There is an assumption that anything that the United Nations does with respect to Israel will amount to an exercise in tossing Jews down a well. There’s a good reason for that suspicion.
Accordingly, Israel failed to engage with Goldstone. Perhaps they thought was that Israel would be condemned, whether or not they took part in the Inquiry. Alternatively, perhaps there was some hope that the Tribunal would in any event see through Hamas’ lies, and that Israel would be vindicated. In the event, Goldstone produced both results: the first initially, and the latter – rather more quietly – after a year or so.
The decision to ignore Goldstone was an error, I think. Even if the inquiry had been an undivertable lynch mob, there’s a certain nobility in the decision to stand your ground and state your case, none the less.
Events appear to be unfolding rather differently, in relation to the UN’s Gaza Flotilla Inquiry, chaired by Geoffrey Palmer: not the Reggie Perrin actor, but the former New Zealand Prime Minister. According to Haaretz, this is what is on the cards:
- The committee determined that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is in keeping with international law, and therefore its actions to stop the flotilla were also legal.
- The report also states that, while Israel Defense Forces soldiers acted in self-defense, they used disproportionate force that led to the death of nine Turkish citizens. The report recommends that Israel pay compensation to the families of the dead and injured Turkish citizens, which Israel has already said it is willing to do.
- According to a senior government official in Jerusalem, the report criticizes the Turkish government and highlights the relationship between it and IHH, the group that organized the flotilla.
Haaretz also reports:
Officials in Jerusalem said Israel and Turkey were finding it difficult to reach an agreement because of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s directives to Turkish negotiators, who were told not to yield on the matter of an Israeli apology for the killing of Turkish citizens.
The Turkish representative on the UN panel, Ozdem Sanberk, presented a new version of an apology in an interview to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet late last week, noting that Turkey expected Israel to admit to an operational failure. Sanberk told Hurriyet that if the crisis was not solved, Turkey could lose its influence in the region.
“Panel chairman Geoffrey Palmer is willing to change the report in keeping with understandings reached by Israel and Turkey,” the Israeli government source said. The official also said that if no progress was made before the the date of the report’s release, it would be be more difficult to make progress thereafter.
This is a proper outcome.
The blockade of Gaza is certainly legal, and it is valuable that it be acknowledged as such. Israel should also, certainly, admit “operational failures” in its conduct in relation to the Mavi Marmara incident. Indeed, had the Israeli Government been reading Harry’s Place, they might have had a better idea as to what the IHH cadre had planned for them.
It would be a great pity, however, if the links between the pro-Hamas IHH – whose sister organisation has already been banned in Germany – and the Turkish Government were buried.
