Arabs Pondering Apology From Netanyahu While Turks Await Their Israeli Reparations

After the Mavi Marma incident, otherwise known as the Terror Flotilla, Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded an apology for the nine Turks onboard who died, after Israel’s IDF exercised their government’s right to board the ship and search for contraband headed for Gaza that could be used against Israel. Israel refused. But this week, Obama worked his magic voodoo and while in Israel with Netanyahu, Netanyahu picked up the phone and “apologized” to Erdogan. Reports are that he apologized for the “loss of life.” There are no reports that Erdogan apologized for the two gravely wounded IDF soldiers who were following the Oslo Accord. Today, Erdogan says there will be no normal relations between Turkey until Israel pays reparations AND the Gaza blockade must be lifted. Again, the Oslo Accord gives Israel the right to check all goods coming into Israel by air, border crossing or sea. So now the consequences of the ‘apology’ are rearing their ugly heads. AND NOW, Arabs are thinking they want apologies too.

Israeli School Bus Hit By Palestinian Anti-Tank Missile

On Friday, as U.S. President Barack Obama was about to depart Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Erdogan and apologized for Israel’s actions during the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident, during which eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed after they attacked Israeli soldiers on board. 

Erdogan had accepted Netanyahu’s apology and told the Israeli leader that he would begin working towards full restoration of ties. 

But in a public address following the apology, Erdogan called on more concessions from Israel before full relations could be restored. The Turkish leader said “there will be no normalization” without financial compensation for the flotilla incident from Israel as well as the lifting of the Gaza blockade, the Associated Press reported. 

“Normalization will happen the moment there is an implementation. But if there is no implementation, then I am sorry,” Erdogan said. Source: The Algemeiner

Caroline Glick (read more here):

The Mavi Marmara was an eminently predictable fight. The Turkish group that hired the boat was an al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkish NGO named IHH. In 1999, the Turkish government was so wary of IHH that it barred the group from participating in relief efforts following a devastating earthquake…
By 2010, Prime Minster Erdogan had a long track record of anti-Israel actions. Indeed, by 2010, Erdogan had effectively destroyed the strategic alliance Israel had developed with Turkey since 1949. In 2006, Erdogan was the first major international leader and NATO member to host Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh. The same year he allowed Iran to use Turkish territory to transfer weaponry to Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War. 

In 2008, Erdogan openly sided with Hamas against Israel in Operation Cast Lead. In 2009, he called President Shimon Peres a murderer to his face.

By the time the flotilla to Gaza was organized, Erdogan had used Turkey’s position as a NATO member to effectively end the US-led alliance’s cooperative relationship with Israel, by refusing to participate in military exercises with Israel.

From Carl in Jerusalem, Israel Matzav:

The Turkish news agency reported that an Arab diplomat said that “Arab states are considering the possibility of demanding that Israel apologize for the killings of Palestinian territories and in Lebanon in the same way that they apologized to Turkey for the Marmara.”

All well and good but then, the Arab League, which includes most of the Arab states, in 1974 deemed the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) to belong to The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Israel apologizing to Arab states – nothing more than a fly on a camel’s nose. When the Arab world came against Israel in 1948, Jordan took the West Bank from Israel. In 1967 during the Six Day War, Israel took it back, and so it remains today despite last week’s White House maps moving it into No-Man’s Land.

I caught some grief  about my post on the Netanyahu apology on a Facebook community - nothing rude or terrible, but the point my contrarian was making was that Netanyahu apologized ‘only for the lives lost’ aboard the Mavi Marma. He said I had an “agenda.” I told him I did, and that agenda was to show that the Arab world refuses to accept Israel’s right to exist, to which he replied Turks aren’t Arabs, and he was right – but they are Sunni Muslims.

Give an Arab or Middle Eastern Muslim a foot in the door and he’ll take your life, that of your family and neighbors.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook