UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan

Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was aboard the Mavi Marmara when he was killed by Israeli commandos. (Photo: freegazaorg; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.

The report says Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in his face.

The forensic evidence that establishes that fact is "tattooing around the wound in his face," indicating that the shot was "delivered at point blank range."  The report describes the forensic evidence as showing that "the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back."

Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38, Section 170)

The report confirmed what the Obama administration already knew from the autopsy report on Dogan, but the administration has remained silent about the killing of Dogan, which could be an extremely difficult political problem for the administration in its relations with Israel.

The Turkish government gave the autopsy report on Dogan to the US Embassy in July and it was then passed on to the Department of Justice, according to a US government source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the administration's policy of silence on the matter. The source said the purpose of obtaining the report was to determine whether an investigation of the killing by the Justice Department (DOJ) was appropriate.

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Asked by this writer whether the DOJ had received the autopsy report on Dogan, DOJ spokesperson Laura Sweeney refused to comment.

The administration has not volunteered any comment on the fact-finding mission report and was not asked to do so by any news organization.  In response to a query from Truthout, a State Department official, who could not speak on the record, read a statement that did not explicitly acknowledge  the report's conclusion about the Israeli executions.

The statement said the fact-finding mission's report's "tone and conclusions are unbalanced." It went on to state, "We urge that this report not be used for actions that could disrupt direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine that are now underway or actions that would make it not possible for Israel and Turkey to move beyond the recent strains in their traditional strong relationship."

Although the report's revelations and conclusions about the killing of Dogan and the five other victims were widely reported in the Turkish media last week, not a single story on the report has appeared in US news media.

The administration has made it clear through its inaction and its explicit public posture that it has no intention of pressing the issue of the murder of a US citizen in cold blood by Israeli commandos.

On June 13, two weeks after the Mavi Marmara attack, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement saying that Israel "should be allowed to undertake an investigation into events that involve its national security" and that Israel's military justice system "meets international standards and is capable of conducting a serious and credible investigation."

Another passenger whom forensic evidence shows was killed execution-style, according to the OHCHR report, is Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old Turkish citizen. Bilgen is believed by forensics experts to have been shot initially from the helicopter above the Mavi Marmara and then shot in the side of the head while lying seriously wounded.

The fact-finding mission was given forensic evidence that, after the initial shot in chest from above, Bilgen was shot in the head with a "soft baton round at such close proximity that an entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the chest from above," the mission concluded.

"Soft baton rounds" are supposed to be fired for nonlethal purposes at a distance and aimed only at the stomach, but are lethal when fired at the head, especially from close range.

The forensic evidence cited by the fact-finding mission on the killing of Dogan and five other passengers came from both the autopsy reports and pathology reports done by forensic personnel in Turkey and from interviews with those who wrote the reports. Experts in forensic pathology and firearms assisted the mission in interpreting that forensic evidence.

The account, provided by the OHCHR of the events on board the Mavi Marmara on its way to help break the economic siege of Gaza May 31 of this year, refutes the version of events aggressively pushed by the Israeli military and supports the testimony of passengers on board.

The report suggests that, from the beginning, Israeli policy viewed the Gaza flotilla as an opportunity to use lethal force against pro-Hamas activists. It quotes testimony by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak before the Israeli government's Turkel Committee that specific orders were given by the Israeli government "to continue intelligence tracking of the flotilla organizers with an emphasis on the possibility that amongst the passengers in the flotilla there were terror elements who would attempt to harm Israeli forces."

The idea that the passenger list would be seeded with terrorists determined to attack Israeli defense forces appears to have been a ploy to justify treating the operation as likely to require the use of military force against the passengers.

When details of the Israeli plan to forcibly take over the ships in the flotilla were published in the Israeli press on May 30, the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara realized that the Israelis might use deadly force against them. Some leaders of the IHH (the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Aid), which had purchased the ships for the mission, were advocating defending the boat against the Israeli boarding attempt, whereas other passengers advocated nonviolence only.

That led to efforts to create improvised weapons from railings and other equipment on the Mavi Marmara. However, the commission concluded that there was no evidence of any firearms having being taken aboard the ship, as charged by Israel.

The report notes that the Israeli military never communicated a request by radio to inspect the cargo on board any of the ships, apparently contradicting the official justification given by the Israeli government for the military attack on the Mavi Marmara and other ships of preventing any military contraband from reaching Gaza.

According to the OHCHR report, Israeli Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi testified to the Turkel Committee August 11 that the initial rules of engagement for the operation prohibited live fire except in life-threatening situations, but that that they were later modified to target protesters "deemed to be violent" in response to the resistance by passengers.

That decision apparently followed the passengers' successful repulsion of an Israeli effort to board the ship from Zodiac boats.

The report confirms that, from the beginning of the operation, passengers were fired on by helicopters flying above the Mavi Marmara to drop commandos on the deck.

Contrary to Israeli claims that one or more Israeli troops were wounded by firearms, the report says no medical evidence of a gunshot wound to an Israeli soldier was found.

The OHCHR report confirms accounts from passengers on the Mavi Marmara that defenders subdued roughly ten Israeli commandos, took their weapons from them and threw them in the sea, except for one weapon hidden as evidence. The Israeli soldiers were briefly sequestered below and some were treated for wounds before being released by the defenders.

The OHCHR fact-finding mission will certainly be the most objective, thorough and in-depth inquiry into the events on board the Mavi Marmara and other ships in the flotilla of the four that have been announced.

The fact-finding mission was chaired by Judge Karl T. Hudson-Phillips, Q.C., retired judge of the International Criminal Court and former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago, and included Sir Desmond de Silva, Q.C. of the United Kingdom, former chief prosecutor of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone and Ms. Mary Shanthi Dairiam of Malaysia, founding member of the board of directors of the International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific.

The mission interviewed 112 eyewitnesses to the Israeli attack in London, Geneva, Istanbul and Amman, Jordan. The Israeli government refused to cooperate with the fact-finding mission by making personnel involved in both planning and carrying out the attack available to be interviewed.

The Turkish governments announced its own investigation of the Israeli attack on August 10. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the formation of a "Panel of Inquiry" on August 2, but its mandate was much more narrowly defined. It was given the mission to "receive and review the reports of the national investigations with the view to recommending ways of avoiding similar incidents in the future."

by: Gareth Porter, t r u t h o u t | Report

Settlement freeze has barely slowed construction

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer Matti Friedman, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 23, 6:41 pm ET

ARIEL, West Bank – How much of a freeze has there actually been on West Bank Jewish settlement building by Israel?
Very little, an Associated Press analysis of the numbers suggests.
To settlers like Ron Nachman, the mayor of this West Bank community, the halt has been brutal. He fumes at the government and points angrily at a low hill covered with shrubs, where 100 homes for settlers were planned — then suspended.
And the nearly 10-month-old freeze is important enough to the Palestinians that they have threatened to walk away from peace talks, just restarted amid much fanfare, if it ends as planned on Sunday.
But the government's own figures — and the assessments of Israeli peace activists monitoring construction — show building has barely slowed down.
In the third quarter of 2009, before the restrictions were imposed last November, there were 2,790 settlement homes in various stages of construction, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. The number rose to 2,955 in the last quarter of 2009, reflecting a last-minute surge of housing starts in the days leading up to the freeze.
In the first quarter of 2010, with the freeze in full effect, the number stood at 2,517.
That means that even months into the halt, the number of homes under construction had declined by only about 10 percent.
There are no official figures for the months since. But Israeli peace activists, who use aerial photography and ground inspections to track settlement building, say there has been no appreciable decline, since most of the projects take longer than 10 months to complete.
The situation is largely the same, they say, in non-residential construction such as commercial buildings, small factories and schools.
The numbers have hardly been dented because the halt ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu covered only new projects. Anything already under way when the measures went into effect could be completed.
That is why the Palestinians — backed by the United States — want the freeze to continue. If it does, the logic goes, those ongoing projects would eventually be completed and the number of homes under construction would then begin to drop steeply.
If the measures are lifted Sunday and new projects are launched, the four-decade-old march of settlement-building in the West Bank — which Israel occupied along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war — will hardly have registered a blip.
"The freeze is meaningful only if it is extended," said Hagit Ofran, who tracks settlements for Peace Now. "If they are going to approve new buildings, all this will have meant is that a few projects were delayed."
"If the freeze continues, and if there is enforcement, then certainly we will see a change in the existing numbers," agreed Israeli peace activist Dror Etkes.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the terms of the halt were clear from the start. "We were very up front," he said. "We always said the freeze was about new construction, and in that case it has been full."
Government statistics show a dramatic drop in new construction since the freeze began: There were zero housing starts in the first quarter of this year, compared to 342 in the same quarter last year. But those figures do not include illegal construction or mobile homes, both of which are common.
In reality, around 450 new housing units have begun construction since the slowdown went into effect, according to Peace Now. Still, those numbers reflect a drop of about 50 percent in the pace of new home construction.
Any discussion of the issue quickly inflames passions and reveals the divergent narratives of the sides.
To Palestinians, each instance of building is another provocation. The settlements eat up the territory of a future Palestinian state and make virtually impossible the two-state partition Israel's government says it wants.
"If Palestinians and the international community are not able to convince the Israelis to ... stop illegal settlement expansion, how do we expect to reach an agreement that would dismantle all illegal settlements and end occupation?" said Husam Zomlot, a spokesman for the Palestinian negotiation team.
Already, some 300,000 Israelis — out of a population approaching 8 million — live in the West Bank, among 2.5 million Palestinians. Another 200,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want to locate the capital of a future independent state. The building freeze does not apply in east Jerusalem, despite earlier Palestinian demands that it be extended there.
Despite the freeze, Nachman had to shout to be heard Tuesday over the sound of Palestinian workers drilling foundations for a new factory in Ariel that will produce iron bars — a project that was already under way when the restrictions went into effect.
He said the freeze is demoralizing to the settlement's 20,000 residents, because beyond the practical inconvenience lies a deeper message: There is a question mark looming over the very future of this place.
"Every industrialist, every person who wants to invest money for a home or industry or anything, wants to know that it's OK — that it's certain," he said.

Israel says it will not extend settlement curbs

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel reiterated on Friday its refusal to extend curbs on settlement building that expire this month, despite US pressure and Palestinian threats to walk out of peace talks.
Meanwhile, US envoy George Mitchell met Lebanese President Michel Sleiman as part of Washington's target of forging a comprehensive Middle East peace.
"The prime minister has not changed his position on this issue, there is no question of extending the moratorium," a senior Israeli government official told AFP, asking not to be named.
The 10-month measure to curb construction of settler homes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank concludes at the end of this month.
The United Nations on Friday made a new call for an extension of the moratorium, highlighting the "renewed hope" for Middle East peace.
"We reaffirm the UN's position that settlements are illegal under international law," Robert Serry, the top UN Middle East peace envoy, told a Security Council meeting.
Israel's decision not to renew the moratorium, which does not cover annexed east Jerusalem, was taken this week by the Forum of Seven top cabinet ministers, according to the daily Israel Hayom, which is close to the government.
That decision was communicated to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in the Middle East this week in a bid to push the peace process forward, the newspaper said.
The issue of settlements is among the thorniest in Middle East peace negotiations, with Israel and the Palestinians resuming direct talks this month after a 20-month hiatus.
The two sides remain deeply divided over the renewal of settlement construction, a senior Palestinian official said after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Clinton met for two days of trilateral talks this week.
The official said the negotiations, held in Egypt and Jerusalem, had failed to resolve the row which threatens to derail the peace process.
Abbas told Netanyahu during the talks that he would walk out of the negotiations if Israel does not renew the moratorium, according to an aide.
In an effort to resolve the row, the Americans have suggested a three-month extension in which the two sides could agree on borders, which could bring a "final halt to settlement on the lands of the future Palestinian state," a Palestinian official said.
The official added that US negotiators wanted a complete halt to settlements while Israel was insisting on continuing to build in major settlement blocs it hopes to keep in any final peace accord.
Friday's killing of a local commander of the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas in the West Bank, highlighted the continuing tension in the region despite the renewed push for peace.
Israeli soldiers shot dead Iyad Shilbaya, 38, during a raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
"The assassination is a dangerous escalation that further weakens the credibility of an already shaky political process," Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said in a statement.
Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip and is committed to the destruction of Israel, called Shilbaya "a martyr."
"The murder was the fruit of the negotiations," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
Meanwhile, US envoy Mitchell met the Lebanese president to brief him and other officials on the talks and also met UN peacekeepers stationed on the Israeli border.
Lebanon and neighbouring Syria are still technically at war with Israel, and Washington is hoping to convince both states to enter into negotiations with the Jewish state and to support the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Saying the "alternative to peace is far worse," Mitchell said that "without Lebanon there will not be comprehensive peace in this region."
Israel fought a devastating war with Lebanon's Hezbollah in 2006, and has repeatedly accused the Shiite militant group of stockpiling weapons.
Mitchell said he had "assured Lebanese leaders of our full and active support for the complete implementation" of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war and called for a southern Lebanon free of all weapons except those held by the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.
Mitchell travelled to Lebanon from neighbouring Syria.
In Damascus, he said a peace deal meant an "agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon and the full normalisation of relations between Israel and its neighbours."