MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) harshly criticized State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss's report on the government's handling of the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident on Wednesday, saying Lindenstrauss cooperated with the defense establishment in suppressing the facts.
"Instead of investigating the nature of the pirate operation, or the murder of activists and the attack on a civilian ship, the State Comptroller is cooperating with the Israeli security establishment in suppressing the facts," said Zoabi, who herself was a passenger on the Mavi Marmara.
Zoabi attacked the investigation, saying she hoped Lindenstrauss would have examined the documentation created by the IDF and videos shot by activists, which were later seized by the army.
But instead of looking into the nature of the actual operation, she continued, the State Comptroller dealt with the political echelon's decision-making process and the state and army's public relations efforts.
In his report on the flotilla incident released Wednesday, Lindenstrauss criticized both the IDF and political echelons for their planning ahead of the incident and their handling of its aftermath.
The State Comptroller's report portrayed a haphazard, ad-hoc decision-making process ahead of the boarding of the vessel that was attempting to breach Israel's naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. He also criticized the failure to immediately release video footage of the botched helicopter boarding, in which a number of IDF commandos were injured and ten Turkish activists were killed.
"I've been working for the past two years to expose this documentation -- 15 hours of video recordings -- that will once and for all stop the incitement against the flotilla activists and myself," Zoabi said.
It is unfortunate, she concluded, that the comptroller, "who normally acts with bravery and does not hesitate to confront the system, did not deal with those materials, and therefore did not fulfill his role."