Netanyahu Apology to Turkey

The last action by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu topping off United States President Obama’s visit was facilitated by the President who made the phone call to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and gave an introductory preface for Netanyahu’s apology over the Mavi Marmara interception during which IDF Naval commandos came under attack by IHH terrorists causing a firefight which resulted in nine IHH members deaths, eight of which were Turkish citizens and one was an American citizen. Prime Minister Netanyahu made his apology and promised to make compensatory payments to the next of kin of those who died during the confrontation. The entire confrontation was an effort by the IHH group with the cooperation of members of the Turkish government to break the internationally recognized naval blockade by Israel on ships wishing to carry cargo in or out of the Gaza Strip in order to prevent the transfer of arms or terrorists with Hamas and the other terrorist groups operating in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli blockade is recognized and has been determined to be legal and meeting all the requirements imposed by international law and has been approved by the United Nations. The blockade requires that ships unload their Gaza Strip bound cargoes at an Israeli port where the contents are examined for contraband and all which is not on the prohibited list of goods are then transferred into the Gaza Strip via recognized land crossing along with the regular daily shipments of aid provided by Israel.

The Mavi Marmara was the sole ship from the flotilla which refused to divert to the Israeli port and instead attempted to break the blockade. The goods on the other ships was inspected and transferred into the Gaza Strip where it sat until removed as the out of date foodstuffs and medicines were of no interest to Hamas or the people residing in the Gaza Strip as they receive sufficient supplies of fresh food and medical supplies as part of the support provided via Israeli truck transfers. The Mavi Marmara contained no supplies whatsoever and was solely intended to force a confrontation for the sake of propaganda against Israel and providing news footage which would show the IDF forces as being needlessly violent and using undue force against the IHH mercenaries who were to be portrayed as innocent, nonviolent human rights activists. Their plan was foiled as footage of the confrontation revealed the violence which was unleashed upon the Israeli soldiers as they rappelled onto the Mavi Marmara’s decks. They were set upon by terrorists wielding baseball bats, iron rods, knives and swords. The Israeli commandos were armed with paintball guns filled with pepper-ball ammunition and were forced to turn to their sidearms in self-defense. The result of the attacks was nine IHH members died and several IDF soldiers were hospitalized with at least one permanently disabled. The IHH members were recorded claiming their desire to either break the blockade or die as shahids, martyrs. There were miscalculations and planning errors made by the Israeli commanders who apparently thought that the flotilla was a protest stand and not a military operation intent on confrontation and possibly killing the IDF soldiers. The Mavi Marmara did not carry aid of any sort and was being utilized purely for the confrontation with intent on causing as much violence as they potentially were able. As to which side was at greater fault is dependent upon the person asked and needless to point out is that the Turkish government and many leaders blame Israel for using disproportional force and murdering the nine IHH members and the Israelis point to the film of the confrontation which shows the overt and potentially lethal force unleashed on the IDF soldiers as they boarded the Mavi Marmara and claims their actions were purely self-defense and completely legal.

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan insisted that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu make a formal apology and pay compensation to the families of the nine dead IHH members. Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to apologize and held fast to that position until he finally capitulated to President Obama’s demands onboard Air Force One under the coxing of United States President Obama. Even with the apology and offer of payment to the families, Prime Minister Netanyahu had not entirely surrendered and Prime Minister Erdogan had also compromised by accepting a phone call apology instead of a formal apology. The apology by Prime Minister Netanyahu has caused a fair amount of controversy in Israel with the divide along the lines one might expect with a few exceptions. Former Foreign Minister Lieberman made the first and likely most boisterous condemnation claiming that Israel should not be seen to grovel over defending herself. Minister of the Knesset Chetboun also objected claiming that the apology conveyed a message to IDF soldiers that the government does not have their backs in such situations and confrontations when facing violent terrorists. Meanwhile, Tzipi Livni and Shelly Yachimovich both supported Prime Minister Netanyahu making the apology claiming that good relations with Turkey outweigh pride and was the expedient thing to do. The question is whether or not the apology will return relations between Israel and Turkey to be as they were before the Mavi Marmara incident or if the relations have deteriorated too far already and if so why and at whose initiative?

There will be many who will propose that things between Turkey and Israel are on the mend and will point mainly to trade or anything else that they can show which supports such a claim. Tourism might even revive with time but the real signs that relations are improved would be on the political and military relations. Since the Mavi Marmara confrontation, Israel and Turkey have not had any further joint military exercises with Turkey insisting Israel not be included in what had previously been joint exercises the two nations and the United States and NATO. Those who will use trade as their proof are pointing to one aspect of Turkish-Israeli relations which had not suffered any real measurable amount as that was one area which remained healthy except for the military sectors. Most of the military trade between Israel and Turkey consisted of Israeli systems traded to Turkey which were curtailed as part of the freeze which had set in. The break began when Turkey cancelled all outstanding orders for Israeli military systems. Should this sector of trade resume it may be a sign of a return to healthy and friendly relations.

Turkey is currently in a state of siege with half a million Syrian refugees and a full blown civil war on their southern border. Adding to this is the undeniable fact that Iraq has sided with Iran and has been facilitating the Iranian supplying of Syrian dictator Bashir Assad’s forces including sending IRGC troops to fight against the rebels. They are also going to need to deal with what is essentially a Kurdish state on their eastern borders. Turkey will bear watching in the immediate future to discern which direction Prime Minister Erdogan will lead his country. Should he continue in the path he has been following the world will watch as Turkey slides closer to the Muslim world and discards their secular history returning to their Islamic past. Erdogan has wisely moved slowly initially, almost unperceptively, undoing everything that was built through the changes brought be Kemal Atatürk. We had discussed the trend towards Islamist principles and their trending away from Western culture and warned of the growing threat Turkey was going to pose for NATO on January 15, 2010, in an article titled <a href=http://beyondthecusp.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/the-turkey-problem-for-nato/>The Turkey Problem for NATO</a> and earlier noted the slide towards Islam as part of an article titled <a href=http://beyondthecusp.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/is-turkey-at-the-tipping-point/>Is Turkey at the Tipping Point?</a> back on June 21, 2007. Unfortunately most of the Western nations have blithely been ignoring all the signs right before their eyes and continue to ploy Turkey with arms and favorable treatment. But then again, if the recent deals made to arm Egypt and Saudi Arabia is any sign, the Western nations are blithely ignoring every warning sign. It is due to this limitation in foresight that it will be claimed that Israel and Turkey are friends once more and anything which can be attributed to that end will be applauded and touted as a great achievement. Hopefully, at least some in the Israeli leadership will not be blinded to the truth and will advise a cautionary approach in relations and trust towards Turkey. A little caution is always advisable and even more so when dealing with new friend, or as in this case a renewed friend. Israel should not be too quick to forget the bad blood that has come between them and Turkey or to forget and forgive that the Turkish government supported and assisted the IHH terrorists with their flotilla. Israel should not believe that they had no knowledge of the planned violence by the IHH members even though this will be exactly what the world will demand of Israel.

