Democracy Now! - Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and frozen military cooperation ahead of a long-awaited United Nations report on Israel's deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship in 2010. The report accuses Israel of "excessive and unreasonable" force in its attack—which killed nine people—on the Mavi Marmara ship, and says Israel should issue a statement of regret and compensate the families of the dead as well as wounded passengers. But it also chides passengers aboard the Marmara and the other flotilla ships for what it calls a "reckless" attempt to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. In a major development with broader implications, the U.N. report concludes that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal under international law. We speak with Norman Finkelstein, author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including "'This Time We Went Too Far': Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion." We are also joined by Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement. Both Arraf and Finkelstein blast the U.N. report, calling it a "whitewash" and "morally debased."

Norman Finkelstein, author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including "This Time We Went Too Far": Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.

Interview Part 1/2:

Video link Part 1/2: http://youtu.be/XlLm1Ym3Pbc

Interview Part 2/2:

Part 2/2: http://youtu.be/ZwRHJBAr0q8
Interview transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and frozen military cooperation ahead of a long-awaited United Nations report on Israel's deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship in 2010. According to leaked excerpts, the report accuses Israel of, quote, "excessive and unreasonable force" in its attacks on the Mavi Marmara which killed nine people. The report says Israel should issue a statement of regret and compensate the families of the dead as well as wounded passengers. But the report also criticizes passengers aboard the Marmara and the other flotilla ships for what it calls a, quote, "reckless" attempt to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. And in a major development with broader implications, the United Nations report also concludes that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal under international law.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. investigation was overseen by Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand. Turkey says it will expel the Israeli ambassador and downgrade diplomatic ties to their lowest level until Israel drops its refusal to apologize for the raid and provides compensation.

For more, we're going to go to Ramallah, where we're joined by Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers of the Free Gaza flotilla movement. She's on one of—she was on one of the six ships that were in the Gaza flotilla when the Mavi Marmara was attacked. She's joining us by Democracy Now! audio stream. And here in New York, we're joined by Norman Finkelstein, author of a number of books on Israel-Palestine conflict, including "This Time We Went Too Far": Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.

In Ramallah, Huwaida Arraf, your response to the leaked report—the New York Times posted it online—of the U.N.?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Hi, Amy, Juan, Norman.

Sadly, it's a completely expected whitewash of Israeli crimes. This panel's composition—not only its composition, but its mandate—was problematic in so many ways. And it wasn't designed to get at the truth of what happened or to achieve—to get at justice for the victims of Israel's attack, but rather to arrive at political compromise between Israel and Turkey. And that's what we have. It's an attempt to whitewash the crimes, set them aside, and in addition, it came up with some outrageous claims that completely contradict the findings of numerous human rights organizations and international law authorities, including various bodies of the U.N. itself, about the legality of the Israeli blockade. So, very problematic.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the report's criticism or faulting of one organization, in particular, a Turkish organization, that had some members—helped organize the flotilla. Could you talk about what it said and your response to that?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Sure. It did say—you did quote that we were "reckless," but it also said that Israeli soldiers faced organized violence when they tried to board the Mavi Marmara, which is completely untrue. We spent a long time preparing for this flotilla. And our—everything that we prepared, the passengers and our—the foundations of our movement and what we do is based on nonviolent direct action resistance.

This is not to deny that Israeli soldiers did face some attacks when they boarded, but you can't say that these attacks were anything more than self-defense, because of the obnoxious way in which Israeli soldiers—and very violent way in which they took over the ships, in the way that was intended to cause tremendous fear and commotion. They boarded the ships firing, even on our very small boat. The boat that I was on was traveling right next to the Mavi Marmara, and we only had about 17 people on that boat. They boarded, beating down people, using tasers, firing stun grenades and paintball pellet at people's faces. It was completely uncalled-for violence, so that some people, a handful out of 700 volunteers, reacted in what can be called a violent way. It was self-defense, so it was in no way organized. And this is—I'm saying this, being part of the central organizing committee of the flotilla.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N.'s report notes that, quote, "On the basis of public statements by the flotilla organizers and their own internal documentation, the Panel is satisfied that as much as their expressed purpose of providing humanitarian aid, one of the primary objectives of the flotilla organizers was to generate publicity about the situation in Gaza by attempting to breach Israel's naval blockade. The purposes of the flotilla were clearly expressed in a document prepared by IHH and signed by all flotilla participants," unquote.

The report then cites the document's statement of purpose, which reads, quote, "Purposes of this journey are to create an awareness amongst world public and international organizations on the inhumane and unjust embargo on Palestine and to contribute to end this embargo which clearly violates human rights and delivering humanitarian relief to the Palestinians."

Norm Finkelstein, your response?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I noticed that Juan was looking perplexed at that statement. I have to say, last night, when I was reading the report, I was completely dumbfounded, and I had to keep repeating—rereading these passages over and over again. What the report stated—and all of your listeners should hear closely, because it was so shocking, so morally debased—the report said that we doubt, or we question, the true motives of the organizers of the flotilla. They said, we have evidence that their real motive was not humanitarian. And the statement that you just quoted was the evidence that their real motive was not humanitarian, that they had this really sinister, nefarious motive. Their real motive was not humanitarian; the real motive was, they said, the report said, to cast publicity on Israel's illegal and immoral blockade of Gaza.

Now I have to say, that is—and I'm meaning this literally—it is a new low. I read all the Israeli reports, in particular the Turkel report, the one put out by the former Supreme Court justice. It's about 300 pages. They never stooped to that level. They claimed that this handful of what they call jihadists, that they were looking for a confrontation with Israelis or the Israeli soldiers, and they brought on weapons for a confrontation. This report does not claim that they were looking for a confrontation. It holds them morally culpable for trying to cast publicity on an illegal and inhumane blockade. With the Israelis, at least we're in the same moral universe, and it's a question of fact. What was the intent of these commandos—excuse me, what was the intent of the activists? Was it to get a confrontation, or was it to cast humanitarian—cast light on what's happening? But with this report, we've entered a new moral universe. They are actually saying that to cast light on an illegal and inhumane blockade is a morally sinister act.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask, there were four members on this committee: one from Turkey, one from Israel, then there were two supposedly independent ones, the former prime minister of New Zealand and Álvaro Uribe, the former president of Colombia, who himself presided over a period of the most—the highest level of extrajudicial killings and assassinations in his own country. It seems amazingly strange to have someone like Álvaro Uribe on this panel as an objective member of the committee.

AMY GOODMAN: The Colombian president.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, it was clear from the moment that Ban Ki-moon, the alleged secretary-general of the United Nations—it was clear from the moment he appointed Uribe on the panel that it was going to be a farce. Beyond all the crimes for which Mr. Uribe has been accused and also have been documented, he was also known as being very close to Israel and advocating closer military relations with Israel. So, from the get-go, from the moment the members were named, it was clear which way the report was going to go.

But, you know, you always wonder, what are they going to come up with? How could they possibly justify certain things? They said that the blockade of Gaza—now, we have to be clear. They said the naval blockade was legal. They separated it from the land blockade, for technical reasons, which it's no point in going into here. But they said the naval blockade was legal. And the grounds they gave were this: that Israel clearly faces security problems from Gaza, the rocket and mortar fire. OK. And they say, to document this security problem, since 2001, some 25 Israelis have been killed by these rocket and mortar attacks. Fair enough. And then they say that many people have suffered psychologically, psychological trauma from these attacks. Fair enough.

Then there's the other side of the equation. There is not one word, one syllable, on how many Gazans have perished as a result of Israeli attacks. It's not 25. It's not 250. It's at least at an order of magnitude of 2,500. We're not just talking about the 1,400 Palestinians who were killed in Operation Cast Lead. Israel always has operations in Gaza, has very fancy names—Operation Summer Rains, Operation Autumn Clouds, Operation Hot Winter, Operation Rainbow. All of it vanishes from this report. The only people who have suffered deaths in Gaza due to armed hostilities are Israelis.

Now, let's say it's true. Fair enough. They have a right to impose a naval blockade to prevent weapons from going to Gaza, for security reasons. Don't the people of Gaza have the right to impose a military blockade on Israel, to prevent weapons from going to Israel? You can't even raise that question. It's beyond their comprehension. In fact, the irony is, that's the law. The law is, as Amnesty International pointed out in its report "Fueling Conflict," under international law and domestic American law, it's illegal to transfer weapons to any country or—any state or non-state party which is a consistent violator of human rights. So, if that commission, the Palmer Commission, named after, you know, the former New Zealand president, if they had any integrity, they would have said, OK, Israel has the right to impose a blockade on Gaza, and the international community" — because this is what Amnesty said. Amnesty says the international community has an obligation—that's what they said—to impose an arms embargo on Israel, as well, because it's a consistent violator of human rights.

AMY GOODMAN: I want—I wanted to bring Huwaida Arraf back into the discussion, who's in Ramallah, chair of the Free Gaza Movement, was part of the aid flotilla last year that the Mavi Marmara was a part of. The U.N. investigation did accuse Israel of excessive and unreasonable force. Now Turkey has announced the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, the suspension of military cooperation, hours before the report was published. But also, in the last attempts of the Gaza flotilla, just in the last months, they themselves stopped a ship from going forward. Can you talk about all of this, Huwaida?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Sure. Really quickly, I'd like to just touch on a couple of important points that Norman made, the first one being about the legality of the blockade. And Norman did say that they considered it very separate from the rest of the closure, which has been declared completely illegal and a violation of Israel's obligations, so there's no way that this maritime blockade can be legal, no matter what way you look at it. It's a violation of Israel's obligations under international law as an occupying power.

Also, in regards to Uribe and the problems that Norman mentioned, the other thing is that he is known to have a complete disdain for human rights defenders. And you can look at complaints from human rights organizations within Colombia. Also, an organization called Human Rights First called this out, that him referring to human rights defenders as "terrorist sympathizers" endangers human rights defenders. So, from the start, he had a disdain for people like us who like to call attention to and take action, nonviolent action, against these human rights abuses.

And the last really important thing before I get to your question is this report and the attention that it's supposed to get, when we already had an independent U.N. fact-finding mission that released a report almost one year ago, comprehensive, interviewed over a hundred victims and participants, and that was put together by scholars in international law and known judges on international tribunals. This should be the authority on what actually happened, not this farce of a report.

