U.N. Report finds Israel “summarily executed” U.S. citizen on flotilla

Glenn Greenwald in Salon:

Last week, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights released a comprehensive report detailing its findings regarding the May, 2010, Israeli attack on the six-ship flotilla attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Israel-blockaded Gaza. The report has been largely ignored in the American media despite the fact (or, more accurately: because) it found that much of the Israeli force used “was unnecessary, disproportionate, excessive and inappropriate and resulted in the wholly avoidable killing and maiming of a large number of civilian passengers”; that “at least six of the killings can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions“; and that Israel violated numerous international human rights conventions, including the Fourth Geneva Conventions (see p. 38, para. 172).

Even more striking in terms of U.S. media and government silence on this report is the fact that one of the victims of the worst Israeli violations was a 19-year-old American citizen.

More here. And see also “What You Get for Not Rocketing Israel” by Sam Sedaei in The Huffington Post:

Throughout its short life, Israel has engaged in many actions that the world democracies have deemed dubious and inconsistent with Israel's claim to be “the only democracy in the Middle East.” One can mention the Israeli wall in the West Bank, Wars on Lebanon and Gaza, a choking and indiscriminate blockade on the citizens of Gaza, ethnic discrimination against Arabs and attack on and killing of a number of individuals on board a Turkish flotilla in international waters just over the past few years alone. Israel has consistently countered condemnations and repeated U.N. Security Council resolutions denouncing its actions with one argument: those actions are necessary because of the actions of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza has refused to accept the existence of Israel and repeatedly fired rockets into Israel.

So is that Israeli claim true? Are Israel's actions truly a reaction to hostilities against its existence and security? Let's look at this claim in the context of the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

More here. [Thanks to Nikolai Nikola for both items.]