UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denied the Israeli

military was off limits in a U.N. inquiry into the deadly May 31 Israeli
commando raid on a Turkish-led aid flotilla heading for Gaza. Israel
disputes this and no one is sure what the panel's job description is.

Few expected that the soldiers would be questioned by the U.N. panel,
which includes Israeli and Turkish envoys and has a mandate no one has
seen. But not content to let sleeping dogs lie, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's office immediately fired back saying that "Israel
will not co-operate with and will not take part in any panel that seeks to
interrogate Israeli soldiers," a statement bound to anger Turkey.

This was hours after the Israeli leader suggested to a civilian commission in
Jerusalem, whose report will go to the U.N. panel, that Turkey wanted a
high-profile confrontation and therefore ignored Israeli requests that it stop
the flotilla, the New York Times reported. The panel had hoped to patch up
Israeli-Turkish relations. Oy vey!

AND ON TUESDAY IT MET

Eight Turks and an American-Turkish dual national were killed aboard a

Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, when Israeli naval commandos raided the
vessel, part of a six-vessel flotilla, on May 3 in internal waters. The action
was to stop the ship from its goal of breaching Israel's naval blockade of
Gaza, the Palestinian enclave controlled by the militant group Hamas.

The flotilla, meant to deliver supplies to 1.5 million Palestinians, led to a

deterioration of Israeli-Turkish relations and forced Israel to ease a blockade
of Gaza, which it says it installed to prevent Hamas from acquiring weapons
and firing them across the border.

The U.N. Security Council ordered an investigation. The secretary-general

last week announced the formation of a panel to be headed by the former
New Zealand prime minister, Geoffrey Palmer, and the departing Columbia
president, Alvaro Uribe, as his deputy along with veteran Israeli and
Turkish diplomats, Ciechanover. (Latin American journalists also question
Uribe's inclusion, considering his dubious human rights record)

On Monday, Ban Ki-moon, at his monthly press conference, was asked

several times whether there was a deal to exclude questioning anyone from
the Israeli military, presumably in order to get the Israeli government to
agree to the probe. He replied:

"No, there was no such agreement behind the scenes. First of all, you should
know that this is an unprecedented Panel of Inquiry established under my
initiative, for the purpose of ensuring accountability, which is very
important. ....Their main work will be to review and examine the report of
the domestic investigations, and liaise with the domestic authorities. And
whatever is needed beyond that, they will have to discuss among
themselves, in close coordination with the national Government authorities,
that they can take their own future steps."

So what is the panel to do? Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said that the
four-member panel was not a criminal inquiry but would be examining
"existing national inquiries (in Israel and Turkey) that are underway already,
then, if necessary, to ask further clarification." He did not say if the panel
could look for new evidence on its own or merely review the national
investigations.

But a review appears what they will do, without having the ability to
compare conflicting statements from those on the scene. The panel is
expected to make recommendations on the use of force and attempt to ease
relations between Israel and Turkey, which has demanded compensation to
the wounded and the families of the dead and an apology before resuming
normal ties with Israel.

Video footage appeared to show activists on the Turkish ship using clubs
and knives and the Israeli soldiers responding with repeated gunfire. Defense
Minister Ehud Barak faces criticism over what many in Israel called a
botched operation, saying the flotilla could have been stopped another way.
(But most polled by the Maariv newspaper rejected calls for him to resign.)

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations gave the panel's
mandate a narrow interpretation, thereby infuriating Turkey, which said her
analysis would limit the probe. Her comments prompted Turkish officials to
reprimand the US charge d'affaires in Ankara.

But she appears to have had it right when she said:

"This panel is not a substitute for those national investigations. The focus of
the panel is appropriately on the future and on preventing such incidents
from recurring. The United States also hopes that the panel can serve as a
vehicle to enable Israel and Turkey to move beyond the recent strains in
their relationship and repair their strong historic ties."