The Perfect Context for Murder
The killing of a Palestinian American teenager in the West Bank forces the U.S. to respond
I’d just sat down to write my next post about the murder of a teenager in the West Bank when a Palestinian friend texted me that hours earlier, a teenager was murdered in the West Bank.
On Friday, some unclear combination of Israeli soldiers and settlers gunned down 17-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq while he and his friend were driving to an olive grove outside Ramallah. He happened to be a Palestinian American, so the U.S. was forced to respond.1
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Here’s the New York Times:
John F. Kirby, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said in a State Department briefing on Friday that the United States had extended its condolences to relatives of the American who was killed, without directly naming the person, and was “working to understand the circumstances of the incident.”
“We’re seriously concerned about these reports,” Mr. Kirby said. “The information is scant at this time. We don’t have perfect context about exactly what happened here.”
But, he added, “We’re going to be in constant touch with counterparts in the region to get more information.”
I read the whole article several times and did some additional internet research to find out what happened to Mr. Kirby after the briefing—surely he melted into a puddle of hot tar or was struck down by a thunderbolt from God or at least drove his thick skull through the window of his White House office? But of course, Mr. Kirby has been one of Israel’s most obedient doormats for months now, and all those jackboots stepping on his head must have snuffed out anything left of his conscience.
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Having said all that, I want to applaud him for his excellent distillation of the “perfect context” (to use his phrase) for how Israel has been able to get away with murder every day since long before October 7th:
By failing to name the victim—Tawfiq Ajaq—Kirby sticks to the Israeli/American policy of dehumanizing the Palestinian people. Somebody with a name must also have a mother and father (yes and yes), perhaps a brother or sister (both), friends (many), a favorite sport (basketball), dreams (to go to business school and help his family’s stores), and what have you. But an anonymous victim of an “incident” has none of these things—it is but an abstraction that turns to vapor the moment Kirby leaves the podium.
Kirby claims they are “working to understand the circumstances of the incident,” so I’d like to take this opportunity to remind him of a few things he already knows: the Israeli government has distributed tens of thousands of American-made assault rifles to violent, nationalistic, messianic settlers while instructing them to shoot from the hip, and speaking openly about ethnically cleansing the West Bank. It’s difficult to think of a parallel in American society—I would say it’s like Trump arming the Proud Boys, but the Proud Boys mostly just play dress-up and punch and kick people, whereas the settlers are pillaging villages and murdering civilians every week. The spokespeople for this war at least have something to point to as justification for the horrific violence in Gaza (“rooting out Hamas”—a justification which, to be clear, lost any semblance of legitimacy sometime in mid-October), whereas they lack even a half-baked excuse for the daily State and settler violence in the West Bank (other than halfheartedly referring to dead Palestinians as “terrorists”). The U.S.’s response to the increased settler attacks since 10/7—imposing visa restrictions on a handful of extremists while doing nothing to pressure the government to rein them in—is so self-evidently a smokescreen that it’s not even worth the effort of clearing the air. And all of this is just about the settlers; soldiers, we know, are trained to shoot first, ask questions later.
Quick detour to address the police claim that an “Israeli civilian and an off-duty policeman had fired at ‘individuals purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities.’” First of all, what is a rock-throwing activity? Were the boys skipping stones across a pond? Trying to get a frisbee down from a tree? Shot putting? Or were they throwing rocks at people? If it was the latter, you’d think they’d just say it, but this government is so accustomed to speaking in riddles that one has to wonder if even they know what they’re trying to say.2 Second of all, Israeli soldiers patrol the West Bank armored from head to toe—children throwing rocks at them has long been a symbolic gesture of resistance as opposed to a means of actually fighting back. To spray bullets in response to having a rock thrown your way is like burning down a library over a paper cut. The fact that the police would even say this out loud tells you how little they have to pretend to value Palestinian lives. Third of all, they’re lying. It shouldn’t matter, but the boy didn’t even get out of the car before he was shot in the head.
