ISTANBUL — A Turkish newspaper published the names and photographs on Monday of more than 140 Israeli soldiers who the paper said took part in the raid on a Turkish flotilla to Gaza last year that ended with the death of nine passengers and created a diplomatic standoff between Turkey and Israel.
The newspaper, Sabah, said the Turkish government began searching for the soldiers’ identities after the Israeli authorities failed to cooperate in an investigation that prosecutors in Turkey said could lead to legal action.
The newspaper report received scant attention in Israel, where officials declined to comment. Others there described it as a recycled conglomeration of similar lists that have been circulating on the Internet.
Television analysts in Israel noted that the list included some well-known Israeli figures who had long since left the military, which they said gave some indication of its accuracy. There is, however, real concern in Israel about Turkey’s threats of legal action over the raid.
The newspaper, a pro-government daily, reported that a senior Turkish prosecutor had authorized the investigation, which filtered all available film and other visuals from the flotilla raid for facial images that could be matched to photographs on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Some of the names, Sabah said, were provided by flotilla passengers who were interrogated by the Israelis after the lead ship was towed in May 2010 to the port of Ashdod, in Israel. Others were gleaned from public postings and the Web links they contained.
Sabah said the list would be forwarded to the Israeli military for confirmation before any legal action was taken in Turkey or abroad.
The Turkish government holds Israel responsible for the deaths of the nine passengers. The Israeli government has refused to officially apologize for the raid on the flotilla, which was trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Turkey has said an apology is a condition for the normalization of relations, and it is demanding that Israel provide compensation for relatives of the dead and that it lift the Gaza embargo.
Turkey, which has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and expelled the Israeli ambassador in Ankara, the capital, says it is prepared to seek legal action against the Gaza blockade in the International Court of Justice.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
via Turkish Paper Names Israelis It Says Were in Flotilla Raid – NYTimes.com.
Turkey compiles list of 174 Israelis, topped by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who were directly or indirectly involved in 2010 raid on Gaza-bound ship. Intelligence officials used social networks to track down participants, Sabah newspaper reports
Turkish intelligence officials have submitted to the state prosecution a list of 174 Israelis, mostly soldiers, who were involved in the 2010 raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ship, the Turkish newspaper Sabah reported Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tops the list as the “primary responsible party.”
According to the report, the Israelis were identified from photographs and various media sources.
“Almost all of the Israeli soldiers who killed nine Turkish citizens and injured 30 others have been identified,” the report claimed.
It was stated that Israel’s government has not responded to the Turkish Justice Ministry’s demand to release a list of the individuals who took part in the operation, prompting the intelligence officials to pour over records of the raid. Facebook and Twitter were used later in the hunt for information.
The fact-finding team examined the names of the commandos ofShayetet 13 – the Navy unit that took over the Gaza-bound vessel – and matched them up with the numerous photos used in the media.
Furthermore, the officials reviewed correspondence written by soldiers whom they believed took part in the raid in order to confirm their participation. Names submitted by the IHHmovement, which organized the flotilla, were used in the search as well.
Lieberman, Barak also on list
According to the report, the Turkish prosecution intends to request the Israeli authorities to verify whether the people on the list, which includes 140 photos of 174 Israelis who directly or indirectly participated in the raid, were indeed ivolved.
Officials who allegedly contributed to the decision and issued the order to stop the Mavi Marmara, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, made it to the top of the list as well.
“All of the Israeli Cabinet ministers were responsible for the order,” the report read.
The list also includes former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former Israel Navy Commander Eliezer Marom, former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin and a variety of other high- and low-ranking officers. Moreover, it includes 10 photographs of soldiers who are yet to be identified.
Ynet’s Washington reporter, Yitzhak Ben – Horin, produced last night a clear and succinct reading of Obama’s recent UN General Assembly address:
“Likudnic in the White House.”
“Netanyahu could not have written it better.”
“Obama at this point, is in line with the Likud party.”
“Obama is a pro-Israel president …Since January 2009, he provided Israel with all its needs both in diplomacy and in terms of security”
Obama is not performing too well in the polls. He clearly needs the Jewish Lobby on his side. The American president ‘provided’ yesterday and the lobby was quick to react- “Israel has no better friend in the world today,” wrote the president of the National Council of Jewish Democrats, David Harris.
According to Ynet, hours before his UN General Assembly Address Obama sought to ensure that prospective Jewish voters pay close attention to his speech.
“Three of Obama’s aides held a conference call with the president’s Jewish supporters and community leaders. The advisers, all Jewish themselves, asked the supporters to “spread the word” that Obama will give a pro-Israel speech which reflects his own genuine positions and implored them to pay close attention to the president’s UN address.”
The three Jewish advisers “stressed that the Republicans intentionally distort Obama’s statements to portray him as an anti-Israel president, when in fact their arguments are baseless.”
If anyone was foolish enough to believe that America could ever be a broker for peace in the Middle East, the truth is now unavoidable. American political world is clearly hijacked by a foreign lobby that represents foreign interests. America cannot rescue itself. What we see in front of our eyes is basically a tragedy.
