Should Israel Apologize To Turkey?

Avi Davis
The Intermediate Zone
21 July '10

The Turks don’t seem to be losing any momentum in their international campaign to demonize Israel.

Not content with having withdrawn their ambassador to the country and using every international forum available to raise the specter of the Jewish ” state terrorism” , Turkey is now demanding an apology for the deaths aboard the Mavi Marmara on the morning May 30 when the Turkish registered boat sought to breach the Gaza blockade.

Now the Turks, having acknowledged that the Government of Israel recognizes that ” mistakes” were made in the attempt to interdict the passage of the ship, have made it clear that they will accept nothing short of a full apology for the eleven deaths which resulted from the confrontation.

Such an apology would be nothing short of a diplomatic catastrophe for the Jewish state. To acknowledge that the nation was somehow at fault for this commission of political theater, would be to essentially acknowledge guilt – yet there can be no question of Israel’s liability for the violence which broke out that morning , which was pre-planned and pre-meditated and designed to achieve exactly its result. Israel would gain nothing but further opprobrium and it would make the likelihood of future passage of such violations of Israeli sovereignty even more certain.

The Turks know something about how to manage international campaigns of this order. For 95 years , successive Turkish governments have denied the role of the state in facilitating the deaths of close to one million Armenian Turkish citizens during the First World War.

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