Washington, DC – After Israeli settlers killed 19-year-old United States citizen Nasrallah Abu Siyam in the occupied West Bank last week, the US Department orf State said it “has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans”.
But, as the number of US citizens killed by Israel continues to mount, rights advocates say Washington’s failure to ensure accountability is driving a deadly cycle of impunity.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Abu Siyam, who was shot dead in the village of Mikhmas near Jerusalem, is among at least 11 US citizens killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers since 2022.
“It’s a joke. I don’t take these people seriously,” William Asfour, Chicago chapter coordinator for American Muslims for Palestine, said of the US government’s response to the latest killing.
“If this is true, we would stop supplying Israel with weapons. We would hold these settlers, these terrorists, accountable. We would sanction them. We would have a weapons embargo.”
Last year, Asfour helped lead calls for an independent, US-led investigation into the July killing of Khamis Ayyad, a father of five from Chicago, in a settler attack in the West Bank.
But the US Department of Justice has not opened a probe into Ayyad’s death, and no one in Israel has faced charges over the incident.
Similarly, there have been no charges for the killing of Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old Florida man who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers last year.
Other cases – going back to Rachel Corrie, a peace activist who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 – have followed a similar pattern: US officials initially express concern but do not take decisive action to seek justice.
“It’s a terrible cycle. We just continue to see how dehumanised we are,” Asfour, who is Palestinian American, told Al Jazeera.
“If you truly cared about American citizens, whether domestically or abroad, you would take necessary actions. You can talk all you want, but we want to see action.”
Mike Huckabee’s role
Advocates say Washington could compel accountability simply by leveraging the large sums of aid it sends to Israel. The US has provided Israel with more than $21bn over the past two years alone.
But US President Donald Trump has shown little indication that he plans to sanction Israel or suspend assistance.
Rather, he said last May that it would not be his job to “use US policy to dispense justice” abroad, and he has moved to lift existing penalties against Israeli citizens.
Shortly after returning to the White House last year, Trump revoked sanctions against violent settlers involved in well-documented abuses against Palestinians, including US citizens.
Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has also been a staunch defender of Israeli policies, while exerting little pressure – at least publicly – to ensure the protection of American citizens.
For example, over the past week, Huckabee shared more than 40 posts on the social media platform X, many of them amplifying pro-Israel and anti-Muslim activists.
Some also defended Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. But none mentioned the shooting of Abu Siyam.
Huckabee did issue a strongly-worded statement after Israeli settlers beat Musallet to death last year, saying that there “must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act”.
But the US government has not opened its own investigation or imposed any sanctions over the incident.
The ambassador sparked anger last week when he suggested that he would approve of Israel taking over Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and parts of Saudi Arabia in accordance with his interpretation of the Bible.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said in an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.
When asked about the carnage in Gaza, Huckabee also argued that the Israeli army takes more measures to protect civilians than the US military.
Asfour said that Huckabee’s public statements show a failure in his duty to protect US citizens and interests.
“Are you representing the United States government, or are you a puppet for Israel?” Asfour said of the ambassador.
A ‘green light’ for violence
On Sunday, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) called on the US government to take the necessary measures to ensure accountability for Abu Siyam’s recent shooting death.
The civil rights group made a connection between the killing and Huckabee’s comment in support of Israeli expansionism. ADC said such a remark “signals permission and the green light for Israeli forces to use violence and empower settlers for further annexation and dispossession”.
“The US Ambassador to Israel is engaging in empowering and allowing for actions that lead to the targeted lynching and killing of US citizens,” the ADC said in a statement.
After Abu Siyam’s shooting, a US State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera that the government was “aware of the death of an American citizen in the West Bank”.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and stand ready to provide consular assistance,” the spokesperson added.
But Charles Blaha, senior adviser at the rights group DAWN, who previously served at the State Department, questioned Washington’s commitment to the safety of its citizens of Palestinian descent.
“The US State Department and the US Embassy in Jerusalem claim that protecting US citizens is their highest priority,” Blaha told Al Jazeera.
“This is one of the first things the department teaches incoming diplomats. However, their failure to act on the killings of US citizens in the West Bank by settlers and Israeli security forces belies that claim and suggests that US citizens of Palestinian origin are not a priority.”
Settler violence
Settler violence in the occupied West Bank, which several former Israeli officials have described as “terrorism”, has been on the rise over the past few years.
Armed and operating under the protection of the Israeli military, settlers frequently descend on Palestinian towns and farmland, burning property and assaulting those who come in their way.
Such attacks, which have claimed the lives of three Palestinian Americans over the past year, have coincided with an Israeli government push to deepen control of the West Bank in what experts say amounts to de facto annexation of the illegally occupied territory.
“The US government’s inaction in the face of violence by Israeli settlers has contributed to the atmosphere of impunity that fuelled Nasrallah Abu Siyam’s killing at the hands of Israeli settlers,” Blaha said.
Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USPCR), has also accused the US government of enabling Israeli abuses over the years.
He cited the 1985 assassination of Palestinian American activist Alex Odeh in California, an incident that activists say US authorities failed to properly investigate. The perpetrators in that killing were suspected to be violent pro-Israel operatives.
“From Alex Odeh to Abu Siyam, from occupied Palestine all the way here to the United States, the US government has refused to hold Israel accountable for its military and settler killings of Palestinian US citizens,” Abuznaid told Al Jazeera.
“This is what history has shown us, and if the US government disagrees, they can gladly prove otherwise. Until then, we see it for exactly what it is.”