Greek tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero, usually through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. The American tragedy contains the same elements. America has regarded itself as a ‘noble hero’ since its creation, ‘hubris’ is also far from being foreign to American culture. Americas’ fate has been written on the wall for more than a while. And what about the Gods, can you guess who the Gods are? I think that Obama and his party knew very well whom they were trying to appease last night. They know very well who their Gods are because they shamelessly mix with them at least once a year at AIPAC annual gathering.
However, Obama and his ‘advisers’ maybe mistaken here. Their ‘Gods’ are not stupid at all, they grasp what Obama is up to, Ben Horin wrote last night, they understand what ‘2nd term’ means in terms of Israeli politics. They remember, for instance, that during the election campaign in 2000, George Bush promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but once re-elected he was the man who pushed Sharon to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. They remember that the same George Bush was also the president who sided with Abu Mazen, and declared that negotiations with the Palestinians should be based on49 armistice lines.
If Obama thinks that the ‘Gods’ are now beside him, he is deluded.
Obama made a grave personal mistake yesterday. But it is Americans, Israelis and Palestinians that will pay the price. What we see here is a classic tragedy, for America doesn’t posses the political power to save itself from itself.
The only question you may want to ask yourself at this stage is how long will it take for America to emancipate itself from its ‘Gods’.
While the diplomats haggle, deadly tensions are mounting in the nascent Palestine
The quest for Palestinian statehood at the UN has worsened a climate of fear on the ground in the West Bank
Harriet Sherwood in Qusra
Women at the Jewish settlement of Pnei Kedem practise firing pistols and high-powered rifles. Photograph: Nati Shohat/Flash90
The settlers come down the hill from the outpost, mostly on foot, but occasionally on horseback or in tractors or 4x4s. They carry Israeli flags, and sometimes bring guns, shovels and dogs. There may be as few as three or as many as 40. They taunt the local villagers and sometimes attack them. Often the Israeli army arrives and trains its weapons on the villagers.
In Qusra, deep among the terraced hills of the West Bank, fear is on the rise. “The settlers are provoking us continuously,” said Hani Abu Reidi, head of the village council. “They uproot olive trees, kill our sheep, burn our mosques and curse our prophet. They want to drag us into the sphere of violence. We do not want to go there.”
As the Palestinian quest for statehood looks set to be mired in diplomatic back rooms for weeks or months, tension on the ground is mounting. Both Palestinian villagers and Jewish settlers say each other is responsible for a spike in attacks over the past fortnight; mostly small-scale incidents such as throwing stones, molotov cocktails and insults. Both sides claim the other is preparing to invade their communities and attack their people. It has created an edgy climate of fear and menace, and is a forewarning of potential battles to come if the struggle for the land moves up a gear with impending Palestinian statehood.
The request by the Palestinians to be admitted to the United Nations as a full member state, formally submitted on Friday, will now be considered by the security council for an undefined period, during which efforts to get both sides back to the negotiating table will intensify.
If no progress is made, the Palestinians will press for a vote at the security council, a move the US has pledged to veto. The Palestinians would then have the option of asking the 193-member general assembly for enhanced status, albeit short of full statehood. As this process inches forward, anger on the ground is rising.
On Friday, violence between settlers from the outpost of Esh Kodesh and around 300 Qusra villagers ended in a haze of teargas and bullets fired at the villagers by Israeli troops, two of which struck Issam Odeh, 33, killing the father-of-eight.
Qusra set up a defence committee earlier this month after one of the village’s four mosques was vandalised in a settler attack condemned by the US and the European Union. Up to 20 unarmed men patrol the mosques from 8pm to 6am every night, and Abu Reidi claims they have already foiled at least one attack. Other Palestinian villages have followed suit.
On the hilltops, preparations for clashes have also been under way for weeks. Security around settlements and outposts has been reinforced with extra barbed wire, CCTV cameras, security guards and dogs. And the settlers themselves are armed and primed in anticipation of what they believe will be incursions by Palestinians intent on making their hoped-for state a reality on the ground.
This week, photographs were published on a pro-settler news website,Arutz Sheva, showing women from Pnei Kedem, an outpost south of Bethlehem, learning to shoot. In Shimon Hatzadik, a Jewish enclave in the midst of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in east Jerusalem, settlers are preparing to invoke a law allowing self-defence against intruders. “We are talking about shooting at their legs and if that doesn’t work, and our lives are in danger, we won’t be afraid to shoot straight at them. Most of the residents here are armed,” spokesman Yehonatan Yosef told parliamentarians two weeks ago.
Activists in the settlement of Qiryat Arba, on the edge of Hebron, have distributed clubs, helmets and teargas to nearby outposts. “They’ve been given all of the tools we could provide for them in order to protect themselves,” Bentzi Gopstein, a member of Qiryat Arba’s council, told theYnet news website. “But we must remember that the best defence is offence. We can’t stay close to our fences. If the Arabs can come to us, they must learn we can come to them.”