But in terms of what you said about Turkey stopping—about being part of stopping the last flotilla, known as Freedom Flotilla 2, which was supposed to launch last summer, or this past summer, not exactly. It was Israel placed a lot of pressure on a lot of countries, the European countries, to stop their citizens from participating. Not many—you know, some leaders of these countries made statements that the flotilla is not helpful and that they warn their citizens not to take part. But the country that was—that really cooperated with Israel—and it was a shock and quite sad—was Greece. And it did—we did learn that it came under a lot of political and economic pressure also because of the economic situation that they're in. But they did impose restrictions and did not let our boats leave. So it really became complicit in Israel's blockade. And we are challenging that on different levels.

Turkey itself didn't really. It did communicate to us and to our Turkish partners that it might not be helpful at this time, but what happened—but the Turkish organization IHH remained fully a part of the flotilla. The Mavi Marmara was not able to go, because it was not physically, mechanically ready to go. In fact, up until the date that we were supposed to launch, they still had people working to meet all of the guidelines for being certified to go into international waters on the kind of mission that we wanted it to. So we knew—at a point, we realized it wasn't going to be ready, and we took that boat out of the equation. But the Turks remained fully a part of the organizing. And in fact, we were going to launch one boat from Turkey. One of the boats—it was the Irish ship—was located in Turkey, but it was sabotaged by, we believe, Israeli agents and was not able to launch. So, they didn't really place any barriers, certainly not like Greece did.

AMY GOODMAN: But the fact that this report did find that Israel's use of force was excessive and unreasonable, and the significance of Turkey expelling the Israeli ambassador?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Definitely. Well, it's kind of funny that Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador today after the release of this report, because the whole point of this report was to reach a political compromise and to repair the relation between Israel and Turkey. And we're glad that Turkey has taken the position that it has taken. And in fact, Turkey's foreign minister has said that it's time that Israel paid a price. And it's true, because Israel does not pay a price for any of its human rights violations. It continues to act with impunity. And even the fact that this report did say Israel acted using excessive force, it doesn't—it doesn't go enough to—money or paying compensation is not—is no kind of justice for the families or for the people that—for the victims of Israel's actions. And that's what we want to see. We want to see some kind of accountability. And that's different from the U.N. report that was issued last September by the independent fact-finding mission, which recommended that human rights abusers be held accountable. And that's what we're waiting to see. So, this report, the Uribe-Palmer report, pays some lip service to the victims, but its main—again, its main goal, to repair relations, and we're glad to see that Turkey is not falling for that.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I'd like to say—

JUAN GONZALEZ: Norman, if we can, we just have a little bit of time.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Sure.

JUAN GONZALEZ: If you could just briefly talk about the implications of this report coming out now and the continuing schism between Turkey and Israel, as we head into the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, actually, many Israelis worried that this would be Pyrrhic victory for the Israeli government, because being so stubborn about refusing to make an apology—there are two of consecutive words that just don't translate into Hebrew. The two words, consecutive words, are "excuse me." They can't comprehend that. And the Israeli—many Israeli officials were saying, "Make the apology, because we need Turkey. Turkey is our—has historically been our strongest ally in the Muslim world. Things are now turbulent with our other main ally in the Arab world, Egypt. Make the apology, and move on." But there were members of the Netanyahu government—in particular, Mr. Lieberman, the foreign minister, and his party—who refused, because they said if they made the apology, Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, would run with it and would embarrass the Israelis, and Israelis would be humiliated. But they didn't think it was a wise move. And actually, I don't think it is, either. Losing the military relationship with Turkey, suspension of diplomatic relations, and now you know Turkey, when the state issue—statehood issue comes up in September, they are going to be in the forefront now, because Erdogan has been humiliated by this report. It was a complete spit in the face of the Turks, what this report said.

So I think, from a moral point of view, it was a disgrace. But from a political point of view, it will probably end up helping the Palestinians. You have to remember the whole point of the report. It described the killing of the nine members of the—on the—passengers on the Mavi Marmara. You know the phrase they used? It was a "major irritant" to diplomatic relations. Killing nine people is an "irritant." And they said, "We have to get over this irritant, so that Israel and Turkey can restore diplomatic relations." That's their moral level.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to leave it there. Norman Finkelstein, we thank you for being with us, author of, among other books, "This Time We Went Too Far": Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, and Huwaida Arraf, chair of the Free Gaza Movement, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, was on one of the six ships that were in the Gaza flotilla when the Mavi Marmara was attacked. She was joining us from Ramallah, on the West Bank.

Related posts:

• Guilty As Charged: UN Report on Gaza Flotilla Massacre
• “We Are Eager to Get to Gaza”: Democracy Now! Exclusive Report from Greece on U.S. Gaza Aid Flotilla
• The Images Israel Didn’t Want Seen: New Video from Gaza Freedom Flotilla

By Richard Lightbown * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

BBC Bias

It is a pity that the staff at Panorama, the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, did not share their editor-in –chief's concerns when they produced a documentary entitled "Death in the Med", which was aired on 16 August this year. The programme, presented by reporter Jane Corbin, claimed to produce new evidence from both sides of Israel's raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla "to piece together the real story for the first time".

