In extremerly controversial comments made earlier today, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that it was important to reach a compromise with the Turkish government, including apologizing for “errors” made during the raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship in 2010.
Barak said he didn’t “like” the idea of such comments, and said it was important to make clear it wasn’t an apology for the crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip nor for the killing of the aid workers on board the Mavi Marmara.
At the same time, he said it’s “not a bad thing to have reasonable relations with Turkey.” The comments are not likely to sit well with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which has been demanding Turkey apologize for allowing the aid ship to try to deliver goods to Gaza.
The United Nations has repeatedly delayed the release of their own report into the killings amid pressure to allow Israel and Turkey to continue to negotiate upon their own official versions of the incident.
What is it with good ol' Ehud. Still rather psychotic. He's the one guy in the nefarious netenyahoo government who'll say something reasonable…out of one side of his mouth.
Since when is the cold-blooded murder of civilians in international waters a mere “error”?
No. No. No. Turkey should stand its ground and demand Israel apologizes for the murders of the flotilla crew members. In those terms, too: MURDER. Admitting an 'error' in this case does nothing but insult the dead as well as the living. Israel will do everything it can to avoid admitting they murdered innocent people- they don't admit it now in Gaza and Palestine, and they don't admit it anywhere else.
I truly feel sorry for the decent Israelis who are saddled with a den of jackals for a government and I hope they find the strength of will to throw out that criminal lot and begin a new day in the world community. I hope they do it soon.
From the beginning the zionist movement has sought to remove the Palestinians from Palestine. In this regard Labour zionism has been just as bad, if not worse, than the Likud. It is not a matter of bad guys in gov't; zionism is a racist ideology. It's funny how the US struggles against Islamic gov'ts, but supports zionism to the hilt, even insisting that israel should be accepted as Jewish state. Think an Islamic regime in Egypt is going to be bad for the Copts, 8% of the population, well, why then support israel as a Jewish state when the population there is 20% Christian and Muslim?
When is an apology not an apology? Barak gives a textbook case. Who does he think he is fooling? This is the playbook: Barak is telling Israel that we don't ever apologise, but hey those stupid goys, they believe anything we tell them.
I have to say that this whole business stinks, particularly the delay in the publication of the UN report. Does anyone disagree with the assertion that the US AIPAC regime will be working hard in the background to patch things up between Turkey and Israel – 2 American allies – at the cost of the truth of what happened last year (rather like the USS Liberty), in order to get Israel out of a difficult corner, and thereby shaft the Palestinians again? I must also admit that I don't have much faith in the Turkish government holding the line against Israel. Look at what happened to the Gaza flotilla this year! The impact of the flotilla was considerably weakened by the non-participation of Turkey, probably because of pressure from the US AIPAC regime and the cowardly EU, as Turkey longs for EU membership and will ignore the Palestinian cause if it helps it's EU membership application.
Apologize for everything your little band of cutthroats have done for 60+ years
What point is there in an apology, as if it would actually mean anything? The Israelis have set their stall out, we all know what their behaviour is like and we all know that they do not believe they have anything to apologize for. Their doing so would only represent a strategic PR decision.
Well the zionist stated Israel was jewish because God gave it to them. Well the land was part of Turkey until the british gave it to the zionist. Maybe the Turks are about to get this lands back. Israel is headed to a major civil war between orthodox and secular jews with the loyal arab citizens of Israel supporting both. I am sure it will be an interesting period of time with everyone in the world rushing supplies to both sides of the conflict. New before has the world had something that everyone could agree on which is let the better man win and lets arm to the teeth both sides. Israel needs the natural gas fields off the coast and that is the main reason for all their games. Turkey and the rest of the world will do anything to keep them from getting the gas fields. I am sure Turkey could careless about any "iam sorry " message.
Calling crimes "errors" is like calling lies "misspeaking". The Turks should stand their ground, and more countries should call out the UN, for not releasing the report now.
Perhaps the apology was to be for the sailors that were killed in the bomb blast at a Turkish Naval facility on that same day.
Turkey and Israel deserve each other. For two decades, the Israel lobby in the US was feeding the wolf … now the wolf has grown and is coming back to eat them.
Rabbi Hillel said it best, "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"
When will the Israel lobby (AJC, JINSA, ADL and AIPAC) stop supporting Turkey's denial of its crime of genocide of 1.5 million Armenians and stop blocking the US Congress from passing a resolution to acknowledge it? And, when will the State of Israel do the right thing and acknowledge the Armenian genocide?
The world doesn't take seriously what American Jewish leaders have to say about the 6 million Jews killed during World War II, not when it sees the same Jewish leaders lobby the US Congress against acknowledging the Genocide of Armenians and quite everyone over the murders of 1.5 million other innocents.
Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent, coined the word "genocide" specifically to describe the barbarity that befell the Armenians at the hands of the Turkish State. Dr. Lemkin explained that the Turks committed genocide with the full intent to annihilate; he added "I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times, first to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action."
The inscriptions from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington reads, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" – Adolf Hitler
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hitler_Armenian_Quote.JPG)
We cannot help but ask ourselves, had the world community used its full energy and resources to speak out against the Armenian Genocide, might the world have become more aware and more forcibly interceded against the destruction of European Jewry during the time of the Nazis?
Apologize to genocidal Turkey? Sadly, we all know to well what happened 66 years ago when we appeased another genocidal state and its evil-leader.
When will Israel acknowledge the Genocide of Armenians?