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Shoot first and don't apologise
Al-Ahram Weekly Published in Al-Ahram Weekly on 23 - 12 - 2010


By Abdallah El-Ashaal
Turkey keeps asking Israel to apologise for shooting Turkish activists on board the Freedom Flotilla in May 2010. Turkish officials say that an apology followed by compensation to the victims would be enough to mend relations between the two countries. But Israel is not going to apologise. Israel doesn't regret what it has done. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Israelis ask Turkey to compensate them for having to act, so reluctantly, "in self-defence".
Israel knows that the US is fully behind it. The Americans have let the Turks know that the deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations, if allowed to continue, would undermine Turkish relations with the West. So Turkey is now in a tight spot.
Turkey may need Israel, but it cannot get over the hurt and humiliation of the flotilla incident. Speaking in Beirut a few weeks ago, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said that Israel's belligerence in Lebanon and Palestine is damaging Turkish interests. Turkey has also accused Israel of helping the insurgents of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and of helping the groups that carried out bombings in Turkey of late.
As the stalemate continues, Israel seems to have decided that the government of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) must go. Washington seems to agree. It had hoped that Turkey would join the EU and tone down its pan-Islamic rhetoric, but the Germans and the French disagreed.
As things stand, the Turkish-Israeli strategic cooperation seems to have come to a dead end. What Israel really wants is to get rid of the JDP and restructure the political scene in Turkey. Unless it succeeds in doing so, the Turks would keep opposing the Zionist project, now proceeding at full steam.
Israel has committed war crimes and these are not subject to a statute of limitations. The failure of make-believe fact-finding committees to assign blame aside, Israel committed a crime against the Freedom Flotilla, and its numberless crimes in Gaza have not yet ceased.
This week's Soapbox speaker is former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister.

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