For several days, Israel has been able to contain some of the fallout from the flotilla massacre by withholding information about the dead and injured. The object of this exercise has clearly been to slow the flow of information in the hope that by the time the most damning facts become known, the international media's attention will have turned elsewhere.
But the dead now have names and faces and one turns out to be a nineteen-year-old American: Furkan Dogan.
Does the Obama administration intend to investigate the circumstances in which one of its citizens was killed? Protecting the lives of Americans is after all the most fundamental responsibility of our government.
Dogan's death was presumably instant, but according to Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal there were others on board the Mavi Marmara who died because Israeli soldiers refused to treat their injuries.
"After the shooting and the first deaths, people put up white flags and signs in English and Hebrew. An Isreali [on the ship] asked the soldiers to take away the injured, but they did not and the injured died on the ship."
Crimes have been committed and since the suspects all acted under the direction of the Israeli government and its defense forces and took place on international waters outside Israel's area of legal jurisdiction, "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards" -- a demand made by the UN Security Council with the support of the Obama administration -- cannot be conducted by the Israeli government or a commission appointed by them. An investigation conforming to international standards must also be an international inquiry.
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