Tag: Mavi Marmara

Turkey’s foreign minister has set this week’s expected release of a U.N. report on Israel’s raid of a Gaza-bound flotilla as a deadline for Israel to apologize for the deadly attack, two Turkish newspapers reported Thursday.

The May 2010 raid by Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian activists and severely strained Israeli-Turkish relations. Turkey has warned ties could deteriorate further if Israel does not apologize, but Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ruled out the idea.

“The date the United Nations is expected to release the report is the deadline. If there is no apology until that date we will put our Plan B into motion,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in accounts printed in Turkey’s Hurriyet and Zaman newspapers.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said Thursday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “has not yet received the report himself.”

“We understand that the report will be submitted to the secretary-general in the next few days,” del Buey said. “We will seek confirmation.”

Davutoglu did not elaborate on what measures Turkey would take against Israel, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested last month that Turkey could back possible court action by victims’ families against Israel.

Turkish newspaper reports have said Turkey also is considering downgrading diplomatic ties, cutting off economic ties and military cooperation, and giving Turkey’s full backing to the Palestinian quest for state recognition.

In addition to an apology, Turkey also is demanding compensation for the victims’ families and an end to Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip, imposed since 2007. The nine people who died included eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American.

The flotilla was trying to break the Israeli blockade. Activists charged that Israel was depriving Gaza’s Palestinians of vital supplies. Israel said the blockade was necessary to keep weapons away from Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza.

When the Israeli commandos reached the flotilla, they clashed with activists armed with knives, clubs and iron rods. Israel says soldiers acted in self-defense after the activists assaulted them on deck, while the activists say they were defending themselves from an Israeli attack.

The flotilla raid drew an international outcry and forced Israel to ease its blockade.

An Israeli inquiry into the raid cleared the military and government of any wrongdoing and said the armed defense of Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza was justified under international law.

But a Turkish committee that investigated the raid refuted Israeli claims of self-defense, and said Israeli soldiers used “excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate” force on unarmed civilians.

via Turkey Reportedly Sets Deadline For Israel Apology For Deadly Attack | FoxNews.com.

By DEBORAH DANAN

If the Turkish demand for an apology is nothing more than a hammed-up provocation, is Israel justified in refusing to acquiesce — even if it means restoring ties with its Muslim ally?

Photo by: IDF Spokesperson

The back-and-forth spat between Israeli and Turkish officials over the Mavi Marmara affair conjures up scenarios of a schoolyard bully pulling his classmate’s pigtails before a teacher intervenes and demands an apology. But bizarrely, at the bully’s insistence that “she started it,” it is the hair-abuse victim who is asked to apologize.

Israel is the unassuming little girl, the IHH-backed ship is the bully and the teacher is the Turkish government.

Of course, most people will argue that the allegory’s characterizations are the wrong way around: after all, the image of trained IDF soldiers shimmying down ropes doesn’t exactly bring Laura Ingalls to mind, and for that matter the phrase “humanitarian activists” isn’t quite analogous with the image of a tormenting schoolboy menace.

But it is exactly like that.

Without the Turkish government’s support of the IHH – recognized by Israel as a terrorist organization – the Mavi Marmara might never have breached the blockade, and nine lives would have been saved.

However, for argument’s sake, let’s imagine for a moment that the facts on the sea are irrelevant. In such a scenario, the only relevant question is this: Is the excessive hoo-hahing about who owes whom an apology worth the price that both sides are paying?

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, not known for his eloquence, fell on the sword of his own rhetoric on Wednesday at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Lieberman restated his view that “there is no need to apologize” to Turkey, and that doing so would be “a humiliation.” He also accused Turkey of using the apology-card as a cheap trick to flex their muscles in the region, stating that it was simply “a matter of honor” for the Turks.

Yet when speaking to reporters after the meeting, Lieberman seemed to have undergone a change of heart regarding the importance of honor. Israel cannot apologize to Turkey because, according to Lieberman, doing so will “harm Israel’s dignity [and] national honor carries a real significance.”

But if this is a legitimate rebuttal on Israel’s part, why is Turkey slated for its own efforts towards the same end?

Semantics aside, can’t Israel simply swallow its pride and apologize in much the same way a Englishman is prone to say sorry to the person stepping on his toe? Isn’t the greater good of repairing diplomatic relations with Israel’s Muslim ally worth the temporary embarrassment of apologetics? And as we already know, sorry is not the hardest word for Israel, as evidenced by the public apology to Turkey last year over the “Sofagate” incident.

Unfortunately – at least in this part of the world – the answer is no.

A diplomatic apology is not a band-aid that gets discarded once the wound has healed. Official apologies remain in collective memory forever. They carry tremendous power and can reshape the historical account of events. Furthermore, a diplomatic apology necessarily includes an acknowledgement of responsibility and acceptance of liability.

Consider what transpired at the UN-sponsored World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, close to 10 years ago. The conference was a veritable finger-pointing fest, with Arab representatives accusing Israel of racism while representatives from African countries slammed Europe and the US over slavery. In the latter case, African delegates demanded recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity (which has no statute of limitations) and further demanded individual apologies from European countries.

