Turkel Commission
Law of the Jungle
Endorses
By Deepak Tripathi
Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the
sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that
shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth
forward and back—
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of
the Wolf is the Pack.
––Rudyard Kipling, The Law of the Jungle, 1894
Tales of oppressors and oppressed abound in human folklore.
According to one, there in the Valley of Outlaws was an
unfortunate village traumatized by a marauder and a handful in
his band. That democracy ruled the flock was their favorite
boast and that no outsider was allowed to join them was their
absolute insistence. The chief had long proclaimed that
everything outside the flock was theirs –– so God had willed,
he claimed. Hence his men will take it all one by one. Armed
with lethal weapons the marauding gang frequently attacked the
village on the edge of the Valley. The raiders destroyed the
villagers’ crops, looted and burned their property, violated
the dignity of women, did not spare children playing hide and
seek in orchards. Drunk with power, carrying guns and swords,
the band of outlaws inflicted a reign of terror on the
villagers by day, even more by night. Those brave enough to
complain and lucky enough to reach the powers that be promptly
found the judge to be from the pack. The outcome was
predictable. The complainant had no chance.
Then there are episodes in recorded history that depict man’s
cruelty against fellow humans. Harvey Newbranch, in a powerful
editorial published in the Omaha Evening World-Herald in 1920,
decried the lynching of a black man outside the Douglas County
Courthouse. “The lack of efficient government in Omaha, the
lack of governmental foresight and sagacity and energy, made
the exhibition possible,” said Newbranch. “It was provided by
a few hundred hoodlums, most of them mere boys, organized as
the wolf-pack is organized, inflamed by the spirit of anarchy
and license, of plunder and destruction.” Further Newbranch
observed in his editorial, “Ten thousand or more good
citizens, without leadership, without organization, without
public authority that had made an effort to organize them for
the anticipated emergency, were obliged to stand as onlookers,
shamed in their hearts, and witness the hideous orgy of
lawlessness.”
The spirit of Newbranch’s editorial rested in a sentence in
which he said that “there is the rule of the jungle in this
world, and there is the rule of law.” However we still live in
a world where the rule of law is nothing but the rule of the
jungle.
The report by Israel’s Turkel Commission endorsing the Israeli
attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters
in May 2010 was entirely predictable. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu appointed the Commission against worldwide protests
two weeks after the killing of nine Turkish activists on board
the lead ship the Mavi Marmara. The flotilla was on the open
sea as it approached Gaza, its one-and-a-half million
population living under an Israeli blockade. In setting up the
Commission, the Israeli government rejected calls from the
United Nations and governments for an international inquiry.
The Commission’s members were all Israeli, with two observers,
the Northern Ireland Protestant politician David Trimble and
Brigadier General Ken Watkin, former Judge Advocate General of
the Canadian Forces. News organizations described them both as
“friends of Israel.” Even so, Trimble and Watkin had no right
to vote on the Commission’s conclusions, making the inquiry an
all-Israeli affair. The inquiry was to look into a bloody
event that occurred well outside the domain of Israeli law in
international waters. Still in Washington, officials of the
Obama administration leapt to assert that Israel had the right
and the competence to hold such an inquest.
The Israeli government will feel that the Turkel report has
served its immediate need for a basis to counter the hostile
world opinion. Prime Minister Netanyahu will be relieved at
Turkel’s findings: the Israeli military’s interception and
capture of the vessels in the flotilla conformed with
international law; in most cases the use of force also
complied with international law; Israeli commandos acted
professionally; and the Israeli blockade of Gaza is legal,
there is no violation of humanitarian law. What else could
Netanyahu have wished for? Nonetheless glaring oddities haunt
the credibility of Turkel and Israel. Those who were traveling
on the Mavi Marmara have numerous accounts of brutality
committed by Israeli commandos to tell. There is enough film
footage to reveal the behavior of Israeli soldiers during the
operation. Yet the Turkel inquiry was barred from questioning
the soldiers who took part in the operation, exposing its onesided character. Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan of Turkey
has led the criticism of the Turkel report saying it had “no
value or credibility.”
This is a return to the Law of the Jungle in the twenty-first
century, where might is right. Attacking the young and the
old, the frail and the sick, male or female in open
sea––legal. Axes, clubs, iron bars, slingshots and metal
objects are weapons. “In the face of extensive and anticipated
violence,” using one of the world’s most advanced military
forces to neutralize activists ––self-defense. The soldiers’
conduct –– professional and reasonable. Never mind worldwide
condemnation. Law is merely a tool. We are back to medieval
barbarism where it is a crime to be an underdog and the victim
is responsible for what has happened.
– Deepak Tripathi is the author of Breeding Ground:
Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism (Potomac
Books, Incorporated, Washington, D.C., 2011) and Overcoming
the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan (also Potomac, 2010).
He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.