EDITOR: From the horse’s mouth…
Well, if the navy officers themselves are demanding this, then Netanyahu has a real problem… To say that this is unprecedented is not even starting to explain how amazing this is! So while Netanyahu claims that no inquiry is necessary, and Obama wants the Israeli Navy to check into its own murder, here are some high-ranking officers (the Hebrew title is Ship-Captains, rather officers) saying quite clearly that the Israeli government and its military commanders are responsible for the murder on the boats, condemning the spin against the activists. So now Netanyahu and Obama are on their own, it seems. This will run and run.
Israel Navy reserves officers: Allow external Gaza flotilla probe: Haaretz
Officers denounce operation as ‘military and diplomatic failure’, slam government for placing blame on the activists.
A group of top Israel Navy reserves officers on Sunday publicly called on Israel to allow an external probe into its commando raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla last week, which left nine people dead and several more wounded.
In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the Navy officers denounced the commando raid as having “ended in tragedy both at the military and diplomatic levels.”
“We disagree with the widespread claims that this was the result of an intelligence rift,” said the officers. “In addition, we do not accept claims that this was a ‘public relations failure’ and we think that the plan was doomed to failure from the beginning.”
“First and foremost, we protest the fact that responsibility for the tragic results was immediately thrust onto the organizers of the flotilla,” wrote the officers. “This demonstrates contempt for the responsibility that belongs principally to the hierarchy of commanders and those who approved the mission. This shows contempt for the values of professionalism, the purity of weapons and for human lives.”
The Navy officers’ letter came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening his top ministers to deliberate a United Nations proposal to create a joint international committee alongside Turkey and the United States to investigate the circumstances of the deadly raid.
The cabinet was also to discuss the creation of an internal committee to look into the incident. Netanyahu earlier Sunday rejected the idea of an international panel, and reiterated that Israel had the right to conduct its own investigation.
Netanyahu discussed the proposal for a multinational panel with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a telephone call on Saturday but told cabinet ministers fon Sunday that Israel was exploring other options, political sources said.
“I told [Ban] that the investigation of the facts must be carried out responsibly and objectively,” Netanyahu told ministers. “We need to consider the issue carefully and level-headedly, while maintaining Israel’s national interests as well as those of the Israel Defense Forces.”
Navy reserve officers urge probe on flotilla raid: YNet
Letter sent by 10 Navy reserve commanders to prime minister, defense minister demands independent inquiry commission into commando raid, urges higher security ranks to take responsibility for blunders
A group of 10 Navy reserve officers who served as patrol boat commanders sent a harsh letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday in which they urge the establishment of an independent inquiry commission into the flotilla raid events.
“We believe the operation ended in a military and political disaster,” the letter noted. The officers said they disagreed with claims of an intelligence or a PR failure as they believe the whole operation was doomed from the beginning.
“Most of all, we protest the fact that the responsibility for the disaster was immediately placed on the sail’s organizers,” the letter noted, suggesting that the commanding ranks and decision makers were the ones primarily responsible for the debacle. “We regard this as contempt for professionalism, battle morals and human life.”
The officers demanded the establishment of an independent inquiry commission which would hold a thorough examination of the raid. “We believe this is the best way to restore trust in the Navy command and decision makers,” the letter stated.
The officers were bewildered at the level of risk the Navy fighters were put under. “We were dumbfounded at the dismal outcome of civilians’ deaths and injuries. There is no shred of doubt in our minds that had a less trained and disciplined force been sent, the number of casualties would have been much greater, and therefore wish to express our appreciation of the combat forces.
“Nevertheless, we feel serious tactical mistakes in judgment and the use of force were made, primarily the inability to aptly characterize the mission while bearing in mind a civil vessel was being targeted.”
The officers stated that based on their experience as vessel commanders other ways could have been employed to stop the flotilla. “The MO which was exercised included a high level of friction which we feel was unnecessary, regardless of the type of resistance discovered upon the raid.”
‘Not endorsing disobedience’
One of the officers, Major Nir Barak told Ynet, “We have a lot of experience in this field. The letter was thought up out of a feelings of discomfort, mainly at the subsequent events and the defense minister and Navy command’s failure to take responsibility.
“We believe mistakes were made by the security establishment’s higher echelons which need to be addressed. We are not endorsing disobedience or draft-dodging but think one can show support for the forces and demand an examination at the same time.”
Major Barak stressed that the criticism is not directed at the soldiers but at the higher echelons which initiated and led the operation. “We think that the Navy command could have better prepared itself for this operation. The event was a military failure and there are questions which need to be answered.”
The Phoney Claim of Self-Defense – Israel’s Dilemma: Counterpunch
By NADIA HIJAB
Israel is stuck. For decades, it has used the same strategy to achieve its objectives and to rout all challengers: overwhelming force. When it meets violence with violence — even when it uses disproportionate force as in Beirut in 1982 and 2006 and Gaza in 2008 — Israel claims self-defense and usually manages to spin the facts its way. And, as it has not yet been held to account in any meaningful way, it has seen no reason to change its strategy.
But when it meets non-violence with violence, the strategy backfires. Israel is pitching the self-defense line to try to shield itself from criticism of its attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza convoy — but it’s not working.
You cannot claim self-defense when you have decided to send a thousand or so well-armed forces to board boats in international waters — vessels that were carefully searched before the voyage to make sure there were no arms. Or when you have killed up to 20 civilians and injured 54 others, while suffering no deaths yourself. If the situation were not so tragic, Israel’s spinning would be the stuff of comedy.
The visible crushing of peaceful activists usually has a powerful effect on world public opinion and this time it has pushed governments to take action to hold Israel accountable in a way that armed force has not. This is perhaps the most important contribution that those brave humanitarians have made to the Palestinian quest for justice.
And things will continue to unravel for Israel because it only knows how to use force to try to get its way. Ironically, Israel’s overkill has made the use of force so costly for those who favor armed resistance that the stage has been left clear for those who believe it is more effective to use civil resistance against a vastly superior armed force. It should be noted that Palestinian civil resistance is not new although it has recently been “discovered” by the mainstream media.
The first Palestinian uprising (Intifada) of 1987-1991 was almost completely non-violent and imposed itself on the world consciousness, making a powerful case for Palestinian rights. Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership did not know how to translate the power it generated into diplomatic gains. And that uprising was just one of a series of major acts of civil resistance stretching back a century.
Today, acts of peaceful resistance are underway throughout Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, and the rest of the world. And another outcome of Israel’s massacre on the Freedom Flotilla is that it will inexorably draw attention to the violent tactics Israel use to counter these non-violent acts.
For example, many Palestinians and their international supporters have lost their lives and been injured in protests against the illegal Wall Israel has been building in the occupied territory since 2002. The most recent victim was May 31: 21-year-old Emily Henochowicz, a student at New York’s Cooper Union, had her eye knocked out by one of the tear gas canisters Israel’s armed force routinely fire at unarmed demonstrators. She and a group of Palestinians and internationals were demonstrating in the occupied West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Flotilla. An Israeli tear gas canister killed the peaceful anti-Wall activist Bassem Abu Rahme in April 2009 as he demonstrated against his village Bil’in’s loss of 60% of its land to Israel’s Wall and settlements — and critically injured American citizen Tristan Anderson just a few weeks previously.
Israel’s international standing is also further eroded by the violence it is using against its own Palestinian citizens as they pursue their non-violent quest for equality, most recently in its draconian arrest of community leaders Ameer Makhoul and Omar Saeed. Having incarcerated both for weeks without access to legal counsel and subject to such torture as stress positions and sleep deprivation, Israel now claims to have evidence through both men’s “confessions” of collaboration with Israel’s enemies — confessions they have since retracted as obtained under duress.
Israel’s word against Ameer Makhoul’s? When it weighs the word of a known user of indiscriminate force and terror against that of a prominent civil society leader, the world will know whom to believe.
The real dilemma for Israel is that all of the force it brings to bear is aimed at achieving the unachievable: Keeping the territories it occupied in 1967, illegal under international law; privileging Jews over non-Jews within Israel, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international conventions; and denying Palestinian refugees their right of return. There are only two alternatives for Israel: to make its peace with justice and equality, or to experience growing and costly isolation.
Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.
Jewish flotilla to break Gaza siege: YNet
German Jewish group prepares flotilla to protest Israel’s blockade on Gaza. ‘Activists frightened, but not by Hamas,’ member of organization says
The German-Jewish organization Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East is preparing a Jewish flotilla to the Gaza Strip. “We intend to leave around July,” a member of the organization, Kate Leitrer, said to Ynet. “We have one small craft so far, in which there will be between 12 and 16 people, mostly Jews.”
Leitrer, herself Jewish, said there was great interest in joining. “Getting another boat means more expenses, and we’re discussing this possibility,” she said. “Because of limited space, there will be school equipment, candy, and mainly musical equipment, and there’ll be musicians aboard who’ll teach the children of Gaza. They need to see that Jews are not what how they are drawn in their eyes.”
Leitrer also claimed that Israel acted criminally in its lethal raid on the Gaza flotilla last Monday.
“The head of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) appealed to the world to send ships due to the shortage of important supplies in Gaza,” she said. “By stopping the flotilla, Israel acted criminally. Israel must not act like pirates.”
The activists are frightened, she said, but not by Hamas.
“Jews have been to Gaza in the past, and they were treated in a friendly manner,” Leitrer continued. “We have also talked with them recently, and they are very keen for us to come. We are frightened by what happened on the Marmara, but if you are committed to do good things, you have to act. People were also killed in the fight against fascism.”
She rejected Israel’s fears that weapons would be smuggled into Gaza on the aid boats.
“We haven’t heard there were weapons on the last flotilla, and people were shot and killed there,” she said. “We have contacted Israel figures and told them they are welcome to carry out searches on the boats, but we ask to be allowed to continue to Gaza. These are Gazan waters, and Israel must not control them.”
‘Open a window to Gaza’
Edith Lutz, a German Jewish member of the organization, said to Ynet the vessel is already anchored in Mediterranean waters, and that the organization had received many requests from Jews and non-Jews to take part in the flotilla.
“We began in Germany,” she said, “but many have called us from England, Sweden and the US. There may also be another boat accompanying us, mainly carrying reporters.”
Lutz explained that the Jewish flotilla aims to convey a message: Lift the siege.
“Our vessel can open a window between Israel and Gaza residents,” she said. “Two years ago I took part in the Free Gaza flotilla and wore a Magen David (Star of David), and the kids said, ‘Look, she’s Jewish,’ and they all accepted me very well. When we met (Hamas leader) Ismail Haniyeh and they told him about me, he turned to me and said they have nothing against Jews or Israel, only against the occupation.”
