U.S. denies pushing for Gaza flotilla probe at UN
Rebuttal follows Weekly Standard report claiming White House promised foreign governments support for international inquiry.
By Natasha Mozgovaya Tags: Israel news Gaza flotilla UN US Israel US Barack ObamaThe United States on Friday denied reports that the White House would back a United Nations investigation into Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla two weeks ago.
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Activists hold down an Israeli commando on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara, May 31 2010 |
| Photo by: Reuters |
"We are not aware of any resolution that will be introduced at the UN next week," State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said at a White House press conference. "We are in discussions with the UN, and I think UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is evaluating the situation."
"We support an Israeli led investigation and we are open to the potential ways in which the international community can participate in it," Crowley said.
Nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed when Israeli commandos met with stiffer than expected resistance as they intercepted a six-boat convoy trying to break Israel's maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Crowley said: "The investigation has to be impartial so it can been seen as credible. International participation in some fashion can enhance the result, the outcome and the support for the investigation."
According to a report by The Weekly Standard, an American journal, senior White House officials had told foreign governments that U.S President Barack Obama's administration would back a UN push for an independent committee to probe the Gaza raid.
The report claimed that the White House had shrugged off concerns that an international probe would unfairly single out Israel.
According to the Standard, U.S. officials said they had no fear the investigation would be biased - even though it would focus only on the behavior of the Israeli Defense Forces, leaving out any part by Turkey or Hamas in events that led to the fatal confrontation aboard the Turkish-flagged 'Mavi Marmara'.
Meanwhile, Israel and the U.S. agreed Thursday on the nature of an Israeli inquiry into the flotilla interception.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to make an announcement on committee in the coming days, also giving details of its make-up and powers.
On Wednesday Channel 2 reported that the committee would be headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, saying the Prime Minister's Office had approached former Justice Yaakov Tirkel for the task.
Talks with the U.S. on forming the panel have been handled by the prime minister himself and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Their main U.S. contact has been Vice President Joe Biden.
The United States has proposed a committee similar to the one that investigated the recent sinking of a South Korean ship by the North Koreans.
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Why does haaretz and Jpost and others have such a hard time calling these people abopuard the Turkish ship what they are Extremsists. Islamic Extemists. Are they afarid iof offending Turkey , whose hands are not so clean, or possibly iran or even Hizbullah. Call these scum what they are dead terrorists. if you cant say anything nioce about the dead then dont say anything at all :(they are dead...GOOD)
It is written "pro-Palestinian activists", but they are in fact Islamic militants as they refer to themselves as Mujadeen (Holy warriors).
Erdogan allowed IHH terrorist to participate as "peaceful activists". = Then he tried to teach Israelis: "You shouldn't kill". Pjotos and videos clearly demonstrate what really happened. Where are Erdogan's apologies? Shame upon Erdogan!
Stop calling violent Pro-Hamas terrorists trying to kidnap another Shalit as just Pro-Palestinian's killed by Israeli commandos!!!These are Israeli heroes who were forced to save their lives and freedom!!!At least the 'peaceful activists' lies have ended, but only after video proof!!!
An international investigation would be very biased and much more detrimental to the USA and other Countries involved in the fight agains terrorism...Imagine if every Marican action in Afganistan or everywhere else would be investigated by an international comitee partial for sure to the terrorists...All those comitees and investigations are another PROPAFANDA TOOL USE BY THE LEFTISTS AGAINST ISRAEL,BUT THEY WILL DAMAGE THE STANDING OF THE USA MUCH MORE
UN Rapporteur Philip Alston said today that any investigation will have to include interviews with military personnel from the raid, and videos from passengers will need to be shown be seen ie given back by Israel. He stated that these two criteria have to be met for a credible inquiry.
What is there to investigate? What you see is what you got. The smuggled video is out, everyone can see what happened. No one really cares anymore. We know what to expect... It never really changes. The only. Thing to investigate is what were they doing with the onions?
couldnt have been said better; well done
My country the USA says, "We support an Israeli led investigation..." Well....of course....because America is as much to blame as the Israelis. We can never really accuse the Israelis of "War Crimes" when we perpetuate worse war crimes......can we? America could care less about Human Rights and the Palestinian people. Here in Hawaii homes are foreclosed in record numbers, unemployment, and public education is cut financially and children have no books, broken schools and now decreased school days. Also, any state welfare here in Hawaii has been REDUCED to 300 dollars a month. There is chronic homelessness, rampant crime and drug abuse, political corruption and wasteful spending,....all with no solution or compassion to remedy the situation. In fact,...Hawaii cares nothing about the residents here in Hawaii,...they are ONLY CONCERNED WITH THE TOURIST INDUSTRY. So of course it's with Israel. Bibi said that he does not want an external investigation because it would be prejudiced against Israel. So of course that leads one to conclude that the investigation WILL NOT be critical of Israel. So what's the point of it all ??? What good is it to have an investigation that compromses truth in light of a favorable outcome for Israel (and so the USA).
enough is enough. Time for the worlds other leaders to start to tell obama where to stick his fancy words. Israel should conduct its own review. Period. An "independant" UN panel is a complete waste of time. The conclusions are foretold.
All he had to do was say that he regrets the lose of life, he believes the soldiers acted reasonably considering the circumstances and that he wants to get to the bottom of it. To that end Israel and Turkey should work together to establish a commission to look into the affair.
the occupation of the 2/3 of Armenia territory by Turkey, the illegal presence of Turkey in northern Cyprus and the Turkey refusal to grant political independence to 25 million natives of the Kurdistan? Does the world justice capacity starts and ends in Gaza?
If the US wants an International probe into the Gaza flotilla raid, the US should insist on an International probe of the murder of a 15 year old Mexican boy killed by US border agents on the US Mexican border yesterday. We wouldn't want a double standard, would we?
"We support an Israeli led investigation...the investigation has to be impartial si it can been seen as credible." Credibility and an Israeli led investigation. That one sinks before it hits the water.
hummm.. whom should I feel more sorry for? This soldier laying on his back or the 9 peace activists laying 6 feet underground?
A sensible person even in Papua New Guniae knows that US & Israeli reaction to an event is almost identical. We are all bored of this rubbish.. say something different.. probe into the incident by impartial israeli led israeli investigation.. blah, blah, blah..etc. so, I am absolutely flattered to hear the incident gets investigated just for the show.. hellelujah, praise the lord.. some 9 poor bastards just got killed.. so, what.?!!!
The IDF will have an internal commission of inquiry (which is always necessary in order to improve future actions. Now Netanyahu is appointing a commission of LEGAL experts who will tell him that everything was done legally. On top of that we will have an international commission which is required because so far Turkey would not be represented in anything, and which Israel will probably refuse to cooperate with for fear it will be one-sided (never mind that the Israel commission is one sided). These two commissions solve nothing, but may lead to the final breakup of relations between Israel and Turkey. So stupid and so easy to fix! I suggest that Israel recognize its responsibility of not using better and wiser means to stop civilians, which resulted in 9 dead. Offer the families compensation, and talk with Turkey about partial lifting of the Gaza siege, which is going to happen but will give credit to Erdogan to massage his ego. Don't throw away the solid achievement of having a Muslim ally like Turkey. I will recall the USS Liberty (1967) incident. Had Israel insisted, blaming it all on the ship would have been possible (and legal). But Israel recognized some responsibility and compensated the families. That is what should be done with Turkey and there is no need for lawyers to make peace. Will Netanyahu do it? Of course not, he is a Yahoo.
the IHH will happily take care of that. Your USS Liberty reference is not a relevent analogy in this case. Terrorist looking for conflict got a bit more thatn they expected. Perhaps they believe they could hold hostages, like Hamas holds Shalit. IDF's use of force help avoid a tragedy that would have been far worse than 9 dead terrorists.
Not Israel, Zionists are the burden to US now. They prove again and again of the Mahathir's proxy concept
Perhaps some flaccid participation from the UN but not if Israel doesnt want it. That might be a threat to Israel's seurity. Let Israel handle it alone! As for the inane argument that the international community is putting undue focus on poor little Israel, let's look at what the UN and international community and the US did in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, in Kosova. Let us remember the action taken by the international community in the genocide in Rwuanda and the public apology by President Clinton for not reacting more forcefully and timely. Let us look how the international community pressured the governments of Eire and the UK to meet to solve the horrendous violence in Northern Ireland. Israel should be no exception and the US should be leading the effort for an international investigation. But then....we must remember there is a singular standard for judging Israel and that standard is hands off. Afterall everything is always about Israel's security.
Says this knucklehead who posts dozens of times about Israel every single day for months on end. Dumkopf smellyman, don't you think YOU put undue focus upon Israel all by your lonesome? If you can't see it about yourself, you sure as hell aren't going to see it about anyone else. If you don't think there's undue focus, why don't you analyze the behavior of the Human Rights Council. Who do you believe they focus upon more than they do Israel? You are a simpleton.
The UN blue hats did nothing in Yugoslavia. Ask Romeo Delaire what the UN did in Rwanda and how doing nothing CAUSED the genocide. Nothing absolutely nothing was the UNs participation in Northern Ireland. The UN is a bunch of bureaucrats making proclamations without the least ability to carry them out. Israel is an easy target since the Moslem countries who always look for an opportunity to condemn it are always on board so it looks like the UN is acheiving something. The US Obama administration is keen to bow or curtsy to whatever the academics deem just but are withheld from doing so by the truth that Israel is far more restrained than their own troops
If true this is good news. I think the international pressure on Obama to support a UN investigation has been intense. Had Netanyahu instigated a serious investigation by himself on the 1. of June he might have gotten away with no International investigation. But since Netanyahu seems to be doing all he can to avoid any serious investigation, the pressure has increased on Obama. So Obama is stuck with a choice: Protect Netanyahu, and weaken the US international standing, or dump Netanyahu and get hell in the US media.
Is this going to be the same level of investigation that IDF did on the GAZA killings. While the IDF came back with "there is nothing to see here" the world cam eback with war crimes. Isarel is going to do the same white wash as they did in to the killings done at Gaza.
Soon after Netanyahu took office for the first time (1996) it was clear that he was a failure. A British diplomat (or was it the foreign minister?) described him as "a drunk lurching from one lamp-post to the next". We see a repeat performance now, although it is developing a bit slower. Let us look at the damage, so far: 1. The peace process with the Palestinians is essentially stuck, and with the Syrians it is non-existent. 2. Israel's standing in the world has sunk so low that it is approaching the status of a pariah state. 3. The low standing is even getting to be shared by the US, where recently an influential analyst (A. Cordesman) wrote that Israel is of "tertiary" value to US national interests. 4. The unusual friendship with Turkey, a major Muslim state, and a strategic achievement conceived by and worked on since the days of David Ben-Gurion is simply given up for some unclear reasons of "national honor". Can things get worse? Of course. How about a military attack against Iran? What is wrong with Netanyahu? A psychologist might say that he is a weak man who is driven to appear strong and this drive overcomes better judgment. I don't know the roots of his problem except that he is clearly a progressing tragedy for Israel and we should get rid of him fast. No, very fast.
"We have to establish who stood behind this extremist group, who financed its members, and how knives, axes and other weapons were brought aboard," Netanyahu said. "We also need to ask what large sums of money found aboard the boats were doing there, and for whom they were intended." - Netanyahu OK, Sir, all this would be good to find out (except that the "private" Israeli security group claimed this week that all the knives, axes, etc were already part of the ship's kitchen equipment etc). But how can a strictly Israeli commission of inquiry find this out? There must be an international committee that will do the inquiry. They will have to interrogate the Israeli soldiers (another Netanyahu prohibition), the Turkish passengers, and their superiors in BOTH nations. If you don't like an international commission, better make nice to Turkey (after apologizing for the dead), and settle the matter with THEM!
An axe is part of the kitchen equipment? what r they doing cutting down trees to make fire on a boat?
why he supports an investigation in this case, when it comes to israel. would he support also an international investigation in cases concerning irak or afghanistan when american soldiers are involved? for sure there's a lot to investigate in irak or afghanistan. why don't we hear of demands for international investigations in these cases?
The international investigation we have seen already. They investigated and declared immediatly that Israel is very guilty. So we have the UN result. it was in all newspapers. That's done with. So, Obama wanted another, additional, and a bit slower, investigation .......
There aren't a lot of calls for investigations in Iraq or Afghanistan that the US avoids. And almost all are international investigations with somebody looking over the JAG's shoulder. There are dozens going on all the time. Even you can observe if you sign a form saying your survivors won't sue if you get killed observing.. You can observe all you want.
How many investigations would you like to observe in Iraq and Afghanistan? Just about every American action in either country is investigated, by the US and NATO and Iraq and Afghanistan, and anybody else that wants to investigate. Join in. Have some fun, you can investigate too.
I regret voting for him... He's a duplicitous, lying S.O.B. We have no business joining the "gang of thugs" to hang Israel out to dry for no good reason. Shame on this administration!
You a'int helping Israel calling the world a "gang of thugs"
What were you thinking?
Israel should agree to an international investigation of its flotilla raid when the U.S. agrees to an international investigation on its killing of hundreds if not thousands of civilians in its drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Obama preparing to distance himself from the final UN report on IDF raid. Just longer enough for his rescue strategy. Oh please, this is the only time your are transparent to me. Your games and treacherous lies will come back to really haunt you
Well, Obama wants to know if Israel's actions were legal or not.... This is to establish if Israel will be charged in a court of law. That's it. Now, what you call "an independent investigation", this was already done and declared by the UN, immediately after the conflict. You remember that, don't you? So, we will have that and Obama's. As far as what will be believed, what will that matter? Take Israel to court if you wish. You get it? This will no longer be a matter for the anti-Semites to judge, like the Goldstone sham, but for a court to do it .....and In this case, there is a lot of information available, thank God.
And that the US is now taking part in this farce is beyond unbelievable. I am ashamed.
The White House is denying a claim by The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol today that the administration plans to back the United Nations setting up an independent commission under UN auspices to investigate the Gaza flotilla violence, Ben Smith reports: "We have no idea what Bill Kristol is talking about, and would surmise that neither does he," said spokesman Tommy Vietor. A White House official said the administration continues to support "an Israeli-led investigation into the flotilla incident that is prompt, credible, impartial, and transparent." "We are open to different ways of ensuring the credibility of this Israeli-led investigation, including international participation, and have been in intensive talks with our Israeli partners in the past few days on how to move forward," said the official. "We know of no resolution that will be debated at the UN on the flotilla investigation next week."
He is trying to destroy Israel: ignore him completely, and wait until after congressional elections
down with the ultra/far-right republcan party and friends! they are still the biggest threat to world-peace/security/stability and to mankind.