On February 3, 2024, President Biden declared, “If you harm an American, we will respond.” His remarks followed the deaths of three U.S. service members stationed at an airbase in Jordan, reportedly caused by a suicide drone attack launched by an Iraqi militia

However, this statement brings into sharp relief the unequal value placed on American lives in different contexts.

The killing of 26-year-old activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi by Israeli military forces last Friday underscores this double standard. While the U.S. State Department has publicly mourned the death of Israeli-American citizen Hersch Goldberg-Polin and promised swift retribution against Hamas, it has remained largely silent on Eygi’s death. Aside from a single vague comment by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the U.S. government has failed to meaningfully address the killing, prioritizing its strategic interests in West Asia over the loss of any particular American life.

The U.S. government is unlikely to respond meaningfully to Eygi’s death, as its focus remains on maintaining its imperialist sphere of influence in West Asia, rather than prioritizing the safety of individual Americans.

Mainstream media has already attempted to highlight Eygi’s Turkish ethnicity, subtly framing her as an “other” to deflect attention from the fact that she was a victim of her own country’s foreign policy complicity. As with similar incidents, Israel will likely investigate itself, ultimately absolving its military of systemic wrongdoing or, at most, attributing the blame to a single soldier—ignoring the broader policy of targeting civilians.

Eygi is the third American to be killed in the West Bank since military operations escalated earlier this year. The other two victims, both 17-year-old Palestinian Americans, were Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a Louisiana native shot in January by an Israeli officer and a settler, and Mohammad Khdour, a Floridian who was fatally shot in the head by an Israeli gunman weeks later. Despite expressing regret over both killings, the U.S. government has refrained from initiating independent investigations, instead relying on Israel to investigate itself.

The president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Lara Friedman, told The Intercept on Friday that such lackluster responses have become a de facto policy in reaction to these recurring killings:

The policy of the U.S. government, both the executive and legislative branches, has effectively been that not all Americans are equal when it comes to dying in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli Americans are worth fighting for accountability and Palestinian Americans and Americans who stand with them are not. It almost feels farcical to have to say that out loud, because the record is so clear.”

The events since October 7, 2023, have shown that much of the mainstream media aligns itself with Western government policies, offering apologies for Israel, downplaying atrocities, and obscuring the reality on the ground. This media complicity mirrors the same hypocrisy and double standards that define Washington’s approach.

Join us tonight on State of Play as we speak with a representative from the International Solidarity Movement for Palestine. We’ll dive into the events on the ground and discuss their far-reaching implications. In this war of information, how can you ensure your voice is heard more effectively? Don’t miss this crucial conversation.

Greg Stoker is a former US Army Ranger with a background in human intelligence collection and analysis. After serving four combat deployments in Afghanistan, he studied anthropology and International Relations at Columbia University. He is currently a military and geopolitical analyst and a social media “influencer,” though he hates the term.

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