Turkey, the flotilla and Israel: UN report deserves calm reading

[Violet_Crumble]

When the UN Human Rights Council commissioned a report on the Mavi Marmara flotilla disaster, Israel dismissed any findings in advance because the Council mandated a search for "violations" in an Israeli "attack". When the report was published on 23 September, the Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced what it called a "biased, politicized and extremist approach". A commentator in Israeli daily Yedioth Ahranoth went so far as to declare that it "served as a lesson in diplomatic and political cynicism, and the end of the dream known as the UN" (24 September).

For sure, the Human Rights Council’s disproportionate focus on Israel, and its disregard for the actions of many of the world's worst human rights abusers, not least among its 47 members, has done great damage to the body’s credibility. Even the Council's rapporteurs themselves rejected the wording of their original Council mandate because of "justified criticism" of its "bias" against Israel.

But anyone wanting to learn more of what happened in the eastern Mediterranean on the night of 31 May should set aside the hour or so it takes to study the 56-page document. Even the United States, explaining its lone vote against the report in the Council on 29 September, did not criticize its contents. Based on interviews with 112 passengers from 20 countries, the account of the flotilla's challenge to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and the lethal Israeli commando operation against it, is thorough, unemotional and consistent with such facts as are publicly known. Despite Israeli non-recognition and non-cooperation with the rapporteurs, it is respectful to the Israeli official the panel did meet, takes such official Israeli statements that have been published into account and by no means leaves the international flotilla without blame.

For instance, the report notes the fundamental tension between the political and humanitarian objectives of the organizers. It points out that organizers were fully aware of the Israeli intention to use force well before the interception, casting more doubt on the wisdom of their decision to actively resist any Israeli attack, especially after Israel offered to send the goods to Gaza under neutral supervision. The account further details differences between the contract crew of the Mavi Marmara, who did not want trouble, and the organizers, including the Turkish NGO that owned the ship, who were determined to resist and started cutting up iron bars with which they later fought back against the Israeli attempt to seize the vessel. On the night itself, many activists perceived the sound of stun grenades and other explosions in the night as attack by live fire. But the panel was "not satisfied" by reports that Israeli commandos used live ammunition in a first attempt to seize the Mavi Marmara from the sea.

At the same time, the step-by-step account raises important questions about the rapidity, lethality and sustained nature of the Israeli commandos' use of force against civilians in international waters. During the seizure of the Mavi Marmara, it asserts that Israelis used live fire from a helicopter to clear the top deck of resisting activists before any soldiers landed. It finds no evidence of any firearms brought on board by or used by the activists, as some Israeli officials have claimed. It shows that force used in Israeli takeovers of three other vessels in the flotilla was also disproportional. It lays out abuses by Israeli troops and officials during several subsequent stages, including failure to treat several injured properly, degrading treatment of tied-up prisoners during the long, hot passage by sea to the Israeli port of Ashdod, an improper parading of the detained activists to jeering Israeli onlookers on the quayside, attempts to force activists to sign self-incriminating documents, cases of unaccountable Israeli seizure of activists' cameras, computers, cellphones, cash and property, and severe beatings of activists that continued to draw blood even as they were about to be deported from Ben Gurion International Airport.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/europe/turkey-cyprus/Pope-Cyprus-The-UN-s-first-Mavi-Marmara-report-deserves-calm-reading.aspx