Via Silver Lining
Posted on June 21, 2010 by realistic bird
by Jeff Darcy
It was no surprise that the Israeli government rejected an international and independent inquiry about its assault and massacre of humanitarian activists -eight Turkish and one American- aboard the ship Mavi Marmara on May 31. With support of an increasingly discredited Obama Administration, Israel is doing its best -including fake promises of an “easing” of the Gaza blockade- to persuade the international community to forget the UN Security Council´s call for “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards”.
Israel has announced that it will only accept its own internal probe. In order to badly disguise the farce, Israel has agreed on the appointment of two foreign experts for the inquiry. One of them is Northern Ireland´s Lord David Trimble, who according to the Jewish Chronicle, “previously called on Israel to stand firm on the boycott of Hamas.”
Of course, Israel is not interested in determining who is guilty for the attack and killing of the civilians on the Freedom Flotilla, and what decision-making process was followed in the run-up to the assault. That information is, without doubt, already in the hands of Israel´s government and military establishment. War criminals Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are reportedly leading the charge against any international investigation. Barak was said to have advised the cabinet to “wait for another two-three weeks and everyone will forget and the pressure on us will dissipate.”
Therefore, Israeli criminals are showing again its contempt towards the international community, UN resolutions and the international law and trust the Zionist-controlled US Congress to avoid being held accountable for this new crime, including the savage massacre of humanitarian activists. The US Administration has already announced its acceptance of the Israeli inquiry set up by the Netanyahu government.
Countering the broad consensus of international legal scholars who recognize that the attack was in flagrant violation of international norms, prominent Democrats and Republican congressmen have embraced the absurd notion that Israel’s raid, which killed at least nine unarmed activists and wounded scores of others, was somehow an “act of self-defense.”
The offensive has been led by Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), who serves as House Democrats’ unofficial spokesman on Middle East policy from his position as chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee on the Middle East. According to Ackerman, the Israeli massacre is “wholly the fault and responsibility of the organizers of the effort to break through Israel and Egypt´s legitimate closure of terrorist-controlled Gaza.” A US Republican Senator, John Cornyn, also unveiled a resolution expressing full support for Israel´s deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara, while condemning the humanitarian activists aboard.
American Jewish groups called on the State Department to designate the Turkish relief group Humanitarian Relief Fund, or IHH, a main organizer of the Flotilla Freedom for Gaza, as a terrorist organization. In a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Anti-Defamation League said that IHH had “well-documented ties to Hamas.” The ADL also has written to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urging his department to add IHH to its lists of “terror-sponsoring” organizations.
LIES AND MANIPULATION
Shortly after the assault and massacre of the humanitarian activists, Israeli chief military censor tried to prevent information about these facts from reaching international media for hours, but with the presence of hundreds of witnesses aboard the Mavi Marmara they were impossible to hide. Later, when the information came into light, Israeli and pro-Israeli media in the US and other countries used the old Israeli tactic of blaming the victims for the crimes. Israeli official version of the massacre is actually an insult for any sane mind.
Netanyahu called the Mavi Marmara a “hate boat” and Israeli media repeated the official allegations. The Ynet described the humanitarian activists as “brutal people” and said that Israeli commandos had been attacked and “beaten” by the former ones, who were armed with “glass bottles”. Israeli media also described activists aboard the ship as “terrorists” with links to Al Qaeda. Israel commandos were lauded for showing “nobility” and “great restraint” as they “only” killed nine of them. The massacre of unarmed activists was called a “battle”. Once again, an Israeli cold-bloody massacre of defenseless civilians was presented as “self defense.”
An editorial of the Washington Post characterized participants in the flotilla as a “motley collection,” deserving no sympathy due to their ulterior motive on “provoking a confrontation.” It added that the calls for an international investigation into the flotilla raid “could potentially become part of a campaign to de-legitimize the Jewish State.” The major US newspapers and TV channels that echoed Israeli official lies also deliberately ignored the death of a US citizen, Furkan Dogan, born in New York City, who was killed by Israelis aboard of the Mavi Marmara.
However, Turkey and most nations in the world will not let themselves be fooled by Israel or its agents in the US or elsewhere. Turkey has opposed to an Israeli internal probe and has compared it with the case of a murderer who is allowed to investigate its own crimes. “Israel does not have the authority to assign a national commission to investigate a crime perpetrated in international waters,” said a statement released on Tuesday by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “An inquiry to be conducted by such a commission cannot be impartial, fair, transparent and credible.” Turkey has expressed its support for a proposal by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon for an international commission comprising one Turkish national, one Israeli and three international experts. For its part, Amnesty International has dismissed the Israeli inquiry as “a virtual farce.”
Unfortunately for Israel the flotilla massacre -which resulted in the death of eight Turkish citizens and one American one and injures to dozens of activists of more than 40 countries- will not be forgotten or forgiven. The Israeli assault on the Mavi Marmara was actually an international crime under the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Maritime Navigation Safety, which punishes those who seize control of a ship or to harm its passengers.
SURVIVORS OF THE MAVI MARMARA SPEAK OUT
Moreover, as Jean Shaoul wrote on the World Socialist Web Site , “Israeli claims that its troops acted in self-defense on board the Mavi Marmara are refuted not only by eye-witness testimony, but by the results of the autopsies carried out by the Turkish Council of Forensic Medicine for the Ministry of Justice. According to The Guardian, which obtained a copy of the results, the nine men who were killed were shot a total of 30 times. Five were killed by gunshots to the head.”
“Fulkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen, was shot five times from less than 45 centimeters -in the face, back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old man, was shot four times- in the temple, chest, hip and back. Two others were shot four times and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back.”
“Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the Council of Forensic Medicine in Istanbul, said only one man had been killed with a single shot -to the forehead and from a distance. Everyone else had received multiple gun shots that had been fired directly and from close by- the nearest from a distance of 20 centimeters.” “That the victims were shot in the back and head indicates that the Israelis were carrying out a shoot-to-kill policy. It undercuts Netanyahu´s insistence that the soldiers were facing a “lynch mob”, Shaoul added.
“Ismail Patel, the chairman of the pro-Palestinian group Friends of Al-Aqsa, told The Guardian that the Israelis were shooting to kill, as indicated by the fact that the people who died had been shot in the upper part of their bodies. He calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, the commandos were shooting one person every minute. He and another witness, Alex Harrison, said the troops opened fire from the helicopter above the Mavi Marmara with live ammunition and without any warning.”
Iara Lee, an American filmmaker and activists recorded a 60-minute film about facts aboard the Mavi Marmara. Although her video cameras and other materials were seized by Israeli commandos in the raid, Lee was able to conceal the video during her arrest by Israeli authorities. The video, which shows some of people who were shot, is also a definitive evidence of a previous report published in the British paper The Independent that claimed that the Israeli commandos who assaulted the flotilla brought with them a list with the names and photographs of some activists aboard the ship. This means that Israeli intelligence and army had identified those whom they intended to either kill or arrest.
Uprooted Palestinian
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