestinians and standing up against Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian towns.”

Palestinians have been the victims of settler attacks for decades, but the violence by settlers and Israeli forces has increased exponentially since the war on Gaza began 10 months ago. 

In their statement to me, the State Department also reiterated their “advice” to US citizens to “reconsider travel to the West Bank” amid “an increase in extremist violence and military activity.” Such language confounded Sison. “The army was the one that’s showcasing extremist violence in the moment — and that we see every day.”

Israeli forces have killed at least 623 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.

“Walk away, I’ll drop you.”

On Aug. 9, Sison joined around 70 other demonstrators near Beita. Israeli soldiers responded to the protest with tear gas and live rounds, sending the demonstrators running through olive groves. After initially seeking safety behind a wall, and then inside a home, Sison and other observers joined Palestinians who had gone near an Israeli military watchtower. The shooting began again, forcing the group to retreat once more. 

“And while we were running, we heard a loud shot…. I didn’t know if it was the army that was running after us — or some people have said that it was a sniper — but we were running through the olive groves, and it felt like a tear gas canister or blunt object hit me. I was still running because of the adrenaline, and I didn’t want to get shot,” Sison told me. 

But Sison was shot, suffering a large exit wound that required surgery to reattach muscles in his leg. The Israeli military said at the time that soldiers “used riot dispersal means and fired live rounds in the air to disperse” a “gathering,” and that they received a report “regarding a foreign national who was accidentally injured by the riot dispersal means and was evacuated to the hospital.”

Demonstrators said the ambulance carrying Sison was stopped twice at Israeli checkpoints on the way to the hospital, delaying his ability to receive care.

Sison told me about meeting a child at the hospital who was shot in the legs by Israeli forces. His family, while thankful their child was still alive, said the wound was nothing compared to what people in Gaza were facing. The comparison came in relation to the Israeli attack on a school and mosque as people prayed, which killed some 100 people, aided by US-made weapons. 

As the highest echelons of the US government have remained mum on the shooting, similar behavior has continued unabated. Footage from Faz3a from Aug. 18 shows Israeli soldiers pointing their weapons at other American citizens who had been providing protective presence against settlers.

“You have ten seconds to walk away,” one soldier threatens.

“Walk away, I’ll drop you,” a soldier barks in another video.

In another video, a group of soldiers beckon demonstrators to move. Less than 10 seconds later, as demonstrators suggest they are moving, a soldier points his gun at them anyways. 

“Why are you aiming over here, there’s kids, please don’t do that,” a demonstrator says in the video.

Government — For the People?

While at the Democratic National Convention last week, I asked several elected officials about the shooting of Sison.

While Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin said he didn’t want to speak to the specific situation since he hadn’t heard about it, he shared a broader comment. “The violence in the West Bank is appalling to me and needs to stop. And you know, we should be doing everything in our power to try to restrain the spread of right-wing settler violence throughout the West Bank. It’s a lawless situation.”

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton responded more broadly: “Look, I’ve been very clear about my thoughts on this war. I think it’s critical that Israel wins, but I don’t think the tactics they’re employing on the ground are effective at winning this fight against Hamas, and we need them to win, to ensure peace. That’s why I’ve been such a strong advocate for learning the lessons that we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan about how to effectively fight a counter insurgency, that includes having very strict rules of engagement and limiting civilian casualties.”

“I wasn’t aware of that, so I can’t [comment],” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said.

For his part, Sison echoed concerns expressed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress and denigrated American pro-Palestine and anti-war protesters. “Those are your constituents! Those are your residents! Those are the people we serve!… We allowed a leader of a foreign country to attack fellow Americans,” said Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, at the time.

“I have hope that America can do better. I have seen it in the streets. I’ve seen it in my communities that I’ve organized with. But not through our government officials. They have not shown that they believe that our country can be better than this,” Sison said. 

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