US Calls for International Flotilla Probe, Vague on Details

As Israeli Officials Laud Commandos, Questions About Strategy

The Obama Administration has reiterated its calls for an international probe into the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship, an attack which left at least nine aid workers slain.

Yet State Department official Philip Crowley was already couching the probe as a way to “put this tragedy behind us” and US officials have previously suggested that the Israeli forces would be off limits in any such probe, which would instead focus on trying to dig up some dirt on the aid group that sent the ship.

Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief, called for a domestic investigation into the planning behind the attack and the battle procedure. Stopping short of any focus on the troops, he sought some “lessons” from the attack.

Ironically this could mean that the possible Israeli domestic probe of the incident, itself a foregone conclusion as every major government official has praised the killings and expressed fury at the international criticism, could be more enlightening than the international probe which, if it happens at all, seems to be destined to be an exercise in US defense of Israel’s attack, damaging US-Turkish relations even further but accomplishing little.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.