Omission and biased nuance

In order to fit into the short half-hour time slot, the documentary concentrated solely on the attack on the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara. Thus, the assaults on the other five vessels were not even mentioned, along with the considerable gratuitous violence against non-violent activists on three of the ships. Nor was the illegal and sometimes sadistic detention of passengers and crew, which included further violence, maltreatment and humiliation. Nor the widespread theft of property and cash, along with looting of aid items and the fraudulent use of activists" credit cards. Nor the disposal of some of the aid in a landfill site in the Negev desert, and the months of delay for at least half of the total cargo in the port of Haifa. (I have still been unable to find confirmation that the 3,500 tons of cement have in fact been safely delivered to Gaza.)

Yet despite the time constraints and the proclaimed emphasis on the raid of the flotilla flagship, Ms Corbin did manage to find time to belittle the aid carried by the flotilla (of which only a small proportion was on the Mavi Marmara) and to question the true motives of the participants. There was also time to allude to terrorism by the Turkish charity and co-organizer of the flotilla, IHH, and to mention the rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel.

However, time constraints prevented any mention of Zionist terrorism from the Irgun bombs thrown from cars in Arab crowds in the 1930s through decades of international atrocities to the killing of Gazan fishermen and farmers in the present day.

(The programme's deputy editor, Daniel Pearl, told me it was necessary to mention the rockets to explain why Israel claims the blockade is in place. Apparently, it was not necessary to inform or remind viewers that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has publicly stated that the blockade is a collective punishment that is illegal under international law, or to mention the United Nations Development Programme assessment of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This situation might help to explain why some Palestinians feel a need to fire rockets at southern Israel. Did the editors of Panorama really expect their viewers to work this out for themselves?)

This then was hardly the "real story" that was claimed, while the "new evidence" consisted of a few seconds of additional footage that the Israelis had released to the compliant documentary team. Everything else has been in the public domain for weeks. Yet the programme conveniently overlooked the fact that these same generous authorities had confiscated huge amounts of photographic evidence from the flotilla and also filmed the whole raid themselves. Hundreds of hours of important evidence from these sources remain suppressed or possibly destroyed, yet no one would have learned this from Ms Corbin's reportage. The extent of the bias exhibited by the programme can be gauged by the fact that Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) website provides a link to the entire half-hour programme. (The rest of the same page includes such gems as a press conference where Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, hardly a model of impartiality, stated that "The armada of hate and violence in support of the Hamas terror organization was a premeditated and outrageous provocation." Panorama is in good company.)

It was hardly surprising then that the Panorama programme generated a lot of criticism.

Broadcasting complaints in the United Kingdom are normally dealt with by the independent regulator, Ofcom, which assesses them against the Broadcasting Code. For reasons that are not made clear on the Ofcom website, the BBC is exempt from oversight on issues of impartiality and inaccuracy which it deals with in-house, claiming to "learn from them to improve our programmes and services".

Seeking just such an improvement on the standards of reporting at Panorama I prepared a fully referenced 14-page critique along with an annotated transcript of the entire programme. Because the BBC's web page for complaints does not allow for attachments in the text box, I was obliged to send this by post to the complaints unit in Darlington, where it was received on 27 August. Ten weeks later I am still awaiting an adequate response.

"Bereft of integrity and a disgrace to the BBC"

It is true that Daniel Pearl, the deputy editor of "Panoroama", responded to each individual point in an email on 3 September. However, I consider that response to have been inadequate on a number of points, the chief of which are:

1. Persistent use of the word "terrorist" by Israeli sources against members of the flotilla was never countered, nor was it ever suggested in the programme that under international law it was the Israeli raid that was an act of terrorism, and not the courageous defence which responded to that illegal act.
2. The Panorama claim that the Israeli commandos had never been filmed by the media in action before was blatantly false since the programme makers were using footage by Cultures of Resistance showing the commandos attacking the Mavi Marmara. This footage has previously been publicly screened.
3. The false assertion by a commando that "people" (i.e. commandos) were thrown overboard was never corrected.
4. Major-General Eiland's claims that the results of the raid were "surprisingly low" and that the force was not excessive were not adequately challenged.
5. The BBC's Editorial Guidelines state: "We must rigorously test contributors expressing contentious views during an interview whilst giving them a fair chance to set out their full response to our questions" (BBC, Editorial Guidelines, June 2005, p.27). The nine passengers who were killed had been shot in total 30 times. A further 55 passengers (Israeli figures) were injured, mostly with gunshot wounds. The general was never pressed to justify his claim that the force used was not excessive in the light of these heavy casualties (which amounted to more than 10 per cent of the passengers).Jane Corbin parroted the Israeli excuses for depriving Gaza of reconstruction materials. These claims are unrealistic since cement is an inappropriate material for making rockets (as has been claimed by Israeli Foreign Ministry legal expert Sarah Weiss Maudi on the legal aspects of Gaza aid)and the often cited "bunkers" would merely serve as a target for air strikes. Thus there is no security issue with construction materials which Gaza is deprived of for political reasons alone.
6. Jane Corbin's allegation that "Western authorities" have accused one of the flotilla organizers, IHH, of links to terrorism was spurious. The "authorities" referred to basically amount to one man, the former head of the French judiciary's counterterrorism unit, Jean-Louis Bruguière. Even this source was unable to indicate any current terror links to the charity (see Yassin Musharbash, "A closer look at Israel's terror accusations"). M. Bruguière has been roundly criticized in the French press (Le Monde described him as a voyou judiciaire or judicial lout) for controversial investigations in Rwanda and the bombing of a UTA flight over the Sahara Desert⁽¹⁾. Ms Corbin did not add that the US State Department has not designated the charity a "foreign terrorist organization" nor does it intend to do so⁽²⁾. Nor did the programme ever refer to more than 70 years of widespread Zionist international terrorism.
7. The programme described Israeli proposals to transfer the cargoes through the port of Ashdod, but never mentioned the counter proposals put forward by the flotilla organizers to undergo inspection by a neutral organization such as the UN or ICRC, before proceeding on to Gaza.
8. The programme featured part of a filmed Israeli interrogation of the ship's chief engineer without mentioning that it had been secretly filmed or that the original 4.03 minute video has been edited at least five times.
9. The allegation that IHH had taken control of the ship (of which they were the legal owners) is false. There is no evidence to suggest that any passenger was ever denied legitimate access to any part of the ship or that any crew member was ever intimidated or prevented from carrying out his duties.
10. The programme said that commandos in the first helicopter were armed with "non-lethal weapons" when in fact they had opened fire from the helicopters with live ammunition.
11. Passengers' and journalists' testimonies describing live fire from the first helicopter before any commando descended were not considered or mentioned.
12. Israeli allegations of live fire from passengers are only supported by a solitary audio recording whose authenticity has been questioned. The BBC has never adequately addressed this issue, which is probably the most important source of contention. There is no solid evidence to back up this oft-repeated Israeli claim yet the BBC has treated the contention as quasi-fact not only in this programme but in a Hardtalk interview with Ken O'Keefe on 25 June 2010.
13. Claims by a commando that they tried to minimize the injuries by firing at the legs were never disputed or questioned by the programme despite the evidence that many of the injuries were to the head and upper body.
14. The programme implied that the Israeli military had acted with compassion by airlifting the injured to hospital but failed to mention the widespread ill-treatment of all detainees, including the injured, many of whom were deliberately laid on deck in the constant spray and downdraft from a helicopter. Nor was there any mention that three passengers died through being denied medical treatment, two by bleeding to death.
15. Ms Corbin's assessment of the aid cargos mentioned only mobility scooters, beds and drugs, placing great emphasis on out-of-date medicines which were alleged to comprise two-thirds of the total. (No source was given for this information which smacks of Israeli connivance.) Nothing was said of the thousands of tons of construction materials or the impressive array of medical equipment, or the large sums of money carried by volunteers such as Dr Hasan Nowrah for the Gazan medical services. Hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash intended for Gazan charities has been stolen by the Israeli state or its operatives. The money has been callously described as money for terrorism by its larcenous recipients. Panorama viewers were never informed.
16. Having begged, borrowed, worked and pleaded for all this aid and cash the volunteers who risked so much to deliver it were cheaply written off by Ms Corbin as people primarily interested in a publicity stunt intended to pressurize Israel and the international community.

These are not details or nuances picked from a piece of honest reportage. They are the skeleton of a report that is bereft of integrity and a disgrace to the BBC. And what has the response been? Nothing; allowing a generous seven-week period the Editorial Complaints Unit set itself the deadline to respond by 2 November. To date it has failed to do so, and its director, Colin Tregear, has also failed to respond to my email reminding him of this negligence.

Whitewashing by devious means

Not that I am expecting any justice. Responses to other complainants have whitewashed the slate, often by devious means. Here are some examples from Mr Tregear (quotes or paraphrasing of Colin Tregear in blue):

To Complainant 1:

• On the legality of the blockade:

The United Nations issued a statement following the flotilla in which it referred to the blockade as "counterproductive and unacceptable" but is has never officially declared the blockade to be illegal...

The text of the paragraph actually reads:

He [Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs] pointed out that, in his view, today's bloodshed would have been avoided if repeated calls on Israel to end the counter-productive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza had been heeded.

• On the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) audio recording whose authenticity is under dispute:

The programme-makers have assured me that they questioned senior Israeli military spokespeople about the recording and were assured on two separate occasions by different individuals (before and after the edited broadcast was published) that it was genuine and had not been faked or edited. I accept that this assurance has to be judged in the light of who gave it, but I think it is important to note that the programme-makers did not take the Israeli version of events at face value and questioned the IDF directly on the matter.

