Israel Matzav

Jamal al-Dura challenges Israel to an international commission

Jamal al-Dura, the father of fake martyr Muhammad al-Dura, has challenged Israel to agree to an 'international commission' to investigate his son's 'death.'

Jamal al-Dura, the father of 12-year-old Gazan Muhammad al-Dura who became a symbol of the second intifada, is willing to exhume his son's body to prove that Muhammad was killed, and that he was killed from bullets fired by IDF soldiers.

...

"Are they willing to do an international investigation? Is Israel willing? I'm not saying the people of Israel, I mean the government, and IDF soldiers," Jamal told Army Radio.

Dura claimed he had contacted Israel asking for such an investigation, but he has yet to receive an answer, leading him to accuse Israel of being afraid of such an inquiry.

"Israel now has a black stain on it in the eyes of the world," Dura said, claiming the Israeli government is now lying in order to clear itself of all blame.

A little bit late to try to clear that stain, don't you think?

When asked by Army Radio when did Muhammad die, Jamal insisted his son died on the spot. "In my opinion, he died on the spot. Yes, yes, he died next to me. If Muhammad didn't die, who injured me?" he asked.

Actually, we do know who injured Jamal al-Dura. It wasn't Israel and it happened long before the incident at Netzarim in September 2000. He lost a libel lawsuit on that one... in France. Are they impartial enough for him?

When presented with the findings of an Israeli doctor that operated on him and determined his scars predated the incident, Jamal dismissed it as lies. When pressed further, he avoided answering the question. "You can ask my lawyer in France. He'll tell you. Me, I'm not allowed to talk about this. At court, he will talk about it," he said.

Yeah.... Sure....

Dura further said he never received compensation - not from Israel nor from the Palestinian Authority - for the death of his son, that he claims is buried in al-Bureiz refugee camp.

Sure, let's dig him up... if they can find him. The problem is that even if an international commission finds that Muhammad al-Dura's death was a fake, it won't change the 'Palestinian' claim.... Ask the Turks.

Labels: Gaza, IHH, Jamal al-Dura, Mavi Marmara, Mohamed al-Dura, Pallywood, Palmer Commission, Turkey

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:36 PM 0 comments

Due process anyone?

Turkey is putting Israel 'trial' starting next Tuesday, November 6. And I'm sure this 'trial' will comport with due process like in any other western country. Right.... (Hat Tip: Joshua I).

The first hearing of the trial concerning an Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla and Mavi Marmara ship will be held at an İstanbul court on Nov.6. IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, which is one of the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla, is carrying out significant work to bring this case to the world’s attention. Hundreds of lawyers will seek co-plaintiff status at the trial.

The suspects of the trial include former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, Naval Forces commander Vice Adm. Eliezer Marom, Israel's military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin and Air Forces Intelligence head Brig. Gen. Avishai Levi. They will be tried as “fugitive suspects.” There are 490 complainants and victims in the case including flotilla passengers from 37 countries and relatives of the martyrs.

The first hearing of the Mavi Marmara trial will begin at Çağlayan Courthouse at 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 6 and it will continue for three days with breaks. Flotilla passengers from Turkey and other parts of the world, relatives of the Mavi Marmara martyrs and their lawyers will be in attendance at the trial. The trial will be closely followed by human rights observers from Turkey and abroad, media members, jurists and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

Mavi Marmara lawyers, IHH and other relief organizations which are among the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla which was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, are carrying out extensive work ahead of the first hearing of the case.

Common case of the humanity: Mavi Marmara

The article goes on to mention that the hopelessly biased United Nations 'human rights council' condemned Israel, but somehow manages to ignore the report of the United Nations' Palmer Commission, which US President Hussein Obama and his Best Friend Forever, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, tried to suppress. 

What could go wrong?

Labels: IHH, Islamic terrorism, Mavi Marmara, Palmer Commission, Turkish obsession with Israel, United Nations Human Rights Council

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:04 AM 0 comments

Turkey flushes the Palmer Commission down the memory hole

I am sure that many of you remember the UN-sponsored Palmer Commission, which issued a report on the Mavi Marmara incident that found, among other things, that Israel's blockade of Gaza is legal.

Turkey has apparently decided to pretend that the Palmer Commission doesn't exist. In a report on the first scheduled 'hearing' in the 'trial' of four senior IDF officers for the Mavi Marmara incident, see if you can figure out where Today's Zaman mentions the Palmer Commission (Hat Tip: Joshua I).

Following the Mavi Marmara attack, Israel's government set up the Turkel Commission, a commission of inquiry headed by Israeli Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel, to investigate the attack. Turkish leaders dismissed the Israeli investigation, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeated the demand for an independent investigation, stating that the Israeli investigation would not have international credibility.

Turkey also established an inquiry, which concluded, in contrast to the Israeli inquiry, that the Gaza blockade and the Israeli raid are illegal. After the Turkish inquiry, Turkey described the raid as a violation of international law “tantamount to banditry and piracy” and described the killings of activists as “state-sponsored terrorism.” Concerning the Israeli inquiry, Turkey said its own commission was “surprised, appalled and dismayed that the national inquiry process in Israel has resulted in the exoneration of the Israeli armed forces.”

Funny. I couldn't find any mention of the Palmer Commission there either. I guess if Turkey doesn't have an answer for something, it doesn't exist.

But if this is an indication of the fairness of the 'trial' to be held in Turkey, it should be obvious even to those who are not pro-Israel partisans why the four officers in question have no plans to be there.

Labels: Mavi Marmara, Palmer Commission, Turkish obsession with Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:14 PM 0 comments

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts?

Especially since the Palmer Commission report on the Mavi Marmara incident came out a few months ago, Israel has had improving relations with Greece. Is this a sign that may change?

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement Tuesday calling on new Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papaedemos “to firmly and unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism,” after the far-right Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) party whose leaders have a record of anti-Semitic statements was brought into the ruling coalition as a junior partner.

A similar statement was issued by the American Jewish Committee last week.

According to sources in Jerusalem, Israel is not publicly commenting on the matter so as not to create problems for the small Greek Jewish community of 5,000, which since 2010 has seen the torching of two synagogues – one in Corfu and the other in Crete – and the desecration of a Holocaust memorial in Salonika. The sources pointed out that the Greek Jewish community itself has not related to the LAOS issue, preferring to keep a low profile on the matter.

According to the ADL, LAOS leader Georgios Karatzaferis has said “the Jews have no legitimacy to speak in Greece and provoke the political world,” and has referred to the Holocaust, Auschwitz and Dachau as “myths.” He also claimed Jews and Israel were involved in planning and executing the 9/11 terror attacks against America.

Karatzaferis played an important role in the formation of the government, which was set up last week to extricate the country from its debt crisis.

“At a time when the new government is seeking to set a new tone in Greece, they have included a party whose leaders have openly engaged in old-fashioned anti-Semitic hatred,” said Abraham Foxman, ADL’s national director. “Given the unmistakable anti-Semitism of the LAOS leadership, the prime minister should clearly and publicly state that his government will not tolerate any expressions of anti-Semitism by public officials and will condemn any manifestations of anti- Semitism in Greece.”

The ADL said the party’s newly appointed minister of infrastructure, transport and networks, Makis Voridis, has questioned whether the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was in fact an authentic document about a global Jewish conspiracy.

The ADL statement also stated that Adonis Georgiadis – the newly appointed deputy minister for development – is reported to have said that “all major banks belong to the Jews” and that “the Jewish Lobby” would determine the fate of Greece’s foreign debt.

The party has only 16 seats in Greece’s 300-seat parliament. It now has one minister, as well as two alternative ministers and two deputy ministers in the new government. It is one of only three parties in the coalition, the others being George Papandreou’s socialist PASOK party and the conservative New Democracy party of Antonis Samaras, which together control 237 seats. While LAOS was not needed to build the coalition, its inclusion is widely believed to be an attempt to garner as much support as possible for the painful austerity steps Greece is expected to take in the coming months.

With that crew in power, they could even reconcile with Turkey....

Labels: Greece, Greek-Israeli military cooperation, Palmer Commission, Turkey

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:39 PM 1 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, October 4.

1) Who is paying attention?

Last week the New York Times had an editorial, The Palestinians' Bid. One conclusion was foregone.

There is plenty of blame to go around. The main responsibility right now belongs to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel who refuses to make any serious compromises for peace. He appears far more concerned about his own political survival than his country’s increasing isolation or the threat of renewed violence in the West Bank and all around Israel’s borders.

