The head of the investigation that said Israel made some mistakes but basically did the right thing in raiding the Mavi Marmara on May 31 is General Giora Eiland. A note from Norman Finkelstein:
It’s useful to remember who Giora Eiland is. The Goldstone Report listed Eiland as one of the ideological architects of the Gaza massacre:
[Paragraph] 1196. After the war in southern Lebanon in 2006, a number of senior former military figures appeared to develop the thinking that underlay the strategy set out by Gen. Eiskenot. In particular Major General (Ret.) Giora Eiland has argued that, in the event of another war with Hizbullah, the target must not be the defeat of Hizbullah but “the elimination of the Lebanese military, the destruction of the national infrastructure and intense suffering among the population… Serious damage to the Republic of Lebanon, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence Hizbollah’s behaviour more than anything else”. [Giora Eiland, "The Third Lebanon War: Target Lebanon," Strategic Assessment (November 2008)]
Update from Finkelstein on the central issue here:
Israeli philosopher Asa Kasher, despite doing his utmost to defend the Gaza massacre, nonetheless said that “a democratic state…cannot use human beings as mere tools to create deterrence. Human beings are not tools to be used,” and that “killing for the sake of deterrence is something akin to terrorism.” Asa Kasher, “Operation Cast Lead and Just War Theory,” Azure (Summer 2009), p. 51; Asa Kasher, “A Moral Evaluation of the Gaza War,” Jerusalem Post (7 February 2010).