Aside from the fact that only one individual had been asked before publication, the naivety here is staggering. The IDF had issued the recording so they were certain to swear by its authenticity. (What else did the BBC expect?) The Free Gaza Movement was contesting the authenticity but the BBC had not seen fit to ask them. This is negligent. Huwaida Arraf, whose voice appears on the audio, had this to say on the authenticity:

...on the Challenger we recorded the communication but of course the Israeli soldiers took all our recording devices from us. So if they have nothing to hide, give us back our recording equipment. We documented all of the communications but we don't have any of it. The Free Gaza Movement maintains that it definitely was tampered with, and I can tell you that one of the voices on there that they claim was saying "remember 9/11" – this sounds like an American voice with some kind of faked southern accent . None of the captains that we had, no captain was American. We had one British, which was Denis Healy, two Greek captains, two Turkish captains and one Algerian captain and I was there listening to the captains respond to the Israeli questions in a very professional manner. So that's definitely tampered with.

• On the IHH:

Firstly, I think it was legitimate for the programme-makers to draw attention to concerns which have been expressed by Western authorities about the charity's links to organizations such as Hamas and the Union of Good, which have been designated as terrorist organizations.

It is pertinent that no "Western authorities" have been identified in this comment. The more so since, in answer to Professor Miguel Deutch's question on 11 August 2010 – "Did you view at this stage the IHH as an actual terror organization? As a terror-supporting organization?" – IDF Chief of General Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi replied "No, no."⁽³⁾ It should also be recognized that as a major donor charity to the Gaza Strip, IHH inevitably must have links with the government of that territory, which is run by Hamas.

• On the allegation of live fire from passengers made by Gen Eiland:

I therefore think that the programme presented both the claim by the Israelis and the denial by the activists and so I cannot conclude that the programme gave the misleading impression it was a fact that the activists used live ammunition.

Immediately following the activists' testimony referred to here (by Ken O"Keefe), Jane Corbin herself said: "The question of who shot first remains disputed and unresolved." This clearly implies the use of live fire by passengers.

• On there being no mention of "lethal fire" from the helicopters:

...I do not believe it was the case that the programme did not mention claims that the commandos opened fire from the helicopters. There were two separate contributions from Bulent Yildirim in which he made it clear that he believed the Israelis opened fire from the start of their operation. There was a clip of him which was filmed on deck at the time of the attack:

Jane Corbin: "The IHH claim they were acting in self-defence. They say the Israelis started using live fire right from the start of the operation."

Bulent Yildirim: "At this moment they're firing non-stop. And every time one of our friends is being injured. They're firing at us, they're throwing bombs."

He also responded to questions from Ms Corbin by saying: "At this point it had gone beyond passive resistance because the Israelis had been firing from the start. These people are defending themselves while being fired at."

I therefore cannot conclude that the programme did not refer to the claims made about live fire from the helicopters.

Nowhere in any of these quotes above, nor in any part of the programme, was there a specific reference to live fire from helicopters. The specific claim by several activists that the IDF commenced live fire (several attest to deadly live fire) was accepted by the United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding mission which said in its report (para.114, p.26): However, it has concluded that live ammunition was used from the helicopter onto the top deck prior to the descent of the soldiers."

• On the editing of IDF film of the chief engineer (which was secretly filmed, but not declared as such by the BBC):

I have watched the version of the interview which is available online and although it does seem as if it has been edited, the questions and answers used in the programme appear to be contemporaneous, and so I don't believe it is possible to conclude that the editing has been carried out in such a way as to alter the meaning of what the officer said in regard to the IHH activists.

The film in question is 4.03 minutes long, and from the unassisted appearance and disappearance of various objects it is clear that the film has been cut at least five times. Mr Tregear himself is not absolutely certain that the material used is contemporaneous. In the sequence he cites, it is unclear whether the beaker by the engineer contains water throughout the interview (although it is never touched by anyone in this time). The doubts must remain.

The BBC's Editorial Guidelines state (p.22):

We should only broadcast material from third parties who may have a personal or professional interest in its subject matter if there is a clear editorial justification. The material should be labelled.

And:

We should be very reluctant to use video and audio news releases or other material. We do not normally use any extracts from such releases if we are capable of gathering the material ourselves. If it is editorially justified to use it then we must explain the circumstances and clearly label the material on air.

Panorama is on very thin ice here.

• On the counter-proposal made by the flotilla:

I am unaware that the flotilla organizers made any counter-proposal.

Huwaida Arraf told Democracy Now! the following:

We told them also that we would be willing to admit to additional tests by a neutral body whether they be UN or the ICRC. We weren't hiding anything at all.

This conversation took place on the high sea. This point needs to be reconsidered in the light of this truth of which Mr Tregear was so dismissive.

• On the conduct of the IDF:

The programme reported serious failings on the part of the Israeli military:

- Poor military intelligence about the nature of the flotilla and those on board.
- A consequent failure to deal appropriately with the resistance faced.
- No attempt to rethink the operation once an initial attempt to board the Mavi Marmara was resisted.
- Continuing with the military operation with fatal consequences.

In contrast, the UNHRC mission, which included a retired international judge and a senior lawyer with experience in international law, was scathing and uncompromising (para.264, p.53):

The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted a grave violation of human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The two assessments are hardly on the same planet.

To Complainant 2:

• On the failure to challenge General Eiland effectively:

This complaint effectively goes unanswered since Mr Tregear deals only with comments made by the general on Israel's bad publicity. Later in the programme General Eiland makes the following highly contentious remark:

We have very clear evidence that at least in four cases the other side did use live fire [...] but at least in one case they used their weapon, because we found bullets and shells that is not in use in the Israeli forces.