I've noted before that even Thomas Friedman acknowledged that Netanyahu froze building in settlements but that didn't get Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate seriously. The editorial, though, isn't interested in facts, just blame. The editorial does acknowledge that Abbas didn't make a deal with Ehud Olmert in 2008.

Mr. Olmert said his ideas were never formally rejected by Mr. Abbas, who, despite recent assertiveness, suffers from an inability to make decisions. When Mr. Netanyahu took office, Mr. Abbas wanted to pick up where Mr. Olmert left off, but Mr. Netanyahu wanted to start fresh.

First of all Abbas has no trouble making decisions. He doesn't want to negotiate and he allows sympathetic politicians, academics and journalists cover for him. (In Barry Rubin's clever terminology - the MUG complex.) Like Olmert, the New York Times's editors want Netanyahu to offer Abbas a deal that he previously rejected. (Yes, formally or not, it was rejected; Olmert's claim is wishful thinking.) While I don't agree with everything here and don't like the title, the editors of the Washington Post draw a different conclusion in More peace-process posturing from Israelis and Palestinians:

Of the two, the Palestinian stance is more objectionable, and not only because it prevents any process from going forward. By his own account, President Mahmoud Abbas’s hard-line stance on the settlement issue is unfounded: He has said more than once that he adopted it only because he felt obliged to match a similar demand by President Obama. Mr. Obama, however, has dropped that condition; and as the Palestinians know, the matter is purely symbolic — both sides agree that Israel will annex the Jerusalem neighborhoods and West Bank settlements where most of the building is going on. For example, during a previous round of negotiations, Mr. Abbas’s negotiators specifically agreed to Israeli annexation of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo; yet an announcement of new construction there last week prompted theatrical denunciations by those same Palestinian officials, as well as criticism from the Quartet. Mr. Abbas’s insistence on preconditions allows him to continue his separate campaign for recognition of Palestine by the United Nations: He is about to embark on a global tour in search of votes on the Security Council. His cynical obstructionism ought to be enough to persuade undecided governments, such as Colombia and Portugal, to withhold support — or at least to require that Mr. Abbas fully accept the Quartet’s initiative before they back his.

Unlike the New York Times, The Washington Post is demanding at least lip service from Abbas.

2) Warfare by any other name

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Kenneth Anderson makes the case (from his understanding by no inside knowledge) for justifying the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki. (h/t Legal Insurrection)

The government has maintained throughout all this that Al-Aulaqi was deemed a lawful target not on account of his expression of opinions, including calls to violence against the United States and its citizens, but instead on account of his operational involvement in AQAP, in ways going to leadership of an associated force terrorist organization and operational and planning involvement. My view of this targeted killing is straightforwardly, congratulations, Mr. President. What has been visible publicly leaves little or no doubt in my mind that Al-Aulaqi was deeply involved in AQAP in operations, and indeed at the highest levels.

(Please note that the REPORTING of the New York Times plays down Awlaki's operational role in Al Qaeda. ) Anderson doesn't buy the idea of "extra-judicial killings." In a related article, Anderson discusses Public Legitimacy for Targeted Killing Using Drones. At the end he writes:

The best place to be, then, for both sides, is roughly in the middle that Bellinger stakes out. (Note that nothing I’ve said here should be attributed to him; these are my views on the negotiation stakes.) Meaning that we have reasons to talk with our allies at length and in detail, in private and public, to try and persuade them to our views, and to persuade them that genuflecting to their advocacy and NGO groups will be worse for them than accepting our space to act, insofar as we can give a plausible interpretation of law. Plausibility is the central touchstone for international law in relations among states, finally; we and they don’t have to agree, only to agree that our several interpretations are within the ballpark of acceptability. It might involve alterations of our practice; it might not. This will never satisfy the non-governmental advocates or the academics, of course. They have no skin in the game and hence can always hold out for the most extreme position with only an indirect cost in credibility. In the case of drones, in which even some of the advocates are belatedly realizing that the weapon is indeed more precise and sparing of civilians, ignoring the NGO advocates as profoundly mistaken has spared a human tragedy in collateral damage over the long run. But the striking thing about the interstate negotiations among allies is that they don’t have to reach a conclusion — an agreement — and probably won’t. An acceptance of the plausibility of each side’s position and an agreement to continue discussion around alternatives that are considered plausible is sufficient.

I like his dismissal of NGO's. They need to insist that injustices persist in order to justify their continued existence and funding. (The Bellinger article is here, via memeorandum) Unfortunately by using NGO's as sources, the media magnifies their importance and influence.

3) No apologies necessary At UN Watch, legal expert Trevor Norwitz explains the Palmer report. (h/t Yaacov Lozowick) Of particular note is this:

Although the Palmer report upheld Israel’s legal position, it did criticize the execution of the flotilla interception. As it notes, Israel did not anticipate that there would be significant violent opposition to an attempt to board the ships. This intelligence failure hampered the proper preparation and execution of the mission. The report echoes criticism that had already been leveled at the operation by Israeli sources, including suggestions that, having encountered heavy resistance to their initial attempt to board the Mavi Marmara from speedboats, the Israelis should have reconsidered their plan to board immediately by helicopter, and that before actually boarding the Israelis should have given a fifth and final warning or fired a shot across the ship’s bow. These seem like sensible suggestions, especially to someone with no experience in planning complex naval operations. However it is hard to square such tempered and modest recommendations with the unequivocal legalistic terms “excessive and unreasonable,” which naturally provided the media with their favorite quotes and sound bites. There is no question that mistakes were made and the operation was not a success, but it is hard to read the report and not feel that the phrase “excessive and unreasonable” is inconsistent with the actual findings made. That characterization is more likely explained by the commissioners’ desire to appear even-handed, and perception of their express policy imperative “to achieve a way forward”. In this same spirit, the Report suggests that Israel make an appropriate statement of regret and offer a payment for the benefit of the deceased and injured, not because of any legal obligation or liability but symbolically “to advance the interests of stability in the Middle East”. The former Israel has done and the latter is a reasonable suggestion that I expect Israel would be willing to comply with if that would put an end to the matter.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Anwar al-Awlaki, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud K. Olmert, Mavi Marmara, New York Times, Palmer Commission, Soccer Dad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:40 PM 0 comments

The Palmer report's moral clarity

You will recall the Palmer commission report, which was released a few weeks ago, which concluded that Israel's blockade of Gaza is legal, but which described actions taken by the Israeli Navy when boarding the Mavi Marmara as 'excessive.'

Now that the dust has settled and people have had time to read and digest the report, UN Watch provides an important analysis of the report by Trevor Norwitz, a lawyer at a large New York law firm. Norwitz says that the report is even more on Israel's side than was previously believed.

The Palmer report upholds the Israeli position on all of the important legal elements regarding the flotilla incident. This may come as a surprise to anyone following the press coverage, which ironically but not surprisingly emphasized its criticism of the Israeli operation. (Even the Wall Street Journal published its report under the headline “UN Calls Israel Force On Flotilla Excessive.”) The Palmer report found that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza was legal and “was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea,” that its implementation “complied with the requirements of international law,” that Israel had a “right to visit and search the vessel and to capture it if found in breach of a blockade,” including in international waters, that the flotilla organizers planned “in advance to violently resist any boarding attempt” and that “Israeli Defense Forces personnel faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they boarded the Mavi Marmara” and responded in self-defence. The commissioners also noted that they have serious questions about “the conduct, true nature and objectives of the flotilla organizers, particularly [the Turkish NGO] IHH,” and described the decision to breach the blockade as a “dangerous and reckless act,” which “needlessly carried the potential for escalation.”

In stating these legal conclusions and seemingly obvious facts, the Palmer report does something that recent reports emanating from the UN Human Rights Council have tragically failed to do, namely place the responsibility for bad outcomes where it belongs. By allocating primary responsibility for violence to the instigators – those who fire rockets at civilian towns, and who recklessly force violent confrontations to generate publicity – this report will discourage the manipulation of international law and its institutions for political ends. By contrast, reports recently produced under the auspices of the Human Rights Council could be said to have rewarded and encouraged such cynical behavior. For example, the Goldstone Report on Israel’s 2009 Gaza war, even though Judge Richard Goldstone has himself reconsidered its principal findings, was viewed as a great victory and exoneration by Hamas, which has subsequently replenished its supply of rockets and other weapons. Hopefully the Palmer report will discourage future reckless efforts to violently break the blockade.

...

