Israeli Forces Shot an American in the West Bank. The US 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.”
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.