Blinken Signals There Will Be No Justice for Aysenur Eygi

Edited by Sam Thielman

I'M WRITING THE NEXT IRON MAN SERIES FOR MARVEL COMICS! IF YOU PREORDER IT, I'LL SEND YOU FREE STICKERS! FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE AT THE LINK AND THEY'RE YOURS!

ON FRIDAY, Israeli soldiers at Beita, in the Palestinian West Bank, saw a woman observing a protest against an Israeli settlement called Evyatar and shot her in the head. So ended the brief life of 26-year old Turkish-American human-rights activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. The Israeli Defense Forces initially said the unarmed woman was a "key instigator" throwing stones at soldiers. But, citing three eyewitnesses, Haaretz reported two days later that not only did did Eygi not do any of that—her position was 200 meters away from the soldiers, two whole football fields away, well outside stone-throwing range—the demonstration was over by the time the soldiers killed her, making her death look a whole lot like murder. 

It is reasonable to suspect that the IDF figured it could get away with killing Eygi because it got away with shooting the New Jersey schoolteacher Amadou Sison at demonstrations at Beita last month (Sison lived), to say nothing of getting away with killing the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, or of killing at least 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza these past 11 months. None of these acts have generated more than minimal, ignorable protest from the Biden administration, words overshadowed by the billions of dollars in ammunition, artillery and other U.S. aid. All of this exposes how President Biden's famous "if you harm an American, we will respond" vow only applies to Americans harmed by U.S. adversaries. 

This morning, the Washington Post flashed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed dissatisfaction at the "unprovoked and unjustified" slaying. Blinken said that he will make clear to the "senior-most members of the Israeli government" that they've got to "make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank, including changes in their rules of engagement."

For nearly a year, the Israeli government has made clear it will not do a thing Tony Blinken says, up to and including the unmanifested Gaza ceasefire that, in any case, CIA Director Bill Burns, a far more experienced diplomat, and not Blinken has negotiated. And settling the West Bank is vastly more important to Israel's right-wing government than destroying Gaza is. Were I someone like Israel’s fascist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, what I would hear in Blinken's comments is that "fundamental changes" to the IDF's West Bank operations presumes the continuation of those operations. Which is to say the tacit, continued U.S. acceptance of an indefinite occupation and displacement of Palestinians from their land, under the fig leaf that at some theoretical point there will be a two-state solution.

There is a way that Blinken, like his boss, can compel Israel to transform the dynamic of Israeli behavior. They can cut off weapons shipments. With the U.S. providing 69 percent of Israel's arms imports, Blinken and Biden (and Kamala Harris) have tremendous leverage over Israel. What they lack is political will. By not summoning such will in the abundance of such leverage, the entire world understands who the Rules-Based International Order protects and who it excludes. 

Every single day provides another opportunity for Biden to course-correct. And every day his administration does not course-correct undermines the idea that his administration believes its course ought to be corrected. This, and not the support of Ukraine, and not the withdrawal from Afghanistan, is likely to be what people at home and abroad remember as Biden's foreign-policy legacy. (Probably the China Cold War, too.) Aysenur Ezgi Eygi deserved better than her government demonstrating that it considers Israeli domination of Palestinian life a worthier goal than justice for her killing. 

I DON'T KNOW IF I'LL EVER forget the sight of the crowds at the Republican National Convention lustily demanding "Mass Deportation Now!" Over the weekend, Once-And-Perhaps-Future-President Donald Trump removed all doubt—and only the credulous doubt it at this point—that such deportations will require a breathtaking amount of violence. "Getting them out will be a bloody story," Trump told supporters in Wisconsin. That wasn't a complaint or a lament. It is a promise to perform officially-sanctioned pogroms. 

Also, if Senator J.D. Vance has any balls, he'll say the disgusting shit he says about Haitians on the corner of Nostrand and Foster Avenues in Flatbush or the corner of Utica and Church Aves in Crown Heights. As the spiritual inheritors of the French Indemnity, the political currents in American history that animate Vance will never stop punishing Haiti from freeing itself from slavery and imperial control. Haitians have seen so many J.D. Vances come and go. They will see this one pass from the stage as well. 

JUST IN TIME FOR THE 23RD ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11, President Biden issued an order on Monday night reminding us that the War on Terror is not over: 

Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date.  Consistent with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register the enclosed notice, stating that the emergency declared in Proclamation 7463 with respect to the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, is to continue in effect for an additional year.

 The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues.  For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2024, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.

Someone should write a book about this shit. 

THE REACTION TO OUR IRON MAN SERIES from "the Internet" has surpassed my wildest expectations.* Is Twitter… good now? My answer depends on how sustained the enthusiasm for IRON MAN is. But I'm so grateful to everyone who's expressed it, and I can't wait until next month to show you what we have in store. Remember to keep preordering your copies—if not necessarily of issue 1, then issues 2, 3 and beyond. 

I'll be doing interviews, signings and so forth to promote IRON MAN—more on all that as they coalesce. But right now, if you're in Washington D.C. on October 26, the Saturday after issue 1's release, I'll be signing at both the U Street NW and the Bethesda locations of Big Planet Comics. They'll have IRON MAN #1, the WALLER VS. WILDSTORM collected hardcover edition, and REIGN OF TERROR, and I will sign them all. I'll probably bring some additional razzle-dazzle. Check Big Planet's website for details as we firm them up! 

*My intrusive thoughts of failure

SPEAKING OF BILL BURNS, Ken Klippenstein caught a speech of Burns' in which Burns simply could not perform the bullshit of insisting that an Israel/Hamas ceasefire/hostage deal is on First and Goal or whatever the Biden team says about it. If Harris wins, Burns—a career diplomat, not a spy—is far and away her best choice for Secretary of State.

"WHEN WE TELL YOU to do something, you do it, you understand? Not when you want, but when we tell you. You're a little fucking confused."
—Miami cop to Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill

LAST THING, AND IT IS A VIBE SWITCH. My old friend and former bassist Ivan Berko produced the debut EP from local group Fcukers, Baggy$$, and it's great. Don't listen to Pitchfork, which years from now will pretend it didn't pan the group (while, like cowards, giving it a 6.8, a technically-good, ass-covering rating). Unlike Pitchfork, Ivan knows what he's doing. 

WALLER VS. WILDSTORM, the superhero spy thriller I co-wrote with my friend Evan Narcisse and which the masterful Jesús Merino illustrated, is available for purchase in a hardcover edition! If you don't have single issues of WVW and you want a four-issue set signed by me, they're going fast at Bulletproof Comics! 

No one is prouder of WVW than her older sibling, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, which is available now in hardcover, softcover, audiobook and Kindle edition. And on the way is a new addition to the family: THE TORTURE AND DELIVERANCE OF MAJID KHAN.