Although the Palmer report upheld Israel’s legal position, it did criticize the execution of the flotilla interception. As it notes, Israel did not anticipate that there would be significant violent opposition to an attempt to board the ships. This intelligence failure hampered the proper preparation and execution of the mission. The report echoes criticism that had already been leveled at the operation by Israeli sources, including suggestions that, having encountered heavy resistance to their initial attempt to board the Mavi Marmara from speedboats, the Israelis should have reconsidered their plan to board immediately by helicopter, and that before actually boarding the Israelis should have given a fifth and final warning or fired a shot across the ship’s bow. These seem like sensible suggestions, especially to someone with no experience in planning complex naval operations. However it is hard to square such tempered and modest recommendations with the unequivocal legalistic terms “excessive and unreasonable,” which naturally provided the media with their favorite quotes and sound bites.

There is no question that mistakes were made and the operation was not a success, but it is hard to read the report and not feel that the phrase “excessive and unreasonable” is inconsistent with the actual findings made. That characterization is more likely explained by the commissioners’ desire to appear even-handed, and perception of their express policy imperative “to achieve a way forward”. In this same spirit, the Report suggests that Israel make an appropriate statement of regret and offer a payment for the benefit of the deceased and injured, not because of any legal obligation or liability but symbolically “to advance the interests of stability in the Middle East”. The former Israel has done and the latter is a reasonable suggestion that I expect Israel would be willing to comply with if that would put an end to the matter.

My problem is that I doubt that a relatively unbiased commission like the Palmer Commission will ever be allowed to be formed again when Israel is the subject. Norwitz tries to use the report to show that the UN can work, and the report would seem to show that. But now that the majority of the World body has seen what happens when an unbiased commission is appointed to deal with Israel, I doubt they will ever make the mistake of letting it happen again.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Mavi Marmara, Palmer Commission, Turkish obsession with Israel, United Nations Human Rights Council

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:29 AM 0 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, September 8.

1) Goldstone vs. Palmer

Gerald Steinberg and Gidon Shaviv explain why the Palmer report on the Mavi Marmara incident came out with results that were generally fair to Israel, whereas the Goldstone report was hopelessly compromise.

The first factor is that different UN bodies were behind the two reports. The Goldstone “fact finding” commission arose out of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which has 47 member states, including China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and, until recently, Libya and even Iran. The UNHRC has Israel as the only country on its permanent agenda and consistently singles out Israel for condemnations.

The record shows that activities involving the UNHRC are invariably biased.

In sharp contrast, the Palmer Commission was formed under the auspices of the UN Secretary General, reporting directly to him, and not to the UNHRC, where staff and a majority of countries hostile to Israel were unable to control the events.

I would add that the recommendation for Goldstone came from the OIC, which as an organization that rejects the war crimes charges against Omar Bashir of the Sudan. That magnifies the hypocrisy factor in the proceedings.

What's disturbing is the lack of acknowledgment of the corruption of the Goldstone report. After Richard Goldstone reconsidered his commission's report Ethan Bronner and Jennifer Medina of the New York Times wrote Past Holds Clue to Goldstone’s Shift on the Gaza War

“I know he was extremely hurt by the reaction to the report,” said Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Foundations, who has known Mr. Goldstone for years and remains close to him. “I think he was extremely uncomfortable in providing some fodder to people who were looking for anything they could use against Israel.”
In describing his new position, Mr. Goldstone wrote, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document.” He has declined requests to elaborate. Interviews with two dozen people who know him suggest a combination of reasons: the hostility from his community, disappointment about Hamas’s continuing attacks on civilians, and new understanding of Israel’s conduct in a few of the most deadly incidents of the war.
The year and a half since the Gaza report was published have been hard on Mr. Goldstone. Hailed by the Arab world and the anti-Israel left, he has been censured by those with whom he had always identified. One of his two daughters, who spent more than a decade in Israel and now lives in Canada with the man she married here, has been furious with him, according to a family friend; he was nearly unable to attend the bar mitzvah of his other daughter’s son in South Africa because of plans by some members of the Jewish community there to demonstrate against his presence.

This article is misdirection at its worst. By describing the factors that caused Judge Goldstone to reconsider his commission's work the New York Times implied that his reconsideration was not normative. But given the pre-existing prejudices of his cohorts, the question should have been how an investigation so tainted could possibly be fair. Goldstone's reconsideration was less newsworthy than the open bias of the commission from its very start.

2) Our missiles are missing

CNN reported yesterday Libyan missiles looted (via memeorandum):

Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya, noting that "in every city we arrive, the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles."

He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market.

"We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya, and I've seen cars packed with them." he said. "They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone."

The article doesn't mention another possible destination for the missiles. Reuters reported last week Israel says Gaza gets anti-plane arms from Libya.

3) It's been going on for three decades, or more

Yesterday Jonathan Schanzer wrote:

Abbas's two sons, Yasser and Tarek, have been gobbling up US contracts and are running the West Bank like a mafia family.

Daniel Pipes wrote How important is the PLO? in April 1983.

The benefits to the PLO have been staggering. Financial statistics cannot be specified, for the PLO does not circulate its budget, but published reports indicate that in recent years the organization received about $250 million yearly from Saudi Arabia and smaller amounts from other oil states, including $60 million a year from Kuwait. At a summit conference in Baghdad in 1978, the Arab states promised another $100 million annually. Non-Arab governments (such as the Soviet bloc) also gave generously; and if these insisted on cash for arms, third parties might be induced to pick up the tab, as in April 1982 when the Saudis promised $250 million to pay for weapons from Bulgaria, Hungary, and East Germany. When the PLO requested help from the Arab states last summer, the Algerian foreign minister called in the Soviet ambassador in Algiers at four in the morning and gave him a check for $20 million; the weapons reportedly arrived in Beirut several days later by air.
About 5 to 10 percent of the pay of the 300,000 Palestinians working in the Gulf states is withheld by the governments there and earmarked for the PLO; were all of this money to reach its stated destination (which is not the case), it would provide the PLO with about another $250 million a year. Aid also comes from the farther away, from radical and Islamic groups around the world: in January 1983, for instance, the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement in Kuala Lumpur gave a check for $80,000 to the local PLO representative. Terrorist activities have also proved a source of funds; the PLO reportedly received $20 million in December 1975 for releasing the OPEC oil ministers it had helped take hostage.
With this capital, the PLO was able to start large-scale business enterprises. In Lebanon, it ran a conglomerate called Samad ("Steadfast") whose 10,000 employees and estimated $40-million gross revenues in 1980 made it one of the country's largest firms. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organizational member of the PLO, achieved a near-monopoly over steel products in South Lebanon during the late 1970s by importing steel from the Soviet bloc at concessionary prices and paying no import duties (the PLO controlled the ports of Sidon and Tyre). Its factory, the Modern Mechanized Establishment near Sidon, undercut competitors and drove them out of business; then it raised prices and reaped huge profits. Many Lebanese believed that predatory pricing was integral to the PLO's plans to retain control over South Lebanon. In addition to its local investments - a hotel in Lebanon, a chicken farm in Syria - the PLO owns a portfolio of investments in the industrial states, including a disco club in Italy and an airline in Belgium.

Abbas's corruption isn't new. He's just the most recent and possibly weakest practitioner at the head of Fatah.

4) Followup

Yesterday I wrote that PM Netanyahu agreed to a building freeze in response to the diplomatic furor over the announcement of building in Ramat Shlomo. Israel Matzav pointed out that I had the chronology wrong. He also speculates (contrary to what I wrote) that he believes that Abbas would have gone through the motions of negotiating with Tzippi Livni (had she formed the current government) as he would have had no excuse not to.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Libya, Middle East Media Sampler, Palmer Commission, PLO, Richard Goldstone, Soccer Dad, surface-to-air missiles, Tzipi Livni

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:08 PM 0 comments

Why Palmer did so much better than Goldstone

Gerald Steinberg and Gidon Shaviv explain why the Palmer Commission report is so much less biased than the Goldstone Report. Aside from the obvious (panel makeup and mandate), they come up with this.

Finally and most importantly, the methodology and sources which the two commissions relied upon were entirely different. The Palmer report, as per its mandate, was based mainly on reports submitted by the governments of Israel and Turkey. As a result, the analysis was informed by numerous details and a credible summary of the events. Where the Palmer Commission could not fully reconcile or verify the submissions, they modestly acknowledged this fact.

The Goldstone Report however, relied heavily on submissions from highly politicized, mainly pro-Palestinian NGOs. The claims and so-called eyewitness testimony, quoting Palestinians whose allegations could not be verified, resulted in highly dubious conclusions. Highly distorted NGO analyses of international law were also reflected in the controversial interpretations of law in the Goldstone report. The weight given to such suspect sources is evidenced by over 500 references to NGOs in Goldstone’s publication, while Palmer cited NGOs in three places, without accepting their claims.

At least in the case of Israel's report, that's because the Israeli report was an official government commission of inquiry which did not rely on NGO's - the IDF sent witnesses to the civilian Terkel Commission. There was much discussion at the time about who should be sent and whether anyone should be sent at all from the IDF. By contrast, after Operation Cast Lead, the government refused to set up a non-military investigation at all.

We have a great military justice system, but to the rest of the world, the IDF investigating the IDF isn't always going to pass a smell test. Perhaps, if a commission is made up of non-military people whose credentials are unquestioned, like the Terkel Commission, such a commission is not a bad idea.

UPDATE 3:30 PM

I've corrected the last paragraph to make clear that I meant that the Terkel Commission was not a bad idea for Israel.

Labels: Goldstone Report, Palmer Commission, Terkel Committee

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:25 PM 1 comments

Use of force never acceptable, even in self-defense?

Evelyn Gordon has some prescient observations regarding the Palmer Commission's conclusion that the use of force by the IDF on the Mavi Marmara was 'excessive.'

This begs an obvious question: How were the soldiers supposed to subdue this much larger group of heavily armed opponents, whom the report itself admits posed a threat to their own lives, without causing any injuries or deaths? The report provides no answer, because in reality, it’s simply not possible.

Moreover, as any soldier knows, a wounded opponent can still kill. Shoot a man in the leg, for instance, and he can still kill you with his iron bar, stave, chain, knife or gun. The Israelis also had no way of knowing what other weaponry passengers might have – whether, for instance, some might have wired themselves with explosives, as Islamic fanatics (which by this point the soldiers knew they were facing) often do. Under such circumstances, no soldier worth his salt shoots once and hopes for the best; he keeps shooting until he’s sure his opponent is out of action. In a fight of this kind, the unpleasant truth is shooting someone multiple times is often a necessary precaution to make sure your opponent doesn’t kill you first.

Granted, the soldiers might never have been in this situation had the raid not been so poorly planned and executed. But once they were attacked in a way that required them “to use force for their own protection,” nothing they did was “excessive and unreasonable”; they did what was necessary under the circumstances to protect themselves.

Thus the report’s implication is that injuring or killing another is never acceptable, even in self-defense; it’s always “excessive and unreasonable.” But if soldiers on a legitimate mission – which the report says enforcing the Gaza blockade was – can’t use lethal force even to save their own lives, then something is badly wrong with the West’s attitude toward the use of military force.

The problem isn't with the West's attitude toward the use of military force. The problem is that there is something badly wrong with the West's attitude toward the use of military force by Jews. If any other country had used force the way the IDF did on the Marmara and came under investigation by a Palmer Commission, they would have gotten off scot free. Of course, no country other than Israel would ever have come under investigation for the use of force as on the Marmara in the first place.

Labels: excessive force, Mavi Marmara, Palmer Commission, use of force

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:49 AM 2 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here is Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, September 6.

1) The Peter Principle in Palestine

Last week Khaled Abu Toameh wrote Failed Leaders Do Not Deserve to Become "Presidents" in which he lambastes Mahmoud Abbas for pursuing the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) at the UN later this month. (There's a similarly themed article at Comment is Free by Mehdi Hasan. h/t Lynn)

The 76-year-old Abbas, however, is evidently not concerned about the consequences of his UN gamble.
So what if the Americans cut off more than $500 million in annual aid to the Palestinians?
Who cares if many of the Palestinians' friends in Europe are advising Abbas that his initiative would damage the peace process and further complicate the situation in the Middle East?
And who cares if even some Arab countries are opposed to the statehood plan? Just this week it was reported that Jordan's King Abdullah II had advised Abbas to reconsider the statehood bid out of fear that it would result in the loss of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.
Like the rest of the Arab regimes, the Jordanians are afraid that a Palestinian state would mean that millions of refugees living in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon would stay in these countries.The refugees do not want to go to a Palestinian state in the 1967 territories.They want to go back to Israel, and this is what the Palestinian Liberation Organization has been demanding. So if the PLO is gone, the refugees will not have anyone to represent their case.

That last paragraph makes me a little uncomfortable as is it sounds much like an argument that Hamas would make. Abu Toameh has followed up that article with another, Why Palestine Will Not Have Peaceful Relations with Israel

How can the Palestinians have diplomatic and peaceful relations with Israel when many are calling on Jordan and Egypt to close down the Israeli embassies in Amman and Cairo and expel the ambassadors?
The Palestinian Authority is now saying that after the UN vote on the proposed Palestinian state, it will start talking with Hamas and other groups about the need to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories.
But can anyone provide guarantees that Hamas, or a more radical group, would not win the vote? In January 2006, many Palestinian Authority officials and Western "experts" assured the Americans and Europeans that Hamas would never win the parliamentary election.
Abbas is well aware of the fact that the state that he is seeking from the UN will have jurisdiction only over those areas in the West Bank that are under his control today.

Both articles present the Palestinian diplomatic efforts in a much different light from the way they are portrayed in the mainstream media.

Jennifer Rubin makes an interesting observation at the end of a column yesterday regarding the Palmer report (h/t Love of the Land):

Not only is this an implicit repudiation of the premises of the Goldstone Report (which, in Operation Cast Lead, portrayed the Israelis as aggressors and Gazans as victims), but it is a powerful argument against granting the Palestinians their request for a declaration of statehood. The government of that new state is co-run by the very terrorists described in the flotilla report as waging war on Israel.
The United Nations is now going to reward Hamas with a declaration (albeit symbolic) that its unity government joins the “international community” of civilized nations? It’s of course preposterous. Neither the United Nations nor anyone else knows how, or even if, the unity government will function. What we do know is that Israel is involved (still) in an ongoing war against terrorists who target Israeli civilians in contravention of international law. Perhaps when it is Israelis’ turn to speak on the resolution, its representatives should hand the microphone over to Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Álvaro Uribe, who can read their informative report to the General Assembly.

There's another side to this observation too. A few months after the Goldstone report, Judge Goldstone himself, said that his investigation wasn't necessary. The Palmer report confirmed that Israel's blockade, despite the chorus of critics, is legal under international law. And now following those two, the Palestinians wish to use international law to achieve their goals. To anyone who is paying attention, Goldstone and Palmer point out the current corruption of the state of international law (at least as practiced by the UN), which should make the UDI even more suspect.

2) Critiquing the critics

David Bernstein of the Volokh conspiracy takes on two of Israel's critics regarding the Palmer report. In the first case he rejects Kevin Jon Heller's assertion that the blockade is illegal.

Because the Report concluded that the Hamas-Israel conflict was an IAC, it didn’t contradict Heller’s argument that if it’s not an IAC, the blockade is illegal under international law. But Heller also, as he acknowledges, “questioned the legality of the blockade” and said that it was not just wrong but that Israel’s claim to be in an IAC with Hamas is wholly implausible. While one Report cannot establish in everyone’s mind the lawfulness of the blockade, surely if an unsympathetic (or at the very least, non-sympathetic) forum like a U.N. commission adopts the Israeli position on IAC, that position cannot be deemed beyond the realm of even plausible argument, and Heller’s analysis is indeed “contradicted.”

In the latter case he reminds us the Juan Cole claimed that the Mavi Marmara was populated by peaceful volunteers. The Palmer report though writes:

Palmer Report: Israeli forces “faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they boarded the Mavi Marmara requiring them to use force for their own protection. Three soldiers were captured, mistreated, and placed at risk by those passengers. Several others were wounded.”
As I pointed out at the time, Israel relied on faulty intelligence, and should have recalled its forces and started from square one when it became clear that they weren’t facing peaceful “aid volunteers,” but organized, violent fanatics itching for a fight.

Many of Israel's critics were refuted by the Palmer report, yet that aspect of the report seems to have been largely ignored.

3) Burning documents

Anti-Israel blogger and publicity hound, Richard Silverstein must be thrilled that he is once again a principal in a New York Times story, Leak Offers Look at Efforts by U.S. to Spy on Israel (via memeorandum)

I really don't want to give the limelight seeker more attention, but Israel Matzav noted

And by the way, someone in the US Attorney's office in Seattle ought to be looking into prosecuting Silverstein for destroying evidence.

He said he had burned the secret documents in his Seattle backyard after Mr. Leibowitz came under investigation in mid-2009, but he recalled that there were about 200 pages of verbatim records of telephone calls and what seemed to be embassy conversations. He said that in one transcript, Israeli officials discussed their worry that their exchanges might be monitored.

Sounds like destruction of evidence to me.

The guy is an unprincipled egotistical scoundrel; if he gets prosecuted because he boasted of a crime to the New York Times that would be satisfying.