Ms Corbin made no attempt to question this at all.

As mentioned above under point 4, the BBC Editorial Guidelines require contentious views to be rigorously tested in interview. Mr Tregear makes no attempt to uphold these guidelines here.

In a long answer attempting to justify loose accusations of terrorism against activists in various parts of the programme, Mr Tregear winds up with the following:

I also think it is worth pointing out that Ms Corbin questioned one commando's description of the activists as terrorists:

JC: "They were civilians"

Sergeant Y: "They were not. They may be civilian Turkish people but they were terrorists plain and simple."

I therefore cannot agree that viewers would have been misled; it was clear that the Israelis were accusing some activists of being terrorists. Ms Corbin challenged one commando on this point. Viewers would have been able to draw their own conclusions as to the veracity of the Israeli claim.

This short sequence here is actually the entire interview with Sergeant Y at this point. It is therefore incorrect to say that Ms Corbin challenged the commando. In fact, the reverse happened: he challenged her and, contrary to BBC guidelines requiring her to rigorously test this contentious view, she lamely let the matter rest. Again, Mr Tregear also fails in his task by not upholding the guidelines.

Panorama has presented a regurgitated version of Israeli propaganda on an international outrage, which it has had the temerity to label "the real story". In doing so it has defied the BBC's Editorial Guidelines.

Complaints to the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit have been fobbed of with a variety of excuses and imaginative distortions of the facts. The victims of this travesty are journalistic integrity and the tattered remnants of the BBC's credibility which survived the editor-in-chief's bias against the Palestinian victims of aggression nearly two years ago. Clearly, the BBC can no longer be trusted to put its own house in order and to learn from its failures in order to improve its programmes. As such it would be to the great benefit of British broadcasting if this recalcitrant body was treated the same as other broadcasting bodies and brought under the control of Ofcom.

Notes

1. François Schlosser, "Rwanda: les oeillères du juge Bruguière", le nouvel Observateur, 1 February 2007. Extract from "Manipulations Africaines" by Pierre Péan, published in Le Monde diplomatique, March 2001.

2. Roger Cohen, "The forgotten American", New York Times, 26 July 2010.

3. Chief of staff's testimony protocol, Turkel Committee, 8 August 2010.

* Richard Lightbown – studied the impacts of the Rwandan civil war on four Ugandan forests for his Masters dissertation. He has been a volunteer in Gaza and the West Bank, and assisted with a forestry proposal for the Arab areas of the occupied Golan.

Related posts:

• Open letter to BBC Panorama Team
• Committee of Independent Experts on Gaza War
• UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis “Executed” US Citizen Furkan Dogan

In the middle of the night Monday, Israeli commandos boarded ships in the "Freedom Flotilla" attempting to bring humanitarian aid to residents of still-blockaded Gaza. The aggressive response by Israel turned deadly, after with at least nine activists killed. The international community has reacted with shock and outrage; protests have erupted around the world outside Israeli embassies, with protesters even teargassed in Paris. Benjamin Netanyahu has canceled a meeting with President Obama and headed back to Israel to do damage control, and Turkey, from where the flotilla departed, has recalled its ambassador and issued a travel warning to its citizens.

Huwaida Arraf was on one of the ships; she joins us via phone from Ramallah, along with Norman Finkelstein, to tell us what happened to her and offer some analysis on the situation. Then we speak to Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, for more on the international reaction and the U.S.'s involvement.

Finally, Laura reminds us all of some words on the U.S./Israel relationship from General David Petraeus.

Source: GRITtv

Related posts:

• Huwaida Arraf – Free Gaza and Palestine
• Huwaida Arraf treat bully Ranaan Gissin admirably
• Richard Falk: Gaza, Afghanistan and International Law [Video]

Cartoon by Saman-Ramin-Iran

By Huwaida Arraf*

Last month I led a group of twenty-one human rights workers on a boat from Cyprus to challenge Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. We carried toys, medicine, olive tree saplings, toolkits, a fifty-kilo bag of cement and school supplies on our small converted ferry boat.

At 2 AM on June 30, almost eighteen hours into the 230-mile journey, a colleague awakened me. The Israeli Navy was calling our boat on the VHF radio. "You are navigating towards a blockaded area. You are hereby ordered to change your course. If you do not, we will be forced to use all necessary force to stop you" (watch video below).

Nervous after a previous boat of ours was dangerously rammed at sea in December by the Israeli military, I replied, "Israeli Navy, this is Arion (the registered name of our ship). We are twenty-one unarmed civilians carrying aid for the Palestinian people of Gaza. Any blockade on Gaza is unlawful as you are the occupying force in the territory and are therefore responsible for the well-being of the civilian population there. As our boat, its cargo, and the twenty-one civilians on board do not constitute any kind of threat to Israel or its armed forces, you are obliged to allow us entry. We are proceeding to Gaza. Do not use force against us."

Shortly thereafter our navigational systems were disabled for nearly four hours as the warnings continued. In their "final" warning to us, the Israeli Navy threatened to open fire. "Israeli Navy, we are unarmed civilians; do not use force against us. Do not shoot." We did not stop.