Beyond the Cusp

They’re Throwing Deadly Cinderblock Size Rocks; Not Just Little Pebbles

Rocks being utilized as deadly weapons have a long and storied history in the Middle East and throughout the ancient world. Armies had divisions of archers and slingers which were equal threats in the course of combat and wars. One of the most famous and well known confrontations from ancient times pitted a young smallish shepherd boy against a giant of a man in heavy armor and the young shepherd proved victorious using a fair sized rock and a sling. The battle is, of course, the Biblical confrontation between the Philistine Goliath and the Israelite David told in the Book of Samuel. If one were to go through the effort to review the photo and video evidence of these confrontations between Palestinians throwing rocks and Israeli IDF soldiers armed with rifles they would come across evidence which points to the standoffs as not being anywhere near as disparate as the media likes to portray these events. Often one will see evidence of Palestinians using slings in order to add more force to their projectiles though many of the photographers attempt to avoid having such throwers in their frames of reference as their intent is to display the maximum advantage to the IDF in order to make the Palestinians appear the victim of a great and horrendous inequality of force. Much of the more liberal Israeli press such as Haaretz is also to blame as they tend to downplay if they even bother to cover these attacks unless there are serious injuries or even deaths. There have been numerous rock attacks which have been covered by Arutz Sheva which is located in Beth El in Samaria where the Israeli victims have required Emergency Room care or even Hospitalization and surgery which were not covered in the majority of the rest of Israeli news services thus also never being picked up by the leading news sources around the world. If the potentially fatal rock throwing were to be covered whenever there was substantial damage or serious injury then the world would be reading about them on a weekly basis multiple times and even daily during the more active periods. The world would also be familiar with one especially dangerous type of rock attack utilized by the Palestinians where they use a car at high speed on one of the narrow two lane roads in Judea and Samaria and launch their cinderblock sized rocks or cement projectiles aiming for the driver’s side of the windshield of an oncoming vehicle thus having additional force equal to the additive speed of the two vehicles to maximize the potential for penetrating the windshield and killing the driver and possibly everyone else in the vehicle should the car lose control and careen off the road crashing into trees or overturning. But these attacks are rarely covered in any of the world’s major news services while every time the IDF responds to these deadly attacks they are front page news depicting them as bloodthirsty monsters.

 

The world media lack of coverage of the often life threatening rock attacks by Palestinians upon Israeli civilians should not come as any surprise as the world media does not cover the literally thousands of rockets fired out of Gaza by Palestinian terrorists belonging to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda in Gaza, Popular Resistance Committees and any other terrorist groups targeting Israeli civilians almost exclusively with deadly intent. The only times the news services give coverage to the rocket attacks is when Israel responds with an offensive of their own such as Cast Lead and Pillar of Smoke, the actual translation of the latest Israeli response to the rocket attacks which was mistranslated as Pillar of Defense which gave a more ominous sound to the Israeli actions and avoided any reference to the Exodus in the Bible where the Israelites were led through their trek out of Egypt by a Pillar of Smoke by day and a Pillar of Fire by night. Even when the rocket attacks are covered they are contrasted against the Israeli response which makes them appear to simply be the Palestinian response to Israeli aggressions and often the coverage makes only minor references to the steady daily attacks by the terrorists in Gaza often going two, three, or even more weeks without having one day pass without at least one rocket attack. The coverage also will report the number of Palestinians who are killed often not differentiating and identifying that the largest numbers of these casualties are actual terrorists or their supporters. They also contrast that while the Israeli intervention is resulting in Palestinian fatalities that the Israelis rarely are killed by the rocket attacks and that this makes the Israeli efforts unfair and disproportionate. There is almost never any reflection or explanation of why the disparity between the two sides concerning casualties. The fact that in Gaza the terrorists demand that the civilians allow the storage of munitions and supplies within their homes, their Mosques, their Hospitals, their schools, and their public areas including shopping centers and markets with the threat of immediate execution as a collaborator if anyone should have the audacity to refuse is not reported. The rockets are almost exclusively fired from near schools, between houses, on hospital roofs, and often with children gathered around the launcher to guarantee the Israelis will not fire on the launch positions.

