Mavi Marmara

 Mavi Marmara(piracy,  murder)

Date	31 May 2010
Deaths	10

The Mavi Marmara was the lead ship in a six-vessel convoy taking aid and humanitarian supplies from Turkey to the Gaza Strip on 31 May 2010. The six ships in the flotilla were boarded in international waters, about 130km (80 miles) from the Israeli coast.

Illegal boarding

IDF commandos landed on the largest ship, the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara, by descending on ropes from helicopters. Clashes broke out immediately and the Israeli commandos opened fire. The commandos attacked the ship in international waters and killed nine activists on board, several with close-range shots to the head.

“Death in the Med”

In July 2010 BBC Panorama’s “Death in the Med”, fronted by presenter Jane Corbin, was broadcast. The illegality of invading a ship in international waters was not mentioned by Panorama, nor were the execution-style killings. Instead the programme featured “exclusive” interviews with some of the commandos, largely presenting them as the victims.

Ludicrously, Israel had accused the activists of belonging to al-Qaeda. A central justification for its violent raid was footage Israel had produced suggesting that it was the commandos who had been attacked by the peace activists, not the other way round. Israel also released a radio communication in which an activist could supposedly be heard, shortly before the raid, telling the commandos to “Go back to Auschwitz”. Corbin referred to this as a “warning sign”.

Panorama made no mention of the fact that Israel had seized all media equipment from the journalists and activists onboard the Marmara. The activists were forcibly taken to Israel, where they were held incommunicado for several days. The purpose was clear: to ensure that Israel exclusively controlled the narrative while the Mavi Marmara incident was making headlines.

Early on, the Foreign Press Association in Israel warned that the Israeli military was “selectively using footage to bolster its claims that commandos opened fire only after being attacked”. The Committee to Protect Journalists similarly denounced Israel’s editing and distribution of the footage it had confiscated.

By the time Panorama aired “Death in the Med” three months later, the Israeli-imposed fog had lifted further. Israel had been forced to make a “correction”, admitting that it had doctored the incendiary “Auschwitz” recording and that it had no idea who had made the comment. The voice was from someone with a strong southern US accent, but none of the people on the Marmara with access to the radio were American.

It was quite extraordinary that the programme posed as the central question whether this was a case of “self-defence or excessive force” by Israel. Israel had no right to “defend” itself in international waters from unarmed peace activists. But the question was even more preposterous given all the critically important evidence that emerged subsequently but that Panorama chose to ignore.

Operation Sea Breeze

Instead, Jane Corbin excitedly joined Israeli commandos on a “training operation” and breathlessly interviewed some of the men who had attacked the Marmara. Corbin’s introduction gave a taste of her approach:

They called it Operation Sea Breeze, but what these Israeli naval commandos encountered on the Mavi Marmara was anything but a breeze. It caused a storm of international condemnation. But did Israel fall into a trap, and what was the real agenda of some of those people who call themselves peace activists?

This is a staple of journalistic malpractice from the BBC when it comes to Israel. Appear to offer contrasting possibilities, while actually offering only one – the one that encourages sympathy for Israel. According to Panorama, either heavily armed Israeli commandos were lured into a “trap” (presumably by peace activists bent on violence), or the peace activists were not as peaceful as they seemed (because they were actually bent on violence).

Panorama was effectively helping Israel to justify an act of piracy on the high seas, the siege of Gaza, and the murder of nine humanitarian activists.

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