I don’t normally write political rants on my blog, but I find the latest news (Boston Globe, Reuters and The Telegraph) ridiculous that Turkey has expelled Israel’s ambassador and is cutting their military agreements with Israel over the recently leaked UN Flotilla Report. The synopsis from many websites is that the report concludes Israel’s actions on the Mavi Marmara were excessive but legal. Most of us knew the UN report would state Israel’s actions were excessive, everything the UN analyzes about Israel normally concludes her actions as being excessive (duh, can you say predictable?). Nonetheless, the kicker and big surprise, which Turkey is reeling about, is the report stated not only was the blockade and boarding of these ships trying to enter Gaza legal ‘BUT’ that Turkey should have done more to prevent these ships from traveling to Israel. This last statement in layman’s terms seems like common sense to me. I’ve been thinking about it why and I keep thinking about the following analogy:
If I had a group of kids under my care and they performed some mischief, me as the adult in-charge may be held responsible for their actions. Mischief by teenagers tends to be quite harmless, but let’s assume their actions were severe. Hopefully most sleep-over situations do not result in death, but let’s assume the kids tried to break into a guarded facility and I knowingly did not try to stop them or, god forbid, I encouraged them. In most states, I think I would likely be held responsible for their actions. Also even if the reaction at the guarded facility was considered illegal, I expect I would not be completely absolved of the situation (especially by the children’s parents). If the guarded facility’s actions were legal, then I would likely be held liable for the situation (definitely by the children’s parents).
If we assume in the above scenario that Turkey is the parent, the flotilla are the children and Israel is the guarded facility and that the guarded facility’s actions (as noted by the UN report) were determined as legal, then I think Turkey would be considered responsible for the situation. Prior to the report, Turkey wanted Israel to apologize and compensate the people of the flotilla. Their premise was that the blockade was illegal, thus Israel’s actions were also illegal. Turkey was also unwilling to accept responsibility for the flotilla, as they felt telling the not to go was enough, even though they knew the flotilla’s purpose and result could likely turn violent. Now that Israel’s actions has been deemed a legitimate security measure and that Turkey’s actions were considered inadequate (‘more could have been done’) to stop the flotilla, I think we can conclude it is Turkey who should do the apologizing and compensating.
Considering Turkey has yet to come to terms with their responsibility (and continued actions) with the Kurdish and the Armenian peoples, I doubt they will do so with the Turkish IHH organized flotilla.
08-SEP-2011: Found a post, For the Sake of Zion, that directly relates to the above. Enjoy!
