HAIFA, Israel — Israel was dead wrong in launching an attack by naval commandos against a flotilla carrying pro-Palestinian activists who were making an attempt to break the Israeli-Egyptian siege of Gaza.
That long-term siege, put in place after Hamas assumed sole control of the government in Gaza — breaking with the Palestine National Authority in the process — is a humanitarian catastrophe and a grave moral error.
There can be no excuses such as "we didn't intend." The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must apologize to the victims, investigate what happened on the bloodstained decks of the flotilla's boats, and move on to honest peace talks with willing Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestine National Authority.