We were boarded by force. Before we were separated, I saw Navy forces grabbing my husband, Adam, a filmmaker who has made documentaries from Palestine to Darfur, about the neck. Later, I learned that outside of my view, these government-sanctioned pirates pummeled Adam in order to wrest his videocamera from his grasp.

Though I know it could not have been easy for him, Adam did not fight back. He was a multi-sport athlete in high school, threw out Manny Ramirez stealing second and is one of those rare individuals who bring a football player's intensity to peace work. But like the rest of us, Adam insists on using nonviolent means to resist Israel's military occupation. And though in his widely hailed Cairo speech President Obama made an implicit call for nonviolence as the means to challenge the Israeli occupation, the Obama administration made no public statement on our behalf -- nor did it do so three months ago, when my dear friend Bassem Abu Rahme was killed while nonviolently protesting Israeli expansionism in the West Bank that threatens to destroy his village of Bil'in.

Perhaps we were politically inept. Had we sailed toward Iran to offer assistance to civilian protesters there, we would have been a cause celebre if the Iranian government had arrested us. Iran, however, for all its troubles, is not now under foreign occupation as Palestine is. Yet as I watched the demonstrations in Iran, I could not miss the similarities to Palestine's nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation. I cannot count the times I have marched peacefully, waving a flag and demanding freedom for my people -- with only my voice and my presence as my weapons. And sadly, the number of friends I have lost -- killed by Israeli forces as, like Neda Agha-Soltan in Iran, they nonviolently demonstrated for freedom -- is becoming too great a pain in my heart.

My colleagues and I invested time and energy in this difficult journey and put our lives at risk because for too long the international community has been complicit in Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people. For too long, diplomats and world leaders have paid lip service to Palestinian human rights. For too long, the Palestinian people have been told to wait -- wait in the checkpoint line, wait on the peace process, wait to have your rights recognized, wait for freedom.

Students I met on a recent successful voyage to Gaza certainly did not want to wait to be slowly suffocated and drained of their dreams. So desperate were they to escape their confinement in Gaza to obtain higher education abroad that they asked us to drop them in international waters and they would swim the rest of the way to Cyprus. This was youthful madness, but indicative of how trapped people in Gaza are today.

I was born in the blanket of freedom of the United States. My parents immigrated here, knowing that I could not be free in my homeland. But today I use my freedom to struggle as a Palestinian for my friends and relatives who endure the yokes of occupation, oppression, discrimination, exile, internment and apartheid.

Most Palestinians in the occupied territories have not lived a day free of Israel's occupation, and Palestinian citizens of Israel continue to live as a discriminated-against minority. Just the other day, Israel's housing minister, Ariel Atias, declared, "We can all be bleeding hearts, but I think it is unsuitable [for Jews and Palestinians] to live together [in Israel].

This is the Israel the United States funds with billions each year. Under the leadership of President Obama--or any American president, for that matter--support for this sort of raw bigotry makes no sense and is antithetical to our most cherished principles. Yet when Israeli leaders utter such contemptible language it is ignored. When Israeli soldiers fire lethal weapons at unarmed, peaceful protesters it is too often ignored. When Israeli naval boats become pirate ships -- boarding a vessel that poses them no threat, arresting and beating American citizens--it is ignored.

It is ignored and Israel continues to enjoy the patronage of the United States and to present itself as a moral beacon for the world. But my generation finds racist language like that of Atias'--and the actions that result from such outdated thinking--abhorrent.

We find it unacceptable that Palestinians continue to be asked to wait, to improve our self-government and to be patient as we build ourselves toward the same rights that people elsewhere take for granted. With the fourth Palestinian generation born into refugee camps, with a new generation in Gaza being raised poorer and more desperate than the last, with my land being carved and sliced and walled for the exclusive benefit of one ethno-religious group, I say we cannot wait.

The question facing the world now must no longer be about where to squeeze a Palestinian state. The only relevant question is how to advance the immediate freedom of ten million Palestinians. There can be no more waiting, no more prevaricating, no more negotiations on that simple, beautiful human concept--freedom.

We will be free. President Obama can expedite the process by putting pressure on Israel, or he can sideline himself and the process for the next eight years. Sooner or later, however, Israel's subjugation of us will be overturned. The current situation is untenable. Whether we live in two states or one state with equal rights for all--as in South Africa and, indeed, the United States--we will achieve our freedom. What South Africa was to students in the 1980s, Palestine is fast becoming to younger generations increasingly repulsed by the entrenchment of Israel's dual system of law, domination of another people and ongoing confinement of 1.5 million Palestinians to a tiny parcel of land in Gaza.

So, yes, this was only one tiny humanitarian boat to Gaza. But Israel's heavy-handed action shows how much is at stake and how shaky Israel's grip over another people becomes when the world's citizens speak out and take action--even as governments fall short.

* Huwaida Arraf, JD, specializes in international human rights and humanitarian law. She is the chairperson of the board of directors of the Free Gaza Movement.

Related posts:

• Huwaida Arraf treat bully Ranaan Gissin admirably
• Adam Shapiro – Threatened And Beaten On The Way To Gaza
• Gaza Holocaust in ‘Free’ Media