In the wake of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s fatal shooting, critics question whether the US will seek justice from Israeli forces.

The fatal shooting of a 26-year-old Turkish American protester in the occupied West Bank has sparked fresh calls for the United States to demand accountability from Israel’s armed forces.

But advocates say justice for US citizens killed by Israeli soldiers has long proven elusive, with many accusing the administration of President Joe Biden of applying a double standard to Israel and its military.

Friday’s shooting claimed the life of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a dual US and Turkish citizen who was taking part in a demonstration against an illegal Israeli settlement on Mount Sbeih in Beita, a town south of Nablus.

During the protest, witnesses said an Israeli soldier shot Ezgi Eygi in the head, and she collapsed in an olive grove. She later died of her wounds at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus.

Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was among the first US officials to respond to the killing, and she called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “do something to save lives”.

Blinken himself was asked about the killing at a news briefing later in the day, where a journalist pressed him on the military aid the US continues to provide to Israel.

“I just want to extend my deepest condolences, condolences of the United States government, to the family of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi,” Blinken responded. “We deplore this tragic loss.”

He said the Biden administration would “gather the facts” and “act on it” as necessary.

“I have no higher priority than the safety and protection of American citizens, wherever they are,” Blinken added, echoing a similar statement made by US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew.

Source: Al Jazeera

Edited by Nevin Reda and Yasmin Amin

Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press (December 10, 2020)

Since the 1980s, Muslim women reformers have made great strides in critiquing and reinterpreting the Islamic tradition. Yet these achievements have not produced a significant shift in the lived experience of Islam, particularly with respect to equality and justice in Muslim families. A new approach is needed: one that examines the underlying instruments of tradition and explores avenues for effecting change.

In Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice leading intellectuals and emerging researchers grapple with the problem of entrenched positions within Islam that affect women, investigating the processes by which interpretations become authoritative, the theoretical foundations upon which they stand, and the ways they have been used to inscribe and enforce gender limitations. Together, they argue that the Islamic interpretive tradition displays all the trappings of canonical texts, canonical figures, and canon law – despite the fact that Islam does not ordain religious authorities who could sanction processes of canonization. Through this lens, the essays in this collection offer insights into key issues in Islamic feminist scholarship, ranging from interreligious love, child marriage, polygamy, and divorce to stoning, segregation, seclusion, and gender hierarchies.

Rooting their analysis in the primary texts and historical literature of Islam, contributors to Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice contest oppressive interpretative canons, subvert classical methodologies, and provide new directions in the ongoing project of revitalizing Islamic exegesis and its ethical and legal implications.

Source: MQUP.ca