American lives lost
Today I came upon a video by Senator Chris Van Hollen. He was informing people that an American citizen named Sama, a student at Birzeit University in the West Bank, had been taken in the middle of the night by the Israeli military from her home. Her whereabouts are unknown. I thought immediately of the 2024 case of the University of Washington student, Ayลenur Ezgi Eygi. She was also an American citizen, who the Israeli military acknowledges they shot in the head while she was unarmed and standing in an olive grove.
Then I wondered: do foreign governments routinely kill American citizens? To find the answer, I did what most people would do in 2026. I asked ChatGPT. Much to my dismay, ten American citizens have reportedly been killed since 2000 by a foreign government. In nine out of the ten cases, it was the Israeli government (North Korea was the only other). To honor these American lives lost, the least we can do is take a moment to read and learn their names: Rachel Corrie (2003), Furkan Doฤan (2010), Orwa Hammad (2014), Mahmoud Shalaan (2016), Omar Assad (2022), Shireen Abu Akleh (2022), Tawfic Abdel Jabbar (2024), Mohammad Khdour (2024), and Ayลenur (2024). They were our neighbors, our colleagues, our community members.
I implore our politicians to do everything possible to protect Sama, guarantee her safe return from Israeli military detention and take the necessary measures–long overdue–to protect Americans overseas. Of course, people of conscience would love to see the United States pressure its closest ally to treat every life as sacred, but it is beyond the pale that our politicians would permit a foreign government to kill and kidnap Americans with no consequences.