 

The reason that the Israelis have such a low casualty count is also hardly ever mentioned. Israel has built shelters throughout the regions which are within range of the majority of the rockets fired by the terrorists in Gaza. They require all new housing to be built with a safe room which meets structural requirements that make it able to withstand even a direct strike by the majority of rockets. The Israeli government has also reinforced schools, hospitals and people’s homes without charge for those who are unable to afford such upgrades. The Israeli government periodically offers to contribute or even to completely pay to have shatterproof reinforced windshields, rear window, and side window for the vehicles of people who live in areas prone to the rock attacks in order to keep the people safe or at least safer. Providing such services is an expensive endeavor but the Israelis having a great respect and love of life believing it is worth any price to keep the people safe. This respect for life is even seen when the Israelis must turn to using military force as they go to great extremes in attempting to avoid civilian casualties including calling off attacks if civilians are present and could possibly be placed in danger. Yes, sometimes there are mistakes which then are trumpeted by the world media endlessly for weeks, months even. One example was the massacre that never was in Jenin. Even despite the fact that the United Nations investigation into the so-called Jenin massacre proved that no such massacre took place and that of the casualties that the vast majority were combatants and there was no massacre but still there are speeches condemning the Israelis for the Jenin massacre held on college campuses during Israeli Apartheid Week and references to the Jenin massacre every year in the United Nations General Assembly recognition of the plight of the Palestinians held every year on November 29^th under the title “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”.

 

Simply ask yourself how many times you have heard about the rock attacks on Israelis by the Palestinians both in Judea and Samaria and even within the Galilee in the mixed towns, villages, and farm lands. There was one such attack just yesterday which resulted in tragedy. After an attack by Palestinians on vehicles, individual cars, buses and trucks, there were a number of resulting accidents one of which resulted in very serious wounds to a mother and her three daughters. Where the two oldest daughters and the mother are in serious condition in Beilinson Hospital, her infant one year old daughter is barely holding on to life and doctors are concerned and have reported to be doing everything in their abilities to save her delicate little life. This attack took place at the Gitai Avisar Junction where additional injuries have been reported. The wife of a former Minister of the Knesset was moderately injured when a rock crashed through the windshield of the bus in which she was a passenger shattering the glass some of which hit her face and slivers embedded in her eyes. She too is in the hospital receiving treatments and is expected to recover and retain her sight. Also, the bus driver was injured with broken glass striking his face and eyes yet somehow managed to take control of the bus and drive it beyond the ambush zone before pulling over and stopping. There were a number of other injuries at this location which continued until the Border Police and the IDF arrived on scene.

 

This was far from an isolated incident or something new, but most do not realize this as these attacks are rarely reported and when they are the coverage tends to minimize the severity and danger these attacks pose. Israeli former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was quoted giving some reference with which to frame this deadly attack by Palestinian terrorists stating, “The first victim who was killed by rock-throwing Arab rioters was soldier Esther Ohana, who had a rock thrown at her vehicle, hit her head and lost consciousness, and died two weeks later.” Lieberman was speaking about an attack which occurred in January of 1983. He added that since the murder of Ohana thirty years ago “dozens of others were hurt and seriously wounded by Arab rock-throwing rioters in Judea and Samaria.” It has possibly been the fact that such attacks have become commonplace enough that the Israeli and world press no longer sees any need to report them any longer. The problem this causes is that when Israel finally does respond to these many different, various but still consistent attacks, be they rocks or rockets, is that the heavy-handed blame Israel for the violence reporting becomes believable as the listeners have no reference or context of the months of terror attacks which forced the Israeli response. The public is left with the impression that the Palestinian rock, rocket or any other form of terror or assaults only occur in response to Israeli military actions. There is little history and reporting over the long buildup which necessitated the Israeli aggression so the Israeli response appears to have come out of the blue without any provocations. This is an injustice and only serves to discredit Israel and grant credibility to those who accuse Israel of needless violence against the poor innocent Palestinians who are cast as not being able or inclined to raise a finger against their oppressors, Israel. The truth is almost daily there are provocations where Palestinian terrorists threaten Israeli lives; destroy Israeli property, crops, vehicles, structures, homes and shops; fire rockets aiming at Israeli neighborhoods, shopping centers, synagogues, schools, buses, or anyplace that Israelis congregate; or sling rocks of varying sizes at Israeli individuals, cars, busses, light rail, and other forms of conveyance all of these disparate forms of violence intended to take Israeli’s lives or at least make their lives as difficult and treacherous as possible. While I have no illusions that the news reporting will change, I hold hope that the Israeli government will assign at least one Minister of the Knesset to publicize the violence and assaults aimed at the Israeli people and possibly begin to balance the reporting so that the people of the world can make fair and informed opinions and put an end to the propaganda and unbalanced reporting which by design makes the Palestinians victims and Israelis victimizers. The lie must be revealed and placed in the light of truth and allow the reality to be placed before the world and then when all the facts are in the open the people of the world can decide. It may not change a single opinion, but that is a different problem for another time. One calamity at a time, I cannot handle them in bunches.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Bibi, Poor Election Results, and Making a Coalition

Back when Benyamin Netanyahu called for new elections he was confident and thought he had made a tactical decision which would not only provide him with a strong coalition, but a comfortable coalition where any of the lesser parties which chose to join being unable to threaten the coalition with a vote of no confidence. He made a couple of serious miscalculations along the way, one before finally calling for new elections and the other subsequent to dissolving his relatively strong coalition confident of a better tomorrow. Netanyahu’s first mistake occurred when he first decided to call for new elections rather than face the difficulties of making a new budget and facing Iran and other threats without a stronger and more stable coalition. He then reversed himself when Kadima, facing possible oblivion if new elections were called, offered to join Netanyahu’s Likud led coalition adding an impressive twenty-eight to the coalition which promised to give it the stability Netanyahu desired. Unfortunately, Shaul Mofaz, the recently elected leader of Kadima, replacing Tzipi Livni, and Netanyahu had a falling out within a couple of months and Kadima pulled out of the coalition which drove Bibi to again call for new elections. There was a short period of indecision and within a week Likud executed a vote of no confidence with coalition partner Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beyteinu. This excess drama and indecision likely was just the initial sign of weakness and began his problems. Soon after dissolving the coalition, Netanyahu and Lieberman merged their two parties in the hopes of forging an unopposable center-right consensus party. This was the next step in the undoing of Netanyahu’s plan as the religious parties resented Lieberman and Yisrael Beyteinu. Then came the months of waiting for elections which soon became a long march towards mediocrity for the Likud- Beyteinu super party.

Then came the coup de grace during the campaign. For reasons which will be the raw meat for dissecting what not to do in a campaign, the senseless and viscous attacks by numerous members of Likud aimed at the Jewish Home Party, the one party that most observers would have thought would be a natural fit with Likud, inflicted harm on both parties though it appears that Likud was the greater harmed. There were the claims that the lead of Jewish Home, Naftali Bennett, was the difficulty as he had once been the Chief of Staff for Bibi which led to a messy split between the two. Some placed the problem with Bibi’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, as the one who had some difficulties with Bennett which drove the spite campaign. Whatever the source, the viciousness and pure undiluted bile heaped on Naftali Bennett and the Jewish Home Party drove many away from the Likud-Beyteinu Party as many nationalists were put off and dismayed by the attacks on another nationalist party. The attacks also did result in lower support for the Jewish Home Party as they had been designed to be. The result in the end was a falling off from a combined total of forty-two seats for Likud and Beyteinu in the previous Knesset to thirty-one seats in the new Knesset. This loss of eleven seats not only damaged the power for the new combined party but also will force the Likud-Beyteinu Party to rely on and be susceptible to the whims of even the smallest parties who they will end up depending on to form their coalition. The damage was so complete as to have been just short of the cusp of allowing for a left-leaning coalition being formed blocking Netanyahu from making a coalition and allowing for a social issues coalition instead of what Netanyahu hopes to build, a nationalist and capitalist bent coalition. There are so many good old sayings that could be utilized to cap off this article, but in the spirit of allowing everyone their own freedoms, unlike the mistakes made by Likud-Beyteinu with their limiting attacks, we will allow you to choose your own to finish with your favorite.

Beyond the Cusp