Cruz blasts call for FBI investigation of IDF, ‘everyone involved should be fired’

“This outrage underscores how corrupt and blatantly politicized the Justice Department has become, and how entirely beholden to the radical left-wing Squad Democrats really are,” the Texas senator said.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted the White House Tuesday for authorizing the FBI to investigate the shooting death of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a clash of Israeli soldiers with Palestinian terrorists in Jenin in May.

“Joe Biden and his administration view Israel and Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu as political enemies, and so they are responding to them the way they respond to all their political enemies: by unleashing the FBI,” the Texan Republican said in a statement.

“This outrage underscores how corrupt and blatantly politicized the Justice Department has become, and how entirely beholden to the radical left-wing Squad Democrats really are. This administration has spent its time in office weaponizing the DOJ to target their political enemies as a matter of policy, and now they have allowed that tactic to bleed into their obsession with undermining our Israeli allies.”

“Everyone involved with this debacle should be fired or impeached – all the way up to Attorney General Garland,” he declared.

Cruz, who is a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees, pointed out that Israel had already investigated the incident in “close cooperation” with the U.S., “and the State Department and Defense Departments had already drawn their conclusions.”

Those conclusions included the fact that the bullet that killed the Al Jazeera reporter was too badly damaged to be able to definitively resolve from which kind of gun it had been shot. The IDF had only gone as far as stating that there was a “high possibility” that it had come from one of its soldiers’ weapons. It also stressed that “hundreds of bullets” were flying at its forces in the firefight at the time.

The army completely rejected the Palestinian Authority (PA) claim that the soldiers had aimed at Abu Akleh, saying that at the most, her death was an unfortunate accident.

The PA welcomed the Department of Justice’s decision, with PA presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah expanding the charges against Israel in his statement.

The U.S. move was “further evidence of the lack of credibility of the occupation authorities’ account of all cases of deliberate killings carried out by their forces against our people,” he said.

Democrats, especially those in the anti-Israel, progressive camp dubbed the Squad, had been urging the U.S. to launch an independent proble because Abu Akleh was a Palestinian-American citizen.

In same tweet in which she urged the FBI to “take every step possible to ensure that this investigation is conducted in a transparent, credible and unbiased manner,” one Squad leader, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), showed that she had already made up her mind as to whom was to blame.

“The FBI opening an investigation is the first step towards real accountability for Shireen’s assassination,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) tweeted.

Outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz called the decision to launch a new probe a “serious mistake,” adding that Israel “will not cooperate with an external investigation,” which impugns the IDF that has already “conducted a professional, independent investigation which was presented to American officials with whom the details were shared.”

Prime Minister Yair Lapid concurred. “The IDF is a moral and ethical army. IDF soldiers and their commanders defend the State of Israel. The IDF thoroughly investigates any irregular event and is committed to the values and laws of democracy,” he said.

“Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any other foreign country or entity, however friendly it may be. We will not abandon our soldiers to foreign investigations. We have conveyed our strong protest to the United States.”

Benny GantzBiden AdministrationFBIShireen Abu AklehTed CruzThe SquadUS-Israel relationsYair Lapid