By: Helen Freedman
Cited as a great diplomatic victory for President Obama, as he returns from his trip to Israel, Ramallah and Jordan, is the apology that PM Netanyahu proffered to PM Erdogan of Turkey for the May 31, 2010 killing of nine Turkish terrorists on the Mavi Marmara. The ship was part of a Gaza-bound flotilla attempting to break the naval blockade on Gaza. Linked to the apology is an agreement to compensate the families of those who were killed, and to cancel the legal proceedings against IDF officials who were deemed culpable in the situation. Immediately after the apology, Erdogan announced his intentions to visit Hamas's PM in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. How Israel can have diplomatic relations with Turkey, while Erdogan is courting recognized terrorists, is hard to understand.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy coming out of this apology to Turkey was expressed by MK Yoni Chetboun of the Balyit Yehudi party. While recognizing the importance of Turkey in the region, MK Chetboun, a Major in the reserves, who served as an officer in the Golani Brigade's elite Egoz reconnaissance unit, was clear in his recognition that the apology was a "knife in soldiers' backs."Chetboun said, "Israel does not have the privilege to apologize for its soldiers actions, when they acted in accordance with the principles of the IDF's ethical code and its definition of "the purity of arms.' The apology amounts to a knife-stab in the back of the IDF's combat soldiers and commanders. it sends a grave message to our soldiers, ' we don't have your backs.' As a soldier and commander in all sectors of warfare I can testify that the government backing is critical for the soldier at the front." MK Chetboun continued, "It constitutes a dangerous precedent that will encourage anti-Zionist organizations to continue operating the mechanism of delegitimizing Israel in general and the IDF in particular."
Proof that this dhimmi posture of Israel's will only lead to more demands of humiliation and degradation is the latest reports regarding new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's vision of breaking the impasse between the PA and Israel. It would involve Israel releasing terrorists and transferring land in Area B, under joint Israeli/PA control, to Area A, which is totally Arab controlled. In addition, Obama and Netanyahu might have agreed on a "silent construction freeze," one that is unannounced but is the reality.
AFSI joins Prof. Steve Plaut in his denunciation of the Netanyahu APOLOGY. Read this and weep:
An open letter to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Prime Minister of Turkey
Dear Mister Prime Minister:
On behalf of all of the people of Israel, I would like to apologize to you for the cowardice and fathomless idiocy of the Prime Minister of Israel. As you know, this weekend Benjamin Netanyahu sent you an "apology" for Israel having defended itself against the genocidal terrorists who attacked Israeli soldiers armed only with paintguns when they boarded the terrorist "flotilla" ship that you sent out to challenge Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas enclave in Gaza. Netanyahu spoke only for himself when he apologized to you for Israel's defending itself and its people, this two generations after the Holocaust. He does not represent anyone at all in the country when it comes to this "apology." No one else in the country, except for some anti-Israel radical leftists with tenure at the universities, agrees that Israel owes you an apology for defending its people.
Actually, on behalf of all REAL Israelis, I would like to apologize to you for the fact that ONLY nine terrorists were killed by Israeli troops on the flotilla ship when Israeli soldiers were savagely attacked by Turkish and other terrorists. I would like to apologize for the fact that Israeli did NOT torpedo and sink the terrorist ships trying to break the blockade and bring in aid to the Hamas Nazis. I would like to apologize for the fact that Israel has a Prime Minister who is so clueless, insensitive, and divorced from Jewish history that he would consider buying a few moments of diplomat calm with a Moslem aggressor by shaming his entire country with an "apology" to Turkey, exhibiting one of the most disgraceful acts by a Jew in all of history, and all this just hours before the Jewish holiday of national liberation, Passover.
Beyond that, I really do think that Israel owes an apology for NOT having done much more to draw the world's attention to the illegal occupation and destruction by Turkey of the jewel of Cyprus, the city of Famagusta. Israel sat by while Turkey conquered 40% of Cyprus and transferred tens of thousands of its own people as illegal settlers to the island. And for that I apologize. And since you have spent so much time in recent years denouncing Israel as an occupier, I think Israel owes an apology to the world for not helping to end the illegal Turkish occupation of the great ancient Greek capital of Constantinople, now under an illegal Saracen occupation that has continued for far too long. It is high time that Constantinople be returned to its true heritage and its legal owners, the Greek people. It is less than a hundred years since the city, along with Smyrna and other Greek homelands, was almost liberated by the Greeks, who were only to be blocked by the Turkish military aggressors, the mass murderers of the Armenians.
So Mister Prime Minister, as you see, I am afraid that Israelis DO owe the world quite a few apologies.
On behalf of the non-pusillanimous citizens of Israel, I remain
Most sincerely yours,
Prof. Steven Plaut
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