N. Irish Nobel laureate, Canadian jurist to observe Gaza flotilla probe
Israel announces internal Gaza flotilla raid probe panel; foreign observers in commission of inquiry are 'world renowned in legal, military and human rights fields.'
By Barak Ravid Tags: Gaza flotilla Gaza IDF Israel newsThe cabinet is set to approve Monday the establishment of an independent public committee to examine events around Israel's takeover of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, in which nine Turkish activists were killed.
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Israel Navy forces approach one of six ships of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010. |
| Photo by: Reuters |
The committee will include two international observers and tackle the legality of the blockade of Gaza and the legality of the navy's actions. The committee will also determine whether investigations of claims of war crimes and breaches of international law conform to the Western standards.
A retired Supreme Court justice, Jacob Turkel, will head the committee, whose members will included Shabtai Rosen, 93, a professor of international law who is an Israel Prize laureate in legal sciences and a Hague Prize laureate in international law. Also on the panel will be Maj. Gen. (res. ) Amos Horev, former president of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
The United States hailed the decision to investigate the May 31 raid, in which navy commandos opened fire on pro-Palestinian commandos after encountering unexpectedly violent resistance when storming the 'Mavi Marmara, the lead boat in the flotilla.
"Israel has a military justice system that meets international standards and is capable of conducting a serious and credible investigation," the White House said in a statement.
In the statement, the White House promised not to prejudge the outcome of the inquiry but made clear it expected Israel to present the results openly.
"While Israel should be afforded the time to complete its process, we expect Israel’s commission and military investigation will be carried out promptly. We also expect that, upon completion, its findings will be presented publicly and will be presented to the international community."
Two foreign observers will take part in the committee's deliberations. The statement released by the Prime Minister's Bureau did not say what their powers would be. The first observer will be William David Trimble, a Northern Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Trimble joined the "Friends of Israel" initiative launched in Paris some two weeks ago, in which Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, was also involved. Gold is considered a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The second international observer will be Ken Watkin, former military judge advocate general from Canada.
The statement from the Prime Minister's Bureau defines the committee's mandate and the questions it will deal with, the main one of which is the legality of the navy's actions and whether it conforms to international law. The committee will also study the security circumstances in which the marine blockade on Gaza was instituted and whether it conforms to international law.
The committee will also examine the Turkish position and actions taken by the flotilla's organizers, especially the Turkish group IHH, which has alleged ties to terrorist groups, as well as the identity of the participants in the flotilla and their intentions.
Another question the committee will address is the Goldstone report and demands to hold an international inquiry against Israel regarding events in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, claiming that Israel cannot investigate itself.
The committee will scrutinize whether claims regarding the breaching of the rules of engagement, the general procedure in Israel and as applied with regard to the current event, conform to the obligations of the state of Israel regarding international law," the statement from Netanyahu's bureau said.
The committee will be able to summon any person or organization to testify, or to give it information in some other fashion, on any issue it deems relevant.
Netanyahu has ordered all government personnel and agencies to cooperate fully with the panel and to give it all information and documents needed for its investigation.
However, in examining the military operation itself, or any actions by defense personnel, the committee will be authorized to access only documents that are directly relevant. It will also be able to receive the findings of the internal IDF probe being headed by Maj. Gen. (res. ) Giora Eiland.
Should the panel believe the IDF probe was insufficient, it will be able to ask Eiland to conduct additional inquiries.
Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, other cabinet ministers and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi are all expected to testify to the committee.
Netanyahu did not set a deadline for the panel's work.
The committee itself will decide whether to open its hearings to the public, with the provision that any hearing "liable to endanger the state's security or its foreign relations" must be closed.
To encourage witnesses to speak freely, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein pledged that testimony given to the panel will not be usable as evidence in legal proceedings.
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The criminal judging itself in the court!New law in the new world order or new trick in the old cirxus?
Bibi's obvioulsy chosen these two international observers to rubber stamp his view of the flotilla fisaco. That's unfrotunate because unless Israel learms from its mistakes it will repeat them endlessly until the whole world turns against it, even the US. The fact is the killings should never have happened whatever IHH got up to. Bibi and Lieberman had spent the weeks before the folotilla telling the world it was full of terrorist sympathisers. Any police force anywhere in the world, even just evicting people who haven't paid rent, goes ready for resistance from people armed with things like knives yet these commandos knew theye were attacking a ship full of people their prime minister claimed were dangerous activists. So why the staggering incompetence of the raid?
something not right with Netanyahu from the begining. Are they (7 ministers) red tape him? like what AIPAC is doing to Obama?
This is the correct move, but there should also be a trasparent commission to investigate Cast Lead. There has been no proper counterweight to Goldstone.
The whole thing is a joke. Natanyahu and Co continue to belive they can pull the wool over th eyes of the whole world all the time
While Irish Republicans have backed the Pal cause, their enemies the Ulster Unionists, defending Ulster's protestant settlers have backed Israel and its settlers. Trimble is an Ulster Unionist and has joined a Friends of Israel inititative as well. How can he possibly be regarded as a credible independent investigator? Same applies to Watkin. He's a former military judge advocvate, so, for a start, he's innately going to favour soldiers. Then again he was a player in the scandal involving Canadian troops habding over prisoners to be tortured by Afghans and he refused to answer questions on what he knew when called to Canada's House of Commons. So he's not exactly a friend of Islamic activists. I think we all know already what the panel's findings will be - the IDF and the blockade are perfect and the whole responsibility for this fiasco lies with Turkey and the activists.
....that produced the purely one-sided report of Goldstone. In the flotilla case even the Israeli team alone is of more impartial and legal competence than what we have seen before, yet it provides, in addition, the best possible international observers of the caliber of a Nobel Peace Prize winner. And more:... there are all sorts of additional checks that would be provided if needed, in fact all sorts of plans B available. Of course, the world anti-Semitism will reject anyway anything not coming from them, like another Goldstone and another UN team!.... Like the UN that blamed Israel totally, immediately after the fights on the ship. In fact, nothing could be more shameful, not to speak, idiotic, than their reaction before knowing any facts. The main thing, as Obama said, if I am not mistaken, that the legal aspects are what counts, i.e. who needs to be taken to court, if anyone at all. The rest is superfluous. After all, Obama is a lawyer......
"Trimble joined the "Friends of Israel" initiative launched in Paris some two weeks ago, in which Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, was also involved. Gold is considered a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." The Israeli choice makes me sick! You can foresee how the outcome of this so called investigation will look like!
An "independent" observer, who has joined the group "friends of Israel" 2 weeks ago......???? I mean, this is so hilarious, it is actually getting close to the level of a Woody Allen movie....:) P.S. Haaretz, are you now really publishing ads for Scientology, or is this a "pirate-ad", that is showing up on your website (there have been quite a few Scientology "pirate-ads" in Switzer- land recently).....????
don't hold your breath if you are waiting for an independent inquiry.
A group of vintage Zionists, paired with another Zionist wannabees will "investigate" a crime in the middle of the day , on HIGH SEAS....mmh, my crystal balls is telling me: the soldiers "technically" not kosher!! give me a break, will you? an Irish man who was lead like a monkey by Dore Gold will be impartial?! wow!!!
Well, the Trimble choice says it all! That was REALLY clever. Granted Trimble out on a limb once but his co-winner Hume deserved that Nobel Prize the most. Trimble has a history of being racist, represents the British side of the illegal occupation of Ireland and is a member of Friends of Israel. Many who don't know these facts will be fooled as Mairead Corrigan was an Irish Nobel Prlize winner on the flotilla but Trimble and Corrigan are poles apart. This is a SLY and CUNNING move designed to fool people. Now let's have a real investigation by an international committee that does not was to manipulate the people and the truth.
I know nothing of the Canadian military lawyer, However, I'm reminded that his compatriot, John de Chasterlain, was welcomed with open arms, as a favourite son, by the Unionist population in Northern Ireland, when he was appointed head of the weapons decommissioning authority, They quickly became disenchanted when it transpired that he was uncomfortably and unaccountably impartial, and dedicated to his mandate. The fact that he adhered to his deals with Republicans was quite unexpected and a new departure! I wonder how Watkin will turn out?
How many times has the previous probes find any Israeli killing all those civilians that have been kill in the past?
and not a pip from the same world that accuses Israel in all bad that exists in the world. What a hypocritical, vial, double face bunch of loooooooseeeers!!!!!! I am so proud of Israel for standing up and holding their line. That is exactly why Israel and Jewish people will always be on a right in my book...
Funny, very funny; at least Haaretz is not calling them pro-Palestinian terrorists. :)
This 'committee' does not have the credibility to assess the work of Honorable Goldstone. Shame on Israel and the US if they accept this sham going forward, as Rice at the UN has already alluded to.
Israel refused to co-operate with Goldstone and it is therefore right that a Supreme Court Judge should hear Israel's case.