The settlers believe Israeli soldiers will be hampered by restraints imposed by commanders fearful of negative publicity. “They are not receiving the right orders,” said radical activist Itamar Ben-Gvir from Qiryat Arba. “There’s no state in the world that would allow the enemy to cross its lines and enter its communities. If the IDF will not act properly, we will have to defend ourselves.”
Women and children would take part in defensive action, he said. “We want to present an equation: women against women; children against children. The Arabs are intending to use their children and we will not sit still.”
Shaul Goldstein, mayor of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Bethlehem, expects the focus in the coming weeks to “move from hypothetical issues in New York to practical terror here in Judaea and Samaria [the biblical term for the West Bank]”. Gush Etzion had a comparatively good relationship with its Palestinian neighbours, he said. “We are trying to talk to them to reduce friction and tension. But if the Palestinians march towards the settlements, there is a red line. If they try to cross, to penetrate our communities, it will be a big problem.”
As well as fighting on the ground, many settlers believe they must also wage a political battle against the Israeli government. “Netanyahu is a weak leader, not standing for the values he was elected for,” said Goldstein. “The [settlement] construction freeze was the first in history – and this from a rightwinger. So we have to push him, to press him, to keep him to hold the line.”
The settlers are not just fighting to hold on to the land they already occupy; they intend to expand and grow – as they see it, reclaiming the land that has been willed to them by God.
“Our purpose is to build new towns and communities, new outposts in Judaea and Samaria,” said veteran activist Daniella Weiss. “It’s our role as Jews to build the land of the Jews.”
In Qusra, Abu Reidi agreed the land is at the heart of confrontations between Jewish settlers and Palestinian villagers. “Their ultimate goal is to drive us from our land,” he said. “Defending the land is a holy task. If we let them succeed, they will take more and more.”
Gov’t officials deny Ankara’s assertion that Turkey had blocked Israeli attempt to open office in western military alliance’s headquarters.
The possibility of opening an Israeli mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels is still “on the table” government officials said on Monday, in response to Turkish claims that Ankara had succeeded in vetoing the initiative.
On Sunday night, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the CNNTürk news channel that Turkey had succeeded in blocking an Israeli attempt to open an office in the Western military alliance’s headquarters.
RELATED:
Analysis: NATO membership a restraint for Turkey
Jerusalem brushes off Ankara threat to go to The Hague
“Israel recently made an attempt to open an office at NATO [headquarters] in Brussels.
We said we would veto this attempt and the issue was not even put on the agenda,” Davutoglu said.
But Israeli officials involved in relations with NATO said that the option of opening an office at NATO headquarters in Brussels was “realistic” and was currently under consideration within the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry.
“We do not know of any veto or of the possibility that one country can veto an offer that was made by NATO,” one government official said.
In recent years, Israel has significantly boosted its cooperation with NATO and regularly participates in workshops and seminars organized by the Western military alliance and member countries. In 2010, the Israel Navy and NATO signed an agreement to deploy a missile ship with Active Endeavour, a NATO mission to patrol the Mediterranean Sea and prevent terror and weapons smuggling.
Israel is also seeking to receive an upgraded status following the conclusion of a Strategic Concept review the military alliance is currently conducting that will enable Israeli officials to participate in top NATO forums – even though Israel is not a member of the alliance but a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, which was created in 1994 to foster ties with Middle Eastern countries like Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco.
Earlier this year NATO extended invitations to all of the countries involved in the Mediterranean Dialogue and other non-membership forums to open offices at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Defense officials said that the offer was still relevant and that it was being “positively considered” by the government. It is still unclear what the rank of the Foreign Ministry or Defense Ministry official will be who would man the mission if established.
“We could gain from having an office in NATO headquarters which could eventually lead to a more significant increase in cooperation,” one defense official said.
via Opening NATO office still on tabl… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.
At the Pentagon yesterday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta met with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak. According to a spokesman, Panetta stressed “America’s continued commitment to ensuring Israel’s qualitative military edge” in particular. The SecDef is expected to travel to the region “in the near future” to meet with Barak again in what will be the pair’s third meeting since Panetta took office.
The sitdown came as tensions continue to rise in Israel’s neighborhood. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, yesterday and explained Washington’s concern about Israel and Turkey’s strained relations. She called on Ankara to mend its relationship with Israel. President Obama will meet today with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The UN General Assembly opens tomorrow in New York, and later in the week the Palestinians are expected to make a bid for statehood in the Security Council.
Clinton also spoke at a pre-General Assembly event at the UN about women in politics. Along with Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, Clinton called for greater equality for women in the political sphere. She tried to bring some levity to the room, quipping, “As someone who tried to be a president, it’s very encouraging to see those who actually ended up as a president.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is meanwhile denying reports in Ron Suskind’s new book, Confidence Men, that he ignored a request from President Obama to consider dissolving Citigroup. “I lived the original, and the reality I lived, we all lived together, bears no relation to the sad little stories I heard reported from that book,” Geithner said. White House spokesman Jay Carney cautioned that the book gets many facts wrong. Neither has read the book.
via Talking to Turkey | The National Interest Blog.
