President Biden is in Israel as part of a four-day trip to the Middle East, where he reaffirmed his support for Israel despite growing disapproval among members of the Democratic Party over the state’s brutal treatment of Palestinians. The Biden administration faces criticism over plans to build a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on land that was illegally confiscated by Israel from Palestinians in 1948, as well as the State Department’s whitewashed investigation of Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing, which multiple other independent investigations have determined was caused by an Israeli bullet. “By not engaging in dismantling the structures of discrimination and oppression … that Israel maintains, the United States is in fact supporting those structures,” says historian Rashid Khalidi, whose family is among the Palestinians whose seized lands are set to be used for the embassy.
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