4) Cohen-head

It's hard to come up with new insults for Roger Cohen, though calling him a Zionist agent is pretty clever. his latest Israel Isolates Itself is typical of his work. It's filled with half-truths and distortions. My Right Word and Elder of Ziyon have already fisked it. One point here, Cohen writes:

The Palmer report, leaked to The New York Times last week, is a split-the-difference document, with the Israeli and Turkish members of the panel including notes of dissent. My rough translation of its conclusion would be this message to Israel: You had the right to do it but what you did was way over the top and just plain dumb.

Except this is from a previous Cohen article:

The logic of the Israeli offensive, if there is one, must surely be that Hamas can be so weakened as ultimately to crumble. That is also the logic of the relentless blockade that persisted during the six-month cease-fire despite Israel’s earlier commitment, as part of the deal, to opening border crossings.

In other words he believes the blockade to keep weapons out of Gaza to be wrong. The Palmer report showed that he was wrong. That's more than a split decision; Cohen's premise was knocked out. He possesses neither the good sense nor the humility to acknowledge that he is mistaken.

Labels: diplomatic isolation, Middle East Media Sampler, Palmer Commission, Richard Silverstein, Roger Cohen, Soccer Dad, spying, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:44 PM 0 comments

A word of caution on the Palmer Commission report

In reviewing the Palmer Commission's report on the Mavi Marmara incident, it's important to keep in mind the methodological limitations of the panel's work. This is from the report:

4. The manner in which the Panel was to carry out its task was set out in the Method of Work established by the Secretary-General. The Panel was to operate by consensus and the findings of the report and any recommendations it may contain were to be agreed by consensus. However, the Method of Work also provided that where, despite the best efforts of the Chair and Vice-Chair, it was not possible to achieve consensus among the members of the Panel, the Chair and Vice-Chair would agree. This report has been adopted on the agreement of the Chair and Vice-Chair under that procedure.

5. It needs to be understood from the outset that this Panel is unique. Its methods of inquiry are similarly unique. The Panel is not a court. It was not asked to make determinations of the legal issues or to adjudicate on liability.

6. In particular, the Panel’s means of obtaining information were through diplomatic channels. The Panel enjoyed no coercive powers to compel witnesses to provide evidence. It could not conduct criminal investigations. The Panel was required to obtain its information from the two nations primarily involved in its inquiry, Turkey and Israel, and other affected States. The position is thoroughly understandable in the context of the Panel’s inquiry but the limitation is important. It means that the Panel cannot make definitive findings either of fact or law. But it can give its view.

7. Nevertheless, the Panel had in front of it a range of material, including statements from 93 individuals that were appended to the Turkish report,1 and excerpts of statements by IDF personnel engaged in the incident that were included in the Israeli report. In this regard, we stress again that the Panel is not a court. We have not personally heard the witnesses whose statements we have read. Nor are we able to make definite findings on each statement’s reliability and credibility. They are more plausible on some aspects than others. But in certain areas, when viewed as a whole, we regard them as useful material for the purposes of the Inquiry.

...

10. After reviewing the reports of both national investigations, the Panel addressed a series of questions to each Point of Contact identifying further information or clarifications that it required. The Panel received written responses and additional material on 11 April 20115 and met with the Points of Contact for Turkey and Israel on 26 and 27 April 2011 respectively.6

11. It will be clear from the above that the essential logic of the Panel’s inquiry is that it is dependent upon the investigations conducted by Israel and Turkey. Those two countries have quite separate and distinct legal systems and different methods of conducting their domestic inquiries into the present subject matter. Turkey established a National Commission of Inquiry in accordance with its domestic procedures that operated within the Turkish governmental system with prosecutors, governmental officials, police and others bringing together the material that has been put in front of us. Israel established an independent Public Commission headed by a retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice Turkel, with three other members and two distinguished foreign observers. Both investigations sought advice from specialist legal consultants.

12. What the Panel has done is to review the two national reports and identify where the differences over what happened arise. Where possible, we have tried to set out what is accepted as established by both Israel and Turkey, and where the areas of dispute lie. We set out what the Panel considers happened as far as that can be done on the information with which the Panel has been provided.

13. In relation to the relevant legal principles of public international law the position is similar. The Chair and Vice-Chair in the Appendix to this report set out their own account of what they believe to be the state of public international law as it applies to the incident. Both national investigations did the same. They differ as widely on the applicable law as they do on what actually happened.

14. We observe that the legal views of Israel and Turkey are no more authoritative or definitive than our own. A Commission of Inquiry is not a court any more than the Panel is. The findings of a Commission of Inquiry bind no one, unlike those of a court. So the legal issues at large in this matter have not been authoritatively determined by the two States involved and neither can they be by the Panel.

15. The Panel will not add value for the United Nations by attempting to determine contested facts or by arguing endlessly about the applicable law. Too much legal analysis threatens to produce political paralysis. Whether what occurred here was legally defensible is important but in diplomatic terms it is not dispositive of what has become an important irritant not only in the relationship between two important nations but also in the Middle East generally. The Panel has been entrusted with some policy responsibilities and that was not the case with the domestic investigations whose reports we have received.

I presented this to you because I now want to look at one example from the report and see where the facts - which are in dispute - might lead to different conclusions. The incident I'd like to show is the description in the Palmer Commission report regarding Furkan Dogan, the 19-year old Turkish-American dual citizen, who was the only person to die on the boat who was not solely a Turk. I choose that incident because it highlighted a column which was written by Roger Cohen in Tuesday's New York Times, which I discussed here. I argued that Cohen is attempting to make the report seem to place Israel in the wrong, when the evidence overwhelmingly places Turkey in the wrong. Both of the parties see the report that way, which is shown by the fact that Israel has accepted the report with reservations, while Turkey has rejected it entirely.

Cohen quotes from the report.

“At least one of those killed, Furkan Dogan, was shot at extremely close range. Mr. Dogan sustained wounds to the face, back of the skull, back and left leg. That suggests he may already have been lying wounded when the fatal shot was delivered, as suggested by witness accounts to that effect.”

The Palmer Commission report (which I have put on my site here) says exactly what Cohen quoted it as saying. But it said much more.

127. The material before the Panel does not contest the fact that nine passengers were killed and many others seriously wounded by Israeli forces during the take-over of the Mavi Marmara. However, despite the investigation and conclusions reached in Israel’s report, no satisfactory explanation has been provided to the Panel for how the individual deaths occurred.404 The Israeli Point of Contact sought to explain to the Panel that the chaotic circumstances of the situation, made it “difficult to identify specific incidents described by soldiers as related to a specific casualty from among the nine activists who died during the takeover.”405 This is greatly to be regretted.

128.The information contained in the two reports largely coincides with respect to the wounds received by the nine deceased.406 In the Panel’s view the following facts are of particular concern and have not been adequately answered in the material provided by Israel. Although the Israeli Point of Contact provided a general response to these points,407 he was unable to provide the Panel with more detailed information, particularly with respect to the death of the passenger described below:408

...

At least one of those killed, Furkan Doğan, was shot at extremely close range.427 Mr. Doğan sustained wounds to the face, back of the skull, back and left leg. That suggests he may already have been lying wounded when the fatal shot was delivered, as suggested by witness accounts to that effect.428

If you read the report, and read the footnotes, it is clear that the Palmer Commission did not examine the bodies. All of the details relating to the bullet wounds suffered by those who were killed were provided by the Turkish investigation. Neither the Israeli Terkel commission nor the Palmer Commission actually saw the bodies - only the autopsy reports (if that). Could the Turks have lied about the bullet wounds? (I don't think I even need to answer that question).

Moreover, the Palmer Commission concludes that those killed - all nine of them - were part of an organized violent resistance to the Israeli attempt to board the ship. That fits with the video taken on the ship's own cameras which showed that the only people on the upper deck were people who were part of the IHH group - as all of those killed were. And that is a conclusion which is not dependent upon facts that were not placed directly in evidence before the commission. That conclusion is based on objective evidence - the videos - which could not have been altered by one side or the other without the Commission's knowledge.

