Israel is calling it “a puppet show", but the trial of four of Israel's most senior retired commanders who Turkey is accusing of being behind the Mavi Marmara deaths is anything but entertainment. Nine Turkish activists died in clashes after Israeli commandos boarded the vessel as it tried to break the blockade of Gaza in 2010, producing a storm of international condemnation. The indictment, which Israel says “has nothing to do with law or justice", said the officers who ordered the attack by Israeli commandos on the ship did so with the knowledge that people could be killed or hurt. The indictment also said the Israeli attack, carried out in international waters off the Israeli coast, should be treated like a crime committed on Turkish territory because it involved a Turkish vessel. Israel has consistently absolved itself of wrongdoing but from the outset its case was weak. The Mavi Marmara was on a mission of peace with absolutely no violent intentions. Its primary aim was to break the blockade on Gaza and try to deliver aid to the Strip and hence change what was at that time a three-year long status quo of Gaza being suffocated by Israel via an embargo because Hamas was its overlord. All of the cargo and passengers aboard the ship were security checked, and the mission was very open and clear in its intentions. It's hard to see what else the Freedom Flotilla could have done to make sure it was clear that it was on a peaceful mission. After the attack, the passengers tried to defend the ship and protect it from military aggression. To an extent, the UN report on the raid, the so-called Palmer Report, supported the Turkish position by calling the commandos' action on the Turkish ship “excessive and unreasonable", condemning the loss of life as “unacceptable" and finding Israel's treatment of passengers on the ship “abusive". But, critically, it said Israel's naval blockade of Gaza was a “legitimate security measure to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with international law", a conclusion at odds with a 2010 fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Council which found both raid and blockade illegal under international law. The four Israeli officers were not expected to attend the trial in Turkey but convictions could trigger the issuing of international warrants for their arrest. On the basis of the severity of the incident, prosecutors are requesting life imprisonment for the officers. Nearly 500 people who were on board the ship during the raid are expected to give evidence. Their testimony as eyewitnesses could once and for all support or undermine Israel's claim that its commandos acted in self-defense after they came under attack by Turkish activists on the ship. The many cameras that were loaded onto the vessel can also act as impartial witnesses of the voyage. A trial must be staged to hold those responsible accountable, not least because Israel denied compensation for the families of those killed. After refusing an independent international inquiry, Israel carried out its own investigation into the raid, but it was abandoned midway. Not surprisingly, no one was found guilty of murder. That is the real joke.
