( - promoted by Diane G)
The Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla was an overt political act aimed at breaking the siege of Gaza. Bringing food, medicine, and supplies to humans suffering extreme privation in defiance of "the authorities" is an act far less theatrical or playful but conceptually tantamount to hippies stuffing flowers into rifle barrels as a form of protest so good-natured and free of overt threat as to be disarming and impossible for the world audience to find the least bit menacing, much less provoking a violent response. Indeed, military responses to expressions of "flower power" are unthinkable, and would instantly discredit and delegitimize those bearing actual weapons in support of establishmentarian power. While the analogy may be imperfect, it generally seems that Israel has done the unthinkable by shooting the flower children dead, including an American and some Turks, citizens of their most critical allies. |
As Daniel Larison points out, Turkey and Israel had rather decent relations, to an extent where Turkey allowed the Israeli air force permission to fly in its air-space for training missions, but the countries became increasingly alienated as Israel increasingly rode roughshod on reciprocity, to the point where Turkish prime minister Erdogan now threatens to send battleships to accompany the next flotilla to Gaza.
Just before Operation Cast Lead began, Erdogan had been using his improved relations with Syria to mediate an Israeli-Syrian peace in which the Olmert government was supposedly interested. Olmert turned around almost immediately after meeting with Erdogan and launched the operation against Gaza. Erdogan understandably felt that he had been left in the dark about Israel's intentions and saw Olmert's decision as sabotage of his mediation effort. In other words, the Turkish government was attempting to help Israel with a long-standing diplomatic problem, and Israel rewarded them by making Erdogan look like a fool. Add to that the damage and the deaths caused by the operation and the genuine outrage the Turkish public felt about these things, and one can understand how Erdogan has become so combative.
Since the Netanyahu government came into office, it has been actively contributing to the downward spiral of Israeli-Turkish relations. In response to an offensive Turkish television show, Israel's Foreign Ministry deliberately and publicly insulted the Turkish ambassador, which led to the last major diplomatic row before now. To protest objectionable content produced by Turkish citizens, Israel drastically overreacted by further wrecking relations with the Turkish government. Erdogan does demagogue the Palestinian issue, but everything the Olmert and Netanyahu governments have been doing for the last year and a half have provided him with more than enough ammunition.
Four years ago, the AKP government had reasonably good relