The United Nations Security Council, following a marathon closed session, has passed a watered-down condemnation of Israel and called for a probe of the flotilla clash. The United States was instrumental in toning down the Security Council resolution.
A Turkish-led anti-Israel coalition asked for a stronger resolution that called for an independent international investigation, similar to that of the Goldstone Commission. The Goldstone Report placed most of the blame on Israel for casualties in last year’s Operation Cast Lead war against Hamas terrorists.
After more than 10 hours of deliberation, the Council also asked that Israel release the six ships in the flotilla and all of the passengers. Most of the foreign activists have been processed for deportation to their home countries.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "It is vital that there is a full investigation to determine exactly how this bloodshed took place. I believe Israel must urgently provide a full explanation.”
The flotilla clash and worldwide condemnation of Israel have put the government on the diplomatic defensive. The same situation a year ago, after the Operation Cast Lead campaign against Hamas terrorists, resulted in the U.N.-sanctioned Goldstone Report.
Similar to the Goldstone Report’s scant mention of the thousands of missiles and mortars that Hamas terrorists fired on Israel since 2000, foreign media and diplomats largely ignored the documented violence initiated by flotilla extremists armed with knives, daggers, metal clubs, as well as pistols that they snatched from the soldiers.
Documented evidence showed the armed Muslim extremists had planned the violent attack on Israeli naval soldiers.
The European Union as a body, and France, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Britain, and Germany individually, immediately condemned Israel for the killing nine Muslim extremists who brutally attacked Navy commandos as they descended on ropes from a hovering helicopter and on to one of the six ships.
Two German legislators were on board the ships, and their government, while saying that Israel has a right to “self-defense,” deplored the naval action as “disproportionate.”
Lebanon, which holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council, convened it in a closed session on Monday on the heels of a diplomatic storm following the flotilla clash.
Assistant U.N. Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco charged that the clash would not have taken place "if repeated calls on Israel to end the counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza had been heeded.”
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the raid "murder conducted by a state," and PA envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, declared, “We call collectively as Arabs, with Turkey, for an independent international investigation to know who gave orders from the Israeli side to open fire.”
Arab League chief Amr Mussa warned that the flotilla left the American-mediated proximity talks “hanging in the air.”