Can we take it that Trimble is Israel's tame Nobel laureate. He was part of a Peace Prize package with, genuine peace activist, John Hume. Trimble spent most of his careet fighting against civil rights in Northern Ireland. His first ever utterance on reconciliation occurred in his Nobel acceptance speech. He is a long standing member of the sectarian, ultra- Protestant "Orange Order". When the Unionists were trawling the world for friends in the last few decades they found ready ears in Israel. We had a 60 year old colonial/garrison population finding common cause with a 400 year old one. Trimble's ancestors would have arrived in northern (lower case n) Ireland about 1610, at the "Plantation of Ulster". Ulster's "First Intifada " happened 30 years later. The parallels with Palestine in the 20th. century are uncanny. Israeli historians should take note. Maybe it is now pay back time. Israel will definitely have a friend in court, or is that the object of the exercise?
release shalit and maybe we will end the blockade. Hamas are terrorists and so are the people of gaza
It only turned the opinions against Israel if all the sraelis agreed with you ...Shalit has nothing to with this probe and the people of Gaza...Your opinion tells more of yourself than of Gaza people.
How can you call them "international observers" when they're not chosen by anyone international and they're not, as it seems, independent? Another joke awaits us all.
I always worry when I hear "Friends "of Israel as they never fail to be the exact opposite. The last perfect example beingPresident Bush .
Without a UN probe panel, the world knows that Israeli created probe panel will give a friendly report on Israel. 1 person from Ireland, who is a member of Friend of Israel, 1 person from a country very far from Israel - would that be a joke of the year!
No matter how Israel tries to protray itself to the world, it's former alley Turkey is forced to align with Iran and Syria now.
Israel and its puppet, the US of Aipac, have become complete jokes to the rest of the world. Everyone looks at this and laughs.
When Iraqis made allegations against UK soldiers their cases were heard in the High Court in London. Are you suggesting the Israeli Supreme Court Justice is a murder suspect? Are the Northern Irish and Canadians murder suspects?
to the World cup, Israel announced they will put together this sham investigation. Now my bet is they will finish this investigation before the conclussion of the tournament. To think it will be creditable is to think the cow can jump over the moon.
He's a part of the Orangemen movement, a super-Unionist/Protestant organisation that gets kicks out of marching through Catholic streets in Belfast celebrating the murder of native Irish people--past and present. He has no sympathy for the suffering of the Irish over the past hundreds of years and opposed an investigation into the Bloody Sunday massacre, which left peaceful Irish protestors dead. His Nobel prize is equivalent to Arafat's, awarded to him because he agreed to stop being quite as much of a massive prick. There are many good people in the North but he is not one of them. The fact that Israel has chosen him, of all people, to be an entire HALF of the "international observers" speaks volumes. These people clearly value imperialism and quashing the truth and they've found kindred spirits in the Unionists. Makes me sick.
The hearings are likely to be public and covered by the press. The findings will certainly be made public.
Internal Gaza flotilla raid probe panel of PMO will only satisfy Bibi himself. A neutral International investigation is necessary to bring the facts to light.
Guess what the outcome will be. The Irish folks on the second vessel killed the Turks.
The PM must be crazy. The appointment demonstrates bad faith on his part and mocks not only the U.S. and the international "community" but the citizens of Israel. Talk about "ship of fools!"
There have been many world class Rabbis in their 90's who were still quite active. Why should jurists be any different?
you might wanna add that trimble is from ulster (northern ireland), which is still part of the UK, not ireland itself. trimble is a protestant unionist of english descent, not a native irishman. anyway we all know that this "probe" had a snowball's chance in hell at being truly unbiased so no surprise here. forgone conclusion: israel was in the right, all arabs/turks/persians/brown people are terrorists, etc etc etc. yawn.
If US Backs this investigation than it is not democratic.If Saddam did killing of Kurds it was a world consurn and now when people shot dead bullets fired at them from behind to their fore heads occurding to Turkish forensics than.This is murder and I think wrong people are there to lead the investigatin mr trimble or who else they are not expert in international maritime or military crime I know very well possibly Mr Blairs finger is in this as well as other well known leading politions but I feel sad for the boy who died from poit blank range by israeli soldiers to his body 5 times unfair it is UNFAIR.
...are murdering Uzbeks. More than a hubdred people are murdered. More than a thousand are injured. Murdered people were not martyrs (like IHH terrorists). They wanted to live. There are your protests, muslims?
in kyrgystan the uzbeks and kyrgystanis kill each other. it isn't a one-way street. like most israelis/israeli sympathizers, you complain when the world whitewashes your situation while you apply that same whitewashing to others.
Non of the crime in the world to be excuse of Israilies crimes. Crime is crime. Israil should stop his crimes by refering other crimes. Is that an acceptable low that I did this crime because of that crime?
neither muslims nor westerners condemn muslim on muslim murder.
Muslims are murdering...Uzbek Muslims? Should other people protest when an Israeli Jew kills an Israeli Jew in an internal crime? You don't seem to understand that 60+ years of ongoing occupation and wars are a continual INTERNATIONAL crime. People protest that and that fact our neighbors also commit crimes doesn't excuse Israel of hers.
They should be blamed, not Israel. Turks: how it could happen that Erdogan didn't notice involvement of IHH? Turks: do you watched videos made on Turkish ship by Turkish videocameras, that show Turks attacking IDF? Turks: Where is your honesty?
by law, the flotilla participants were defending themselves. how disgusting of you to blame the victims.
by law, the flotilla participants were defending themselves. how disgusting of you to blame the victims.
erdogan wants to become the leader of the muslim world. however, the more important question is why did not obama do anything to pursuade erdogan to stop the flotilla. of course, present us policy is that there are no muslim terrorists and jihad is a tenet of islam.
There is no evidence IHH is a terrorist organization! It has consultative status at the UN! It's a regional anti-war/anti-imperialism group. Give me a break - settler support groups are greater sponsors of terrorism than these guys. Where is your honesty, shilltorio?
Yes, video also showed IDF assaulting the ship in international waters first. They took a weel desreved beating. They killed nine in return and shot 30. Eye for an eye?
The nasty protesters chased the IDF helicopter & warships into International waters , then attacked them....
Investigations in France and Denmark DID connect IHH to terrorist groups. The French investigation led by Judge Jean-Louis Brugiere found links between IHH and alQaida.
Right. So let's let North Korea conduct their own "independent inquiry" on who sunk the South Korean ship. ;-)
Israel has freedom of the press. Does North Korea???
There is quite a difference between a state with a recognised independent judiciary like Israel and a totalitarian state like North Korea.
The Mavi Marmara's own security camera leaves no doubt as to what happened. The report is just in addition to the self-evident guilt of the terrorists who hijacked the ship. Even the captain and crew testified the terrorists took over the ship.
William David Trimble is not an Irish citizen, but is a citizen of Northern Ireland and a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, a group not know for their love of the republic. to suggest that this person would be an adequate representative of the Irish citizens who participated in the recent Gaza flotilla, or the Rachael Corrie is ludicrous .
The Canadian selected is no better. An Israeli sycophant representing Harper, NOT the opinion of the Canadian people.
You just want to discredit a neutral observer, who did himself the difficult journey from resistance to peace, and could lay the foundations alongside his socialdemocrat partner, for Northern Ireland's peace.
... is to soothe the ruffled feathers of the world, nothing more. Get real. There is no way an Israeli-led commission could possibly find otherwise. It is time for some more "peace flotillas" to come to Gaza and keep this issue at the forefront, and put pressure on Israel to end this ridiculous blockade that only serves to guarantee Hamas's monopoly on power. It's almost like Netanyahu wants them there!
Of course, Israel will "prove" they are Terrorists out to destroy Israel as well.
Given Trimbles opposition to a bloody Sunday inquiry in Northern Ireland he lacks any credibility. Be cheaper for Israel just to buy a tin of whitewash in the local hardware
The key to embargo is the constant and daily terrorist attacks on Israel families and children especially Sderot and the daily suffering of Schalit. Israel will continue to be attacked by the media and the world if this is not included in the investigation.
compare the amount of people who have died in sderot to the amount of people who have died in gaza. don't make me laugh.
... ever since he got involved with Israel... ... that would teach them to proceed cautiously, at their own peril...
Instead of using the number 3000, why not tell me why I go to Sderot and don't see daily terror attacks there. This need for victimhood is out of control! Listen, rockets fly to Sderot and a few villages nearby, the number dead in 7 years is about the same as those killed on the flotilla. Gaza has 1.7million people ALL targeted by the siege, suffering daily. If Hamas followed our (I'm in Israel) strategy/proportionality, ALL OF ISRAEL would be getting rocketed EVERY DAY. Get a sense of proportion or be prepared to be asked why you're a Jewish supremacist.
Israil, you don't need to be cheap by setting up an artificial prope out of UN's request to make the world believe you. The world is not as stupid as you think right now and they already know what happened in the raid. Now it is time to re-build your credibility and accept all the condemns, apologize and stop isolating yourself asap. Believe or not, we (turks) don't hate you. Even now, there is no unrepareble damages. If you accept your mistakes and apologize sincerely, it is easy to catch Turkish hearth.
Is Turkey willing to accept responsibility for ITS mistakes?
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. You pretended to be Israel's friend all these years and now you back the murderous tyrant Aknalninajan. You also have a history of murdering Armenians and Kurds - Admit Your mistakes first!!!
There are no apologies for the right of Jews to murder.
...then the Turkish plot would not have succeeded.
while at the same time israels admits it with it's blockade, go figure.
If there was occupation,the Gazans wouldn't have elected Hamas freely and democratically,as you all admit it was done.
USA embargoes Cuba, but doesn't occupy it. NATO Occupies Afghanistan, but doesn't embargo it.