Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
UN Rights Council Names Team to Probe Israel Flotilla Raid
GENEVA — The UN Human Rights Council named a panel of experts Friday to investigate whether Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla breached international law and urged the Jewish state to cooperate.
Israeli soldiers intercept a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea. (AFP)) Briton
Desmond de Silva, Malaysian Mary Shanthi Dairiam and Karl
Hudson-Phillips from Trinidad and Tobago would probe the events
surrounding the May 31 raid in which nine Turkish activists were killed,
the council announced.
"This is not about finger pointing, it's about establishing the facts of what took place because the incident was humanitarian tragedy and it's in the interests of everyone," said council president Sihasak Phuangketkeow.
"So I'm hoping and I'm urging all the parties concerned to render their full cooperation, because it is in their interests and it's in the interests of the international community as a whole."
Israel has consistently rejected calls for an international independent investigation into the raid by its commandos and instead launched its own military probe and set up a separate panel to examine the legality of the raid.
Last week the military investigation admitted that mistakes were made at a "relatively senior" level.
However, it also found that the use of live fire by commandos was justified and that troops on board the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara had behaved in a "very professional and courageous way."
The Israeli panel, led by retired Supreme Court judge Yaacov Tirkel, will hear testimony from all of the top political and military decision makers involved in planning the raid, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Still seething over a report by the UN investigator Richard Goldstone last year into its conduct during the 2008-2009 war in Gaza, Israel has refused to countenance an international investigation into the flotilla raid.
The 47-member state Human Rights Council condemned the raid as an "outrageous attack" during an emergency session in June. The decision to set up a panel was made at the same session.
Phuangketkeow insisted that the panel would be completely unbiased.
"The expertise, independence and impartiality of the members of the mission will be devoted to clarifying the events which took place that day and their legality," added Phuangketkeow.
Hudson-Phillips was a judge at the International Criminal Court, de Silva was chief prosecutor of the UN court for Sierra Leone while Dairiam serves on the gender equality taskforce of the UN Development Programme.
The panel is expected to draw up a plan of action as well as contact relevant parties before travelling to the region.
Although no exact timetable for the panel's work was revealed, the report on their findings was scheduled to be made to the Human Rights Council during its 15th session in September.
The bloodshed on the aid flotilla sparked a deep crisis in already strained relations between Turkey and Israel, once close allies.
Ankara has urged the Jewish state to apologise, compensate the families of the victims and lift the blockade of Gaza to repair the relations.
Israel says its commandos used force only after they were attacked with sticks and stabbed as soon as they landed on the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
15 Comments so far
Show AllThe panel, being unbiased, certainly couldn't draw any inferences from Israel's unwillingness to cooperate with their inquiry...Israel's denial of access to the available witnesses...Israel's refusal to let them look at their own records of their actions and their communications...Israel's withholding from them of the property or the flotilla participants seized illegally and held(?)* illegally, including lap-tops and cameras and cell-phones and anything else holding contemporaneous records and evidence. This is pure guess-work on my part, of course...idle speculation. I'm not clairevoyant, so why would I (or anybody) assume that Israel would do that? Or that their enablers here will twist this into the noblest of virtues (no more than two congressional resolutions of support, if we're lucky)?
*The panel shouldn't be too surprised if they're denied entry into Israel altogether...where they could check the black-market for these items, as Col. Ann Wright suggests.
"Still seething over a report by the UN investigator Richard Goldstone last year into its conduct during the 2008-2009 war in Gaza, Israel has refused to countenance an international investigation into the flotilla raid."
This implies, falsely, that the Israelis have cooperated with international inquiries until the Goldstone Report was issued. But in fact, they didn't cooperate with that report at all. They didn't cooperate with the Qana report in 1996, and before that there is a long history. They did not cooperate with the World Court nor comply with its decision. In fact, Israeli non-cooperation with international bodies goes all the way back to the early days. For example, the minutes of the MAC, Mixed Armistice Commission has more than a few entries indicating this lack of cooperation on the part of Israel. Regarding an incident on March 23, 1954, quoting form the Chairman, of the 177th MAC meeting "... I do regret Israel's delegation's refusal to allow the MAC the opportunity to completely investigate Israeli claim of knowledge concerning actual perpetrator of this crime...." from Appendix C of Commander E H Hutchison USNR “Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1951-1955”
The above lack of cooperation was with respect to an attack on Israelis, allegedly by Arabs. When it came to Israel's own attacks they cooperated at times, that is if you consider lying to be cooperation. Regarding the Qibya massacre, "None deplores it more than the Government of Israel, if ... innocent blood was spilled ... The Government of Israel rejects with all vigor the absurd and fantastic allegation that 600 men of the IDF took part in the action ... We have carried out a searching investigation and it is clear beyond doubt that not a single army unit was absent from its base on the night of the attack on Qibya. (Statement by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, ISA FM 2435/5). Ben-Gurion made that statement after having been advised by Moshe Sharett that no one would believe such a claim as it was clearly a military operation. - this according to Moshe Sharett's diary. Moshe Sharett was Israel's 2nd Prime Minister and his diary, along with Cmdr Hutchison's book are well worth reading for peeking under that curtain of lies that have covered Israel's actions for so long.
