U.N. Panel Accuses Israeli Soliders Of Summary Executions In Flotilla Incident, Including One American

By Yashwanth Manjunath

When a Turkish flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip tried to cross Israel’s illegal blockade in late May, nine passengers were killed, including one American. After conducting an independent investigation, a U.N fact-finding mission determined that based on forensic evidence and ballistics analysis, six of those passengers were “summarily executed,” including U.S citizen Furkan Dogan. The U.N Human Rights Council voted Wednesday to endorse the findings of the fact-finding mission with one exception, the United States. “The report’s language, tone and conclusions are unbalanced,” said Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. How is it that one of our own citizens was probably executed in cold-blood and our spokesman in the U.N is focusing on the “tone” of the report?

According to the forensic analysis cited by the U.N., Furkan Dogan was shot five times in the head including once in the back of the head from point-blank range. So what was Furkan Dogan doing to agitate the Israel Defense Forces before he was summarily executed? The U.N report indicates that he was taping the scene with a small video camera from the top deck of the ship. After he was shot from behind and lying helpless in a semi-conscious state on the deck of the ship, the 19-year-old American was shot in the back of the head by an Israeli soldier.

Is our government so committed to blindly defending Israel no matter what they do, that we are now willing to forgive the murder of one of our own citizens? What would our reaction be if the Iranian military had done what the Israelis just did? The reaction of our government undermines our position as an objective arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Sometimes a good friend needs to help guide you back onto the right path. If we truly are Israel’s ally and do not want them to lose every ally they have in the world besides us, we need to hold them accountable for this atrocity. They need to receive the message that boarding a ship illegally in international waters and murdering unarmed protesters is unacceptable and a threat to their national security interests in the long-term.

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