Chief Flotilla raid investigator gives Israel advice on Hasbara

By Yossi Gurvitz June 16, 2011 | Edit

The leader of the flotilla incident investigation committee castigates government, media – and exposes his committee as a sham

Former Supreme Court Judge, Ya’akov Turkel, harshly criticized both the government and Israeli media today (Hebrew). Turkel claimed the government “doesn’t know how to do Hasbara properly” (inarticulateness in the original), and that its Hasbara organs “have abandoned our judicial Hasbara too quickly. We have more to say, aside from Biblical rights and security reasons”. He also lambasted the Israeli media, who according to him “did not act in accordance with what was good for Israel.”

Turkel is 76, so his formative years were during the pre-Israel days, the collective period of out history; this may, barely, excuse his demands that the Israeli media act like the Syrian one does. However, the fact that a former SCJ judge cannot understand other people may understand Israel’s interests differently from him is much more problematic. Just mutter a blessing he is no longer on the bench.

The elephant in the room, of course, is the fact that Turkel is also the chief of the investigating committee investigating the Mavi Marmara incident. For the senior official in an ongoing investigation to claim publicly that not only is Israel correct but that the government is inept in informing the public about it is cause for some surprise and concern. Turkel basically announced his committee’s verdict is known in advance.

It’s not a surprise, of course; Anyone who paid attention knew the Turkel Committee is a sham months ago. It’s just so unusual to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Even so, it is unlikely that Turkel will be asked to step down; he only blurted what people were doing their best to ignore.

File under “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

(Yossi Gurvitz)

I am Yossi Gurvitz, a 40-year old journalist, blogger and photographer. I write for several Israeli publications, including the influential financial daily Calcalist and the Nana portal. In the past, I’ve been deputy editor of Nana News, and with Itamar Shaaltiel edited its 2006 Knesset elections section. I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, graduated from a Yeshiva (Nehalim), but saw the light and turned atheist at about the age of 17. After the mandatory three years in the military, much more strictly enforced in 1988 than now, I studied history and classics, earning a BA degree, and studying three additional years towards an MA, but abandoned the project in favor of earning my living as a journalist. [It seemed a good idea at the time.]

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