The Israeli issue will be settled after the Zionists TOTALLY bankrupt America and Americans start to starve to death... maybe when the oil crunch hits home. Politicians will win office by blaming everything on Zionists and Americans will take revenge on the nearest Zionist they can find. Israel will be walked back to the 1967 borders and will sit there until they are totally swallowed by the Arab majority.
Coolhead, i don't think the great, educated masses of usa will distinguish between the "nearest zionist" and the nearest Jew. In fact, many of them never even met a Jew, let alone posess the sensibilities to make that distinction.
In fact, the Christian Zionists have far greater numbers and are more verbal than the zionist Jews. But i predict you won't see these good christian soldiers being targeted, when the time comes. And it will.
peace.
The poetic justice, of course, is that it is the Zionists that nutured, promoted, and continue to promote these Christian Zionists. For example, Rupert Murdoch/Roger Ailes are comfortable with Pat Buchanan's bigotry - as long as he supports Israel.
I'm afraid that Jews have made their bed, and they will have to lie in it. It's a shame - for everyone.
In all respect, Pat Buchanan, when i hear him talk, is actually not supportive of israel. Surprising though it may be. And Roger Ailes, as far as i know, isn't Jewish. But that may not have been what you meant. Rupert Murdoch i also hadn't heard is jewish.
Hagee and his Christian Zionists had a conference in Dc last week. Some friends were protesting. All denominations and backgrounds. Hagee is an antisemitic zionist, actually. And i mean semitic in its true sense. He is a white supremicist, as you know, and expects the Jews and other heretics to die in the rapture. Or is it the 'tribualtion'. I don't know if he believes his own b/s. He may just be a neocon operative. Actually, i think he is just that.
The jewish zionists are fools to sign on with these guys. But i think Hagee will have the last laugh. And let's not even talk about Joe Lieberman. He is a whole other story.
Peace,
rita
I'd be interested in any quote in which Buchanan even HINTED something negative about Israel.
It's not surprising at all that "as far as I know" is included in your comments. You hadn't heard that Murdoch is Jewish? Well now you have.
What is obvious to those looking around them
is that Jewish Zionists have promoted religious right-wingers
because the right-wingers are Zionists, even though
they are bigoted against Jews.
(That's one of the factors that makes the foul "Anti-Semetic" slur
so disgustingly hypocritical.)
The factor that made the Zionists' alliance with the rapid right so easy
is that they are both Hitlerian fascists.
In spirit, they are connected at the hip.
I personally believe,and i was born and raised Jewish, that israel wants nothing more than a replay of antiJewish sentiment as played out in the nazi era. It is glaringly obvious.
And self fulfilling prophecies are quite real.
Oh, wait a minute, now Israel is saying that it's commandos only used force when attacked with, "sticks and knives."
Oh, now they are saying 'sticks." What happened to all of that dangerous stuff those flotilla "terrorists" had?
Yes, I did see pictures of knives taken by Israel, but they sure looked like kitchen knives to me; the ship did have a kitchen you know.
Oh, did those flotilla PEACEMAKERS get their stuff back yet? You know, credit and debit cards, cell phones, video, computers, or is mossad going to use these people's identity in their next out of country attack?
Don't forget, the Rachel Corrie trial is set to resume in September, and the country of "murder most foul" will be on the public stage once more, but then, it is improvisational theatre, so we must wait to hear those made up lines.
I too, urge the Jewish state to cooperate with the UN Human Rights experts, because at the moment, Israel, your credibility, is a form of monomania.
BDS- Boycott Divestment Sanctions
http://www.olympiabds.org/2010/olympia-food-co-op-removes-israeli-goods-from-shelves-first-us-store-to-institute-boycott.html
I think i posted this on the Israeli Media article. There is legislation proposed in the Knesset to make Boycotts illegal in Israel.
The report will be shelved for 'further study' and buried by the next series of atrocities....
I wish I am wrong, but know I'm not.
t_g
OK, let's assume the panel finds Israel guilty as charged. What then? What kind of punishment should we mete out? Embargo? Some kind of sanctions?
People, realistically, which country would obey it? Can you see the USA, EU, Canada or my country, Australia boycotting anything from Israel? Stopping all trade with them?
Let's be realistic: it'll be a bit of a neutral finding: yes, the commandoes acted a bit harshly, yes, they've opened fire, but the peace activist were provoking them in some way. Maybe giving the middle finger, maybe shouting obscenities or some such nonsense... (LOL) and this ticked the commandoes the wrong way. So, the world will wag a collective finger at them, there'll be an analysis on Al Jazeera and Russia Today and a couple of progressive websites and the issue will slip away. Just like the Gaza invasion of 2008/09.