In the interests of preventing future liability, the delegations of European countries – including Britain, Holland and Spain – fought hard to substitute the word “apology” with “regret” – the same word Israel is currently offering as an olive branch to Turkey. [Incidentally, the issue of reparations and apologies over slavery is one of the reasons the US pulled its delegation from the conference.]

So Europe and the US get away without ever officially succumbing to the humiliation of apologising for slavery – indeed, they even escaped having to pay reparations – while Israel is expected to apologize over the use of “excessive” force during the breach of a legally sound blockade?

And while we’re on the subject of overdue apologies, Turkey may want to revisit its own sordid history on the matter.

Israel is not the first country to have its ties with Turkey severed over the issue of apology. While the argument of “they did it so why can’t we?” never works for Israel – primarily because the Jewish state is measured by a different moral standard than the rest of the world – there are things that are either too juicy or too horrifying to ignore.

Exhibit A is the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans during World War I. Demands by the Armenian community in Turkey to receive an apology from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have consistently been met with refusal. To add insult to annihilation, Turkey continues to reject the term genocide.

In light of its ongoing 16-year-old blockade with Armenia, one would think Turkey would be a tad more sympathetic towards Israel’s own blockade of Gaza.

So here’s a demand for you Prime Minister Erdogan: Instead of trying to mask your country’s macabre history with deplorable refutations, how about taking a leaf out of your own book and owning up to it? You never know, apologizing to the Kurds and the Armenians might just spur Israel to follow by example.

The writer is editor of The Jerusalem Post’s Premium Zone.

Don’t apologize to Turkey

Op-ed: Apologizing to Turkey over flotilla incident means distorting official history forever

Manfred Gerstenfeld

The new efforts by Israel to improve relations with Turkey come at a convenient time. The Turkish elections were Prime Minister Erdogan employed the whipping up of anti-Israeli feelings as a propaganda instrument are behind us. There are no great benefits for Erdogan to incite against Israel at this time. Anti-Israel hatemongering is not a political necessity for him. It is more of a luxury to be used when there are no other pressing issues for the Turkish government.

Putting anti-Israel incitement on ice may even help Turkey in trying to wean Israel a bit from its warming relations with Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus – countries that view Turkey’s increased power in the region in recent years in a very negative light.

The continuing Syrian riots and their suppression by Assad’s government on the other hand, pose a genuine problem for Turkey. Erdogan does not know whether President Assad will continue to govern and for how long. Another uncertainty is whether Turkey will have to take in more Syrian refugees. With large parts of the Arab world in turmoil, there are many major developments that require Turkey’s constant attention. One example: Who will rule Egypt after the autumn elections and will the new government view Turkish support for Hamas positively or negatively?

In the context of current attempts to end Turkish-Israeli tension, there remains the Turkish demand that Israel apologize for the death of nine people killed by the IDF on the Mavi Marmara at the end of May 2010. If Israel were to apologize, Erdogan would avoid losing face after his frequent demands that Israel should “admit its guilt.”

Israeli appeasers contend that apologies are only words. They claim that it costs Israel nothing to admit that it was at fault. The Turkish government was, however, heavily involved in many aspects of the flotilla incident. This information can be found in investigative research carried out by Steven Merley, who specializes in political extremism.

He exposes Turkish government support for the flotilla that was channeled through the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood network. This included the attendance of officials from Turkey’s ruling AKP party at many important Muslim Brotherhood network events in support of the flotilla, as well as a meeting attended by Erdogan himself with a delegation of the Global Muslim Brotherhood and flotilla movement leaders from Britain and France. This meeting took place shortly before the ships left port for Gaza.

Indeed, without government support the Mavi Marmara would probably never have approached Israel’s waters.

Don’t trust Erdogan

An Israeli apology – however limited – has far more negative aspects than it seems at first sight. Apologies by nature bring closure to much of a debate. The two parties involved jointly agree on their interpretation of the past.

More than any other country, Israel and the Jewish people have historical experience with apologies and therefore should have an understanding of their importance. Many nations and various organizations such as The Red Cross, church bodies and others have apologized for their behavior during the Holocaust. After the collapse of communism when Israel requested apologies from the newly independent nations in Eastern Europe there were also critics who stressed that the apologies were not genuine. Others noted that those who apologized were not the ones who had committed the crimes.

Israel’s leadership, however, understood that official apologies play an important role as potential anchors in collective memory. They are preserved in archives and become an important source for historians. These apologies will remain well documented for future generations. Apologizing to Turkey over the flotilla incident thus means distorting official Israeli history forever.

The world has had enough time by now to understand how Erdogan operates. In 2004 for instance, out of the blue, he accused Israel of state terrorism. In 2005, he came on a visit to Israel to mend fences. What probability is there that he will structurally change his future behavior in a positive way? When not pressured at home, he may consider it opportune to attack Israel again.

If things quiet down on the Syrian border and Erdogan feels an internal or external need for inciting against Israel, apologies – if indeed made — will be one more instrument in his arsenal of hate mongering. If Israel apologizes, Erdogan could then say “See, I was right to attack them all the time.” Israel will then find that ultimately nothing has remained from the improved relations other than undeserved apologies, which will be documented for eternity.

Manfred Gerstenfeld is the author of 20 books. He has published a number of research essays on the major aspects of apologies by countries and various organizations for their participation in The Holocaust

via Don’t apologize to Turkey – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.