Next, Kirby says, “We’re seriously concerned about these reports.” Again, I am struck by just how much he is mailing it in here. Put a little effort into it, Kirb—you have more than a report, you have a dead (American!) child with a bullet in his brain. I plugged his phrase into ChatGPT and asked for a more convincing way to say it—the very first option would have worked better: “We express our profound concern and unwavering commitment to addressing the issues raised in this report.” But of course, the only unwavering commitment that the US makes toward the West Bank is to turn a blind eye.
Kirby says, “The information is scant at this time.” This gets to what I wrote about in my first post: the cruelty is so pervasive here—the zone so flooded with horrors—that pinning down a specific crime is like catching a single raindrop in a biblical storm.
Finally, the kicker: “We’re going to be in constant touch with counterparts in the region to get more information.” In other words, we’re going to be in touch with the wolves to find out what happened to the sheep.
To remind you, the only reason we got a statement at all (and a few newspaper articles) is that the dead Palestinian was an American citizen. Settlers and soldiers kill dozens or hundreds of Palestinians every month in the West Bank without so much as a glance from Israel or the West.3
All of this is instructive when trying to make sense of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Nobody in the West Bank has been surprised by what’s happening there because they see that Israel has simply turned up the dials on what they’ve done to them for decades. They kill with impunity, make some vague gesture toward “security,” and count on the U.S. to continue providing bulletproof cover while letting out just enough steam to keep the system from exploding. Palestinians in parts of the West Bank understand that they are one slight provocation away from Netanyahu turning their land into the riverfront parking lot of his dreams.
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If there is a silver lining to any of this, it’s that I believe this Israel-U.S. obfuscation machine is malfunctioning. The crimes in Gaza are just too heinous, the scale too great, for the vast majority of people to see it as anything other than the butchery that it is. I hope this newfound clarity extends to the West Bank, and that the growing anti-war movement sets its sights on the greater prize of ending the ongoing war waged against the Palestinians for the better part of a century, and freeing them from Israel’s ruthless grip.
A quick note to readers: I’ve been overwhelmed and heartened by the response to my first piece (which included one of the best foreign affairs reporters in the game, Spencer Ackerman, calling it a “must-read”), and I’m more convinced than ever that these stories need to be told. Indeed, at his son’s funeral, Tawfiq’s father referred to Israeli forces as “killer machines” and pled with Americans to “Come here on the ground and see what is going on.” It’s hard to think of a better raison d'être for this newsletter.
I hope you didn’t mind this sudden turn toward analysis—I’ll be back with more stories from the ground soon—but please let me know your thoughts in the comments.
As always, please forward this to anyone you think may need to read it.
Depending on the publication, Tawfiq Ajaq is sometimes referred to as Tawfic Abdel Jabbar or other variations.
The same spokesperson’s Picasso-inspired statement about the shooting itself is something to behold: “An incident report was received concerning firearm discharge, ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier, and a civilian.” (CBS)
To the extent that you can try to imagine the pain of your child being murdered, think about how that pain might transform you if imbued with the knowledge that your child’s murderer will never be held to account—no, they are far more likely to be celebrated as a hero. If you close your eyes and catch a fleeting sense of what this might feel like—how it would electrify and rechannel your entire life force—you may begin to understand the righteous rage of the Palestinian people.
You're an enormously courageous person, Jasper. I read your past piece and was captivated from beginning to end, learnt a great deal, and felt both heartened and terribly sad. It feels shallow to comment on your writing (which I thought was excellent) under these utterly appalling circumstances and I feel completely out of my depth commenting on the horror of what's going on. I can only echo Jack's words and say please stay safe. And thanks you for you warmth and humanity.
Thank you Jasper, for the incredibly brave and unimaginably challenging mission you’ve taken on. And for shining some light into the darkest corners of humanity. Stay safe...