123. It is clear to the Panel that preparations were made by some of the passengers on the Mavi Marmara well in advance to violently resist any boarding attempt.383 The description given in the Israeli report is consistent with passenger testimonies to the Turkish investigation that describe cutting iron bars from the guard rails of the ship, opening fire hoses, donning life or bullet proof vests and gas masks, and assuming pre-agreed positions in anticipation of an attack.384 Witness reports also describe doctors and medical personnel coordinating before the boarding in anticipation of casualties.385 Furthermore, video footage shows passengers wearing gas masks, life or bullet proof vests, and carrying metal bars, slingshots, chains and staves.386 That information supports the accounts of violence given by IDF personnel to the Israeli investigation.387

124. The Panel accepts, therefore, that soldiers landing from the first helicopter faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they descended onto the Mavi Marmara. Material before the Panel confirms that this group was armed with iron bars, staves, chains, and slingshots,388 and there is some indication that they also used knives.389 Firearms were taken from IDF personnel and passengers disabled at least one by removing the ammunition from it.390 Two soldiers received gunshot wounds.391 There is some reason to believe that they may have been shot by passengers,392 although the Panel is not able to conclusively establish how the gunshot wounds were caused. Nevertheless, seven other soldiers were wounded by passengers, some seriously.393

125. Both reports concur that three soldiers were overpowered by the passengers as they descended from the first helicopter and were taken below the deck of the vessel.394 The Panel is not persuaded that claims that the three were taken below merely to receive medical assistance395 are plausible, although it accepts that once below deck other passengers intervened to protect them and ensure that assistance was provided.396 It is established to the Panel’s satisfaction that the three soldiers in question were captured, mistreated and placed at risk during the incident.397 In the face of such a response, the IDF personnel involved in the operation needed to take action for their own protection and that of the other soldiers.

So if those killed were combatants and not just innocent bystanders, how was Israel obligated to treat them?

I put that question to an international law expert, who told me the following:

[A]nyone who fought IDF soldiers as they boarded, whether the person thought he was engaging in self-defense or not, was —under the Geneva Conventions — either a civilian or an unlawful combatant taking direct part in hostilities. Either way, such persons were legitimate targets. They were engaged in a belligerent act (breaching a lawful blockade) and Israeli soldiers were entitled to use lethal force against them, even if less lethal means were available. When the Palmer Report says that excessive forces was used, it is clearly making a political judgment rather than a legal one.

Were the IDF soldiers allowed to shoot someone in the head who was attacking them? It sure sounds like it. And even if Dogan was already wounded, you don't know whether - for example - there was a gun lying on the floor six inches away or whether Dogan had another soldier by the leg and it was necessary to shoot him at close range. You can't tell that from the report. Even if you're Roger Cohen. Because Palmer and Uribe couldn't tell it either. But what we do know is that once Dogan attacked those IDF soldiers, he didn't have a whole lot of rights.

Read the report. Read it carefully. But read it with a critical eye. The panelists were completely dependent upon the two sides for their facts. Sometimes things aren't as they appear to be.

Labels: Mavi Marmara, Palmer Commission

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:47 PM 5 comments

Turkey cuts all trade and military ties with Israel UPDATED

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's temper tantrum continues. Now he has suspended all trade and defense ties with Israel.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey was "totally suspending" defense industry and trade ties with Israel, after downgrading diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

"Trade ties, military ties, regarding defense industry ties, we are completely suspending them. This process will be followed by different measures," Erdogan told reporters in Ankara.

He also said that Turkey would implement further sanctions against Israel and said that "our ships will be seen more frequently in those waters," referring to the Eastern Mediterranean.

YNet adds:

Erdogan described the raid as "savagery" and accused Israel of acting like "a spoiled boy" in the region.

Israel has expressed regret for the loss of lives, but remains adamant that no official apology for the naval operation will be issued.

The Palmer Report, commissioned by the United Nations, was dismissed by Ankara as biased.

Erdogan just keeps his tantrum going. He's accusing Israel of acting like a 'spoiled boy'? That's the biggest joke of all.

UPDATE 4:37 PM

It's not clear to me where the mistake got made, but the reference to trade was only meant to cover inter-governmental trade in the defense and security fields. So reported Israel Radio in its 4:00 news magazine.

Of course, by the time that came through, both the stock market (about 3.5%) and the shekel (dollar now at NIS 3.675 to $1 - check that against some of the figures I was giving you a month or two ago) had been pounded.

For those wondering the extent of trade, trade between Israel and Turkey was $3.5 billion in 2010 and was up 25% for the first six months of 2011. I believe they said that Turkey is our 6th largest trading partner.

Oh - and one interesting price point. Delek, which is supposed to participate in the Cyprus drilling with Noble Energy was down 6.5% today, but part of that may have to do with an anti-trust commission investigation into the arrangements relating to the gas fields off Israel's Mediterranean coast.

Labels: Mavi Marmara, outrageous apologies, Palmer Commission, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish obsession with Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:22 PM 3 comments

What Israel should be doing with the Palmer Commission report

One thing we ought to be doing with the Palmer Commission report is spreading it far and wide to anyone and everyone who might be interested in it. And so, in the interest of doing so, I am embedding the full report below for those of you who have not seen it yet.

After the report, I am going to share with you one smart woman's prescription for what Israel ought to be doing with the Palmer Commission report.

Palmer Committee Final Report

So what else should we be doing with the Palmer Commission report? Evelyn Gordon argues, in a piece that's behind the JPost paywall, but which she sent to me by email, that Israel should be leveraging the Palmer Commission report.

First, if anyone still harbored the illusion that the Israeli-Turkish relationship was salvageable, Ankara’s response to the report ought to disabuse them of this notion. What Turkey’s response makes clear is that Ankara never had the slightest interest in repairing its relationship with Jerusalem; what it wanted was to further blacken Israel’s international image, undermine Israel’s vital security interests and humiliate Israel by forcing it to come crawling. And given the UN’s anti-Israel record, Ankara understandably counted on the Palmer Report to do all three: blacken Israel’s image by finding it criminally culpable in the flotilla deaths; undermine its security interests by ruling the Gaza blockade illegal, thereby pressuring Israel to end it; and demand that Israel apologize to Turkey for the incident.

But when the report failed to do any of the above, Turkey flatly refused to accept its conclusions. Instead, it announced that it will pursue all the above goals by other means: It will try to secure indictments against Israeli officers and politicians in any court willing to take the case; it will appeal the Gaza blockade to a different UN forum, the International Court of Justice, which – given the precedent of the ICJ’s ruling on the security fence – would likely accept Turkey’s contention regarding its illegality; it will offer future flotillas to Gaza a Turkish naval escort, on the theory that Israel would have to let these flotillas through rather than risk war with Turkey, thereby effectively ending the blockade; and it will rescind these and other hostile measures only if Israel renders them unnecessary by surrendering unconditionally – i.e., by admitting culpability for the deaths, apologizing and ending the blockade.

In so doing, Turkey has made its position too clear for even the rosiest of rose-tinted glasses to disguise: It has irrevocably joined the anti-Israel camp, and seeks only to undermine Israel in any way possible.

But the Obama Administration’s reaction has been no less instructive. Start with the fact that US President Barack Obama worked a miracle I would have sworn was impossible: creating a UN-sponsored inquiry on Israel that produced reasonably fair and balanced conclusions. Add in the fact that Obama has been struggling to convince American Jews of his pro-Israel bona fides, and this would seem to be a golden opportunity to trumpet a pro-Israel achievement. All he would have to do is back the committee he himself established and demand that Turkey accept its conclusions (as Israel has) instead of escalating the conflict via its threatened legal and military moves.

Instead, the administration is still demanding that Israel apologize to Turkey, even though the Palmer Report pointedly avoided demanding any such thing: It said merely that Israel should express regret and offer compensation to the bereaved families – both steps Israel has repeatedly offered to take, but that Turkey rejected as insufficient, insisting nothing less than an apology (i.e., an admission of culpability) would do.

Moreover, Washington has yet to utter a word of criticism of Ankara over its refusal to accept the report’s conclusions and its crude anti-Israel threats. Even Germany’s normally anti-Israel foreign minister – who himself deemed the Gaza blockade “unacceptable” less than a year ago – managed to say that Turkey should take the report’s conclusions “seriously” and avoid “aggravating the situation.” Yet the Obama administration has been silent.

The inescapable conclusion is that Obama’s goal in establishing the Palmer Commission was in fact identical to Turkey’s: He wanted a report that would incriminate Israel and thereby pressure it to capitulate to Turkey’s demands. And since, under heavy pressure from Obama, Israel agreed to cooperate with the commission – in contrast to its usual practice of boycotting UN inquiries because the UN is hopelessly biased against it – the administration would have had strong grounds for demanding that Israel accept the report’s conclusions even had they been unfavorable.

Yet since Turkey also cooperated, the administration has equally strong grounds for demanding that it accept the report’s conclusions. The thunderous silence Washington has maintained instead speaks louder than words: This wasn’t the outcome we wanted, and now we don’t quite know what to do to achieve the desired Israeli capitulation beyond continuing our behind-the-scenes pressure for an Israeli apology.

...

Israel should be leveraging the Palmer Report – and Turkey’s rejection of it – to prove to the world that Turkey under the AKP is no longer a force for regional stability; it has become a fomenter of conflict, and must be treated as such. Granted, it would be helpful to have Washington’s backing in this endeavor, but as the Obama administration’s response to the report makes clear, that won’t happen: In this spat (as in most others), Obama is backing Israel’s enemy.

Nevertheless, Israel must do its best to press this point on its own. The Palmer Report is a golden opportunity to force the world to face up to the reality that Turkey has changed. Jerusalem must not waste it by continuing the empty pretense that Ankara is still the valued ally of yesteryear.

So why isn't the Netanyahu government leveraging the Palmer report. Turning on a radio in Israel today is instructive. Tuesday morning's report about spying on the Israeli embassy in Washington has been pushed to the side. The number one story on every newscast is Robert Gates' comments about Prime Minister Netanyahu. The media is playing this story to show how Israel is isolated in the World. And Netanyahu's rival - Tzipi Livni - issued a statement as 'the Kadima party' indicating that's exactly what Gates' comments show: That Israel is isolated in the World because of Netanyahu's policies.

Two weeks before the UN vote on the 'Palestinians' unilateral declaration of independence, a vote that is likely to show just how isolated Israel is in the World, the last thing Netanyahu wants to do is to take advantage of a UN report that is favorable to us which the Obama administration would like us to ignore.

Do I agree that we are isolated because of Netanyahu's policies? Absolutely not. In fact, I believe that if Kadima were in power, Livni or Shaul Mofaz would be pursuing pretty mucsh the same policies that Netanyahu is pursuing (although the 'Palestinians' might be talking to Livni or Mofaz even if they would get no further than they have gone with Netanyahu). And I believe that the Israeli Left has done more than its share to damage Netanyahu even at a cost to Israel out of their visceral hatred toward him, and may even be advising the 'Palestinians' not to talk to Netanyahu in the hope that will eventually lead to him losing power.

Do I agree that Israel ought to be leveraging the Palmer report? Absolutely. But for the next two weeks, I think Netanyahu wants to sit tight and get through the UN story and not risk another blow-up with Obama. There are too many people out there who are waiting, hoping such a blow-up will happen so that Netanyahu can be blamed for the consequences of whatever happens at the UN.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Palmer Commission, Robert Gates, Tzipi Livni

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:35 PM 5 comments

Palmer Report a game changer?

Jennifer Rubin says that the Palmer Report ought to be a game changer in the 'Palestinian' pursuit of a 'state' at the United Nations (Hat Tip: Honest Reporting).

Not only is this an implicit repudiation of the premises of the Goldstone Report (which, in Operation Cast Lead, portrayed the Israelis as aggressors and Gazans as victims), but it is a powerful argument against granting the Palestinians their request for a declaration of statehood. The government of that new state is co-run by the very terrorists described in the flotilla report as waging war on Israel.

The United Nations is now going to reward Hamas with a declaration (albeit symbolic) that its unity government joins the “international community” of civilized nations? It’s of course preposterous. Neither the United Nations nor anyone else knows how, or even if, the unity government will function. What we do know is that Israel is involved (still) in an ongoing war against terrorists who target Israeli civilians in contravention of international law. Perhaps when it is Israelis’ turn to speak on the resolution, its representatives should hand the microphone over to Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Álvaro Uribe, who can read their informative report to the General Assembly.

But of course, in the den of iniquity that is the United Nations, what ought to happen won't happen. Countries will ignore the reality of who Hamas is, who the 'Palestinians' are and what their goal is. We should enjoy our victory with the Palmer Commission. Unfortunately, it is likely to be a fleeting one.

Labels: Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, Palmer Commission, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:32 AM 0 comments

Israel made the only honorable choice

The Wall Street Journal approves of Israel's refusal to apologize to Turkey.

Simply put, the flotilla's organizers were spoiling for the fight they later would claim as evidence of Israeli criminality. That's a fight Israel went out of its way to avoid, both through high-level diplomatic representations to Ankara and repeated warnings to the flotilla to turn away from the blockade. Too bad, then, that the report makes a weak stab at balance by chiding the conduct of Israeli soldiers in the heat of a battle against dozens of thugs armed with iron bars, chains, knives and—given that two of the Israeli commandos were shot—probably firearms as well.

All of this might have provoked a bit of soul-searching within the Turkish government, just as its once-warm embrace of Syria's Bashar Assad has. Instead, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has doubled down on his anti-Israel bets, insisting that Jerusalem apologize to Turkey, compensate the victims and lift its blockade of Gaza as the price for his forgiveness. The Palmer report is a fresh reminder—from the least likely of sources—of why Israel has no honorable choice but to spurn those demands. The Turks will learn in their own time that being Hamas's patron is a loser's game.

Heh.

The picture at the top is Geoffrey Palmer, the chairman of the Palmer Commission. We Israelis ought to thank him for his rare, relatively fair treatment of our country.

Labels: Geoffrey Palmer, Palmer Commission, Turkish obsession with Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:59 AM 3 comments

Israeli diplomats given two days to leave Turkey

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has given every Israeli diplomat above the level of 'second secretary' two days to leave Turkey.

Israeli diplomats in Turkey on Monday were briefed by Turkish officials on a list of sanctions against Israel, and then asked to leave the country by Wednesday.

Besides reducing Israeli diplomatic representation to second secretary level, the lowest rank in the Foreign Ministry, Today's Zaman reported on Monday that Turkey will bring the legality of Israel's naval blockade on Gaza before the International Criminal Court. Turkey also stated its intent to file suit against the Israeli soldiers and officials involved in the May 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, suspend military agreements between the two countries, support the families of victims, and "take measures to ensure freedom of navigation in the eastern Mediterranean."

Second secretary is the lowest rank in the Foreign Ministry. While all Israeli diplomats above that rank were expected to leave Turkey by Wednesday, diplomats at second secretary level, including the spokesman of the Israeli Embassy in Turkey, were expected to remain in their posts, the Foreign Ministry said.

By the way, the threat to take Israel to the International Court of Justice over the Gaza blockade is an empty threat.

On Saturday, Israeli officials said Turkey’s threat to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague following Friday’s release of the Palmer Commission report is a “pistol firing blanks,” pointing out that the court only adjudicates issues brought to it by two disputing states, or referred to it for an advisory decision from the UN.

Israel won’t agree to go to the court, the official said, and the UN will be hard-pressed to ask for an advisory opinion after a UN body, the Palmer Commission, found that the blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, as was Israel’s interception of vessels trying to break it.

Heh. Maybe Turkey will try to sanction New Zealand and Colombia (the other two countries whose representatives were on the Palmer Commission).

Labels: Ahmet Davutoglu, Palmer Commission, Turkish obsession with Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:41 AM 1 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, September 5.

1) Protests

The Washington Post reported on the September 3 protests:

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis returned to the streets in cities across the country Saturday night to protest the high cost of living, showing the resilience of a social justice movement eclipsed last month by security concerns after deadly attacks in southern Israel.
Police estimated that more than 300,000 people participated nationwide, but media reports from across the country said that more than 400,000 joined demonstrations in more than a dozen cities and towns — the most since the protests began two months ago.
The protest was one of the biggest in Israel’s history.

Coverage by Isabel Kershner of the New York Times Summer of Protest in Israel Peaks With 400,000 in City Streets was slightly more detailed.

The mass protest across the country had been planned for weeks and was considered by many to be the grand finale of the street phase of the social dissent that has swept Israel this summer. Organizers initially billed it as a million-person march, but had tried to lower expectations over the last few days, saying that it would be considered a success if the turnout equaled the 300,000 people who took to the streets on Aug. 6.
The police estimated that more than 300,000 people turned out on Saturday night, but a company monitoring the turnout for the Israeli news media said the total was about 400,000, with almost 300,000 gathering in Tel Aviv alone. Tens of thousands more rallied in Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities.

Interesting that Kershner notes that despite an impressive showing of 300,000 protesters, it was below the original expectations of the organizers. However she doesn't mention the possibility that attendance was driven, in part, by the concerts offered.

The police have given the organizers a permit to hold a mass rally at Kikar Hamedina after the march sets out at Habima Square.
Eyal Golan and Shalom Hanoch are among singers expected to appear at the rally. Other performers have also been asked to take part.

While earlier reports in the American newspapers stressed the supposed non-partisan nature of the protests, neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times have been more subtle on that angle this time. Kershner wrote:

On Saturday, the main rally in Tel Aviv began with a march and ended in Kikar Hamedina, a broad traffic circle and park lined with luxury stores. Television commentators noted that not one display window was broken; these Israeli protests, largely driven by the middle class, have been carnival-like and nonviolent.
“This square is filled with the new Israelis who would die for this country, but who expect you, Mr. Prime Minister, to let us live in this country,” Itzik Shmuli, the chairman of the National Union of Students and a leader of the protest movement, said from the stage at the Tel Aviv rally.
Daphne Leef, 25, the young woman who pitched the first tent in Tel Aviv in mid-July and invited friends to join her on Facebook, told the crowd that the fact that her generation had stood up and raised its voice was “nothing short of a miracle — the miracle of the summer of 2011.”

By now Daphne Leef's politics are well known, so despite mentioning "middle class" the pretense of non-partisanship is mostly absent from this report. This is a point emphasized by Arutz-7:

Press reports at around 10:00 p.m. Saturday evening estimated the total number of protesters at anywhere between 100,000 and 400,000. This would be the rough equivalent of the number of people represented by three to thirteen seats in the Knesset.
The protesters are mostly secular people and the participation of nationalists in the summer-long protest wave has gradually lessened, as details emerge of left-wing involvement in their organization. In Jerusalem, Channel 2 reporter Dafna Liel said most of the protesters are secular people. Liel's mother, Rachel Liel, is Director of the New Israel Fund, which has assisted the protests.

How did the New York Times cover the One Jerusalem protest in 2001? Deborah Sontag reported in Israelis Protest Plan to Divide Jerusalem

Crowd estimates are always inflated and deflated by politics, but this appeared to be one of the largest Israeli rallies alongside the Old City walls in decades. The police gave no figures. Israel's Channel Two put the crowd at more than 100,000. Mayor Ehud Olmert — a principal organizer along with Natan Sharansky, the Russian immigrant leader — announced to great cheers that there were 400,000 participants present.
"I have never been so deeply moved as I am now to see all of you so pressed together here in the streets of Jerusalem, so excited and enthusiastic," Mayor Olmert said. "This is not a political rally. This is the expression of the deep emotional link of the people of Israel to our eternal and undivided capital."
If not overtly political, the rally's sponsors and its participants tended to be conservative. In addition to Mr. Olmert and Mr. Sharansky, the founding committee of One Jerusalem included David Bar-Ilan, who was spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu when he was prime minister; Dore Gold, the United Nations ambassador under Mr. Netanyahu; Tom Rose, publisher of The Jerusalem Post; and Jackie Mason, the American comedian.

A few things stand out. When editorial opinion is skeptical of the cause, the numbers attending are subject to more scrutiny and the political affiliation of the organizers becomes an issue too.

2) Framing the narrative - Turkey and PA editions

A paragraph in the New York Times coverage of the Palmer report Report Finds Naval Blockade by Israel Legal but Faults Raid sticks out:

The 105-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, was completed months ago. But its publication was delayed several times as Turkey and Israel sought to reconcile their deteriorating relationship and perhaps avoid making the report public. In reactions from both governments included in the report, as well as in interviews, each objected to its conclusions. Both said they believed that the report, which was intended to help mend relations, would instead make reconciliation harder.

The premise here is that reconciliation between Israel and Turkey are 1) possible 2) a laudable goal and 3) would be possible if not for the Israel raid on the Mavi Marmara. But Barry Rubin writes, that this isn't the case at all:

The “Godfather” film coined a famous phrase: To make someone an offer they can’t refuse. But in diplomacy there’s the opposite phenomen: To send someone an ultimatum you know they can’t accept. An example of the latter is recent Turkish government diplomacy toward (or should I say, against?) Israel.
Its ultimatum demanded Israel apologize for Turkish citizens killed in the Mavi Marmara confrontation, pay compensation, and end all sanctions against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. This is in spite of the fact that those killed were radical Islamist jihadis who openly spoke beforehand of happily dying if they could kill Israeli soldiers and about massacring all Jews. As for the sanctions, they are against a terrorist group openly declaring its goal of genocide against both Israel and Jews in general and which has repeatedly attacked Israel.
Since Israel refused to surrender to this ultimatum, the Turkish (Islamist) government has expelled Israel’s ambassador just as the new, Palmer report on the Gaza Flotilla incident is released. But while the report claims Israel used excessive force–what is the proper amount of force to use on jihadis with weapons who advocate genocide against you?–it also concluded that the blockade is completely legal and that the flotilla activists acted recklessly. In other words, the Turkish regime demands Israel apologize and pay compensation for those who committed an illegal act in order to harm it.
During the negotiations, some high-ranking Israeli officials wanted to apologize; others didn’t. But it became clear that the Turkish regime kept increasing its demands to ensure there would be no deal. It wanted a pretext for bashing Israel and reducing relations. Israeli tourism to Turkey has already plummeted but is still valuable; bilateral trade had actually increased.

While a reconciliation between Israel and Turkey would be a positive development, the deterioration is not due to any Israeli action but to the radicalization of Turkey's government. So while the Mavi Marmara raid is the pretext the Turkish government uses for downgrading its relations with Israel, it is only that, a pretext. By presenting the conflict between Israel and Turkey as a function of the Mavi Marmara raid, the New York Times is accepting Turkey's narrative and putting the onus of reconciliation solely upon Israel.

We see a similar narrative - in that it's critical of Israel - in yesterday's New York Times report U.S. Is Appealing to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote

Senior officials said the administration wanted to avoid not only a veto but also the more symbolic and potent General Assembly vote that would leave the United States and only a handful of other nations in the opposition. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic maneuverings, said they feared that in either case a wave of anger could sweep the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world at a time when the region is already in tumult. President Obama would be put in the position of threatening to veto recognition of the aspirations of most Palestinians or risk alienating Israel and its political supporters in the United States.

The (implicit) premises here are 1) the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state is a good thing 2) opposing it is the same as opposing the democratic aspirations of the Arab world and 3) supporting Israel in this matter is antithetical to supporting freedom and independence as well as isolating the United States diplomatically.

What makes this more disturbing than the article about Turkey is that this doesn't seem to be just the view of the reporters for the New York Times, but the views of some number of America's diplomats. Again let me quote Barry Rubin, who presents a much different (not to mention undistorted) perspective:

Consider that the United States is on the verge of a foreign policy disaster that could easily have been averted by proper statecraft. The Palestinian Authority (PA, technically speaking, along with its Hamas partner) is about to demand that the United Nations break every Israel-Palestinian agreement over almost twenty years, destroy any possibility of serious future negotiation, reward Palestinian intransigence, and generally make a mess of the Middle East.
The specific issue is recognition of a Palestinian state as existing right now. The result, as I’ve outlined previously, would be catastrophic and don’t let anyone get away with pretending that this isn’t a bad thing or won’t make much difference.
A “normal” U.S. policy would have begun pressing the PA to back down from this strategy almost a year ago, when PA leaders began talking about it. Rather than take quick action—or, indeed, punish, pressure, or even criticize the PA for anything it did—the Obama Administration stood by and made disapproving murmurs from time to time.
We are now facing the consequences of the policy of: let’s be weak so people like us; leading from behind; not rewarding friends or punishing enemies,; refusing to use U.S. leverage (Turkey votes against sanctions on Iran? Let’s put them in charge of Syria’s future!); and generally letting other countries walk all over the United States. I’d love to list other examples of similar issues here but don’t want to take your time so you can fill in the additional details.

It is a measure of the Obama administration's incompetence that it isn't clear what America's interests, friends and enemies are. Thus it is impossible for the United States to wield much influence in world affairs.

3) International law again

As noted before, the contents of the Palmer report have been made public and the report found Israel's blockade to be legal and appropriate. The term "legal" is unambiguous. Yet, in the past 15 months there has been plenty of commentary to the contrary. Consider a New York Times "Room for Debate" feature Rethinking the Gaza Blockade from June 2010. Precisely one of the eight viewpoints featured advocated maintaining the blockade as it was. But if it the blockade is legal and appropriate, what is the purpose of this debate? To change the meaning of "legal?" And if the participants don't know international law, why in the world should they be debating?

The International Committee of the Red Cross - an organization that discriminates against the Mogen David Adom and that hasn't demanded its representatives meet with Gilad Shalit - also declared the blockade to be illegal. But it isn't.

I guess what I'm asking is: does international law represent a universal standard or is it infinitely elastic conforming to the diplomatic, journalistic and academic fashions of the day?

Labels: Gaza blockade, housing crisis, Middle East Media Sampler, Palmer Commission, Soccer Dad, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:55 PM 3 comments