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WELLS
FARGO
Flotilla
Fallout
Israel Always
Gets The Blame
Simon Plosker
YNet News
O
nly weeks after its release, the
Palmer Report into the 2010
Gaza flotilla incident appears to
have been consigned to history's dustbin.
Despite leveling criticism at Israel
for "excessive force the report should
have been a major prize for Israel's
public diplomacy. How often does a U.N.-
sponsored investigation uphold the legiti-
macy of Israel's naval blockade and high-
light the danger of Hamas from Gaza?
Israel, however, failed to enunciate a
cogent message playing up the positives
from the Palmer Report.
But, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan took full advantage,
using the hours before the report's
release to hijack the news cycle and
reframe the story, aided by a compliant
international media.
Even without Erdogan's help, some
media deliberately focused on Palmer's
criticism of Israel, ignoring the justifica-
tion for the Israeli blockade and Turkish
responsibility for the flotilla incident.
The main headlines in the following
days belonged to Erdogan's increasingly
vitriolic attacks on Israel.
The story morphed into claims that
Israel's refusal to apologize was the
reason for Turkish anger and the ever-
widening rift between the two countries.
More accurately, the Turkish demand for
an apology and Erdogan's escalatory lan-
guage should have been emphasized as
the reason for diplomatic breakdown.
Despite Erdogan's claims that Israel
had broken international law, the Palmer
Report concluded the exact opposite,
stating that Israel had every right to
board the flotilla in international waters.
Look at the way two different U.N.
investigations have been presented.
The harsh and one-sided Goldstone
Report received mass media attention.
Since then, with far less fanfare, Judge
Goldstone himself has distanced himself
from the findings, saying that if he knew
then what he knows now, the conclu-
sions would have been very different.
The Palmer Report, much like
Goldstone's retraction, has been system-
atically ignored or deliberately skewed
by a media that cannot deviate from the
accepted narrative of Israel as the sole
bad guy on the block. P1
Simon Plosker is the managing editor of
Honest Reporting.
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September 22 • 2011
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