The Corrie family has announced that nothing will come out of such a local investigation, given the fate of the investigation into Rachel’s death seven years ago.
“The stance the US has taken against the fact that Israel did not carry out a transparent, serious and real investigation about our daughter’s death is known by all. Though we have made many inquiries at high levels, US official could still not manage to realize the making of such an investigation. This is why it is important that the Mavi Marmara incident be independently investigated,” Rachel’s parents, Anne and Craig Corrie, wrote in a letter to the United Nations.
The driver of the bulldozer that crushed Rachel claimed he did not see her, and the Israeli army maintains that it was an accident.
In the letter, addressed to US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, the Corries called for an independent and impartial investigation into the Mavi Marmara incident, recalling that the evidence folder about their daughter was shelved before the autopsy report came in, despite the fact that an Israeli court had decided that there were elements of crime in the incident.
Details about the investigation led by Gen. Giora Eiland, the former chairman of Israel’s National Security Council, confirm the concerns of the Corrie family. The investigation does not even say that the tragedy on the ship carrying humanitarian aid in international waters which resulted in the deaths of nine people constitutes a military failure or a fiasco. There is neither a condemnation of the soldiers who conducted the operation nor a criticism for negligence.
The part of the 100-page report that was presented to the press indicates that the delegation found only a few military mistakes and some intelligence deficiency in the incident. For instance, the report criticizes the navy’s failure to anticipate that there would be resistance onboard and prepare an alternate plan. There are interesting details in the report, too. One of them is a criticism of why Mossad did not do an intelligence study considering Turkey a target country. It is underlined in the report that given the increasing tension in the two countries’ relations, intelligence units should have put Turkey in the category of “target country” by 2010. Does this mean that Israeli intelligence has placed Turkey in the category of “target country” after the Mavi Marmara incident?
It was also seen as a mistake that a Mossad agent was not put among the Mavi Marmara’s passengers. One of the interesting allegations in the report is that fire was opened at Israeli soldiers from the weapons on board the Mavi Marmara, contrary to what the passengers have said. The only evidence for that particular allegation is a bullet allegedly removed from an Israeli soldier’s knee that, the report says, had a different caliber than that of used by the Israeli forces.
Another finding of the investigation, which did not see any problem in the fact that the interception caused nine people’s deaths, was that Israel, who has the most modern military in the world, did not have any other capabilities to stop the Mavi Marmara. The investigation committee noted that Israel did not have a way of stopping the vessel without boarding it. Will security experts and sailors believe this argument?
As is known, a judicial investigation led by Israeli Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel is continuing alongside that military investigation. Nevertheless, Rachel’s family’s letter and the findings of the first investigation prove the difficulty reaching a satisfactory result without an international commission to be formed. Unfortunately, Israel is rejecting the calls of not only Turkey but also the UN secretary general and UN Human Rights Council. It is questionable how much pressure Washington, which did not sufficiently intervene for Rachel, has put on Israel for Furkan (an American citizen of Turkish origin who was killed on the Mavi Marmara), as was demanded by Erdoğan.
