The Terkel Committee

Former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel has been appointed to Head the Israeli Committee of Enquiry into the Turkish "Freedom Flotilla" incident. The Committee includes two other former Judges, Amos Horev and Shabtai Rosen, as well as two international observers, former Canadian Army Judge Advocate General Ken Watkin and Northern Irish Nobel Peace Prize Winner David Trimble. Neither of these two foreign members are particularly known for their pro- or anti-Israel views. Although the Committee is welcomed in Israel, and the Obama Administration has already indicated its support for it, the Turkish and other Muslim governments regardit as unacceptable. UN Secty Gen. Ban ki Moon, has proposed that a fully international committee be set up, to include Israeli and Turkish representatives. But, in view of the UN's perpetual anti-Israel stance, and given that it is within Israel's legal right to have its own committee, Israel has rejected this. But, the UN may go ahead anyway, particularly unless the US indicates its opposition to the UN initiative. Note that there are no American members of the Israeli Committee, a deliberate move by the Obama Administration to distance itself from the outcome.

The main domestic criticism of the Committee is the age of the Israeli members. Turkel himself is 75 years old, but Rosen is 93 and Horev is 86. The average age of the Commitee is 85 years old. Many feel this is too old for such an important task, but noone has said that any of the members are senile or incapable of carrying out this function. The foreign observers are younger. The Committee will have to produce its Report quickly, not only because of the pressing political situation, but also because some of the members might not survive a lengthy process.

Note that the Terkel Committee is a fact-finding Committee, it is not an offical State Commission whose findings are binding on the Government. Nevertheless, the facts determined by the Committee will be very influential in determining what actually happened during this incident and how the Government should act in future cases. However, given the PR victory that the Turks and their supporters think they achieved in the case of the Mavi Marmara, they are attempting such flotillas again. There are supposedly two ships on the way from Iran, two from Lebanon (one carrying only women and oen with journalists), one carrying left-wing Jews organized from Germany due in September and two planned by George Galloway. Surely the world will see thru these follow-up flotillas as purely cynical PR events and in no way related to the actual humanitarian situation in Gaza.

We should distinguish between a a civilian (or humanitarian) blockade and a military blockade. Given the current import of humanitarian supplies by land from Israel to Gaza and the imminent liberalization of the delivery of humanitarian supplies proposed by Quartet Representaive Tony Blair and agreed by the Israeli Cabinet, the blockade of Gaza bears no resemblance to the kind of total siege that has been used by other ("civilized") nations in the past, and is currently enforced on Gaza by Egypt. But, the Israeli military blockade of Gaza remains unchanged, and Israel's UN Representative, Gabriela Shalev, has written in a letter to the UN Secty. General that Israel reserves the right to stop any ship attempting to break the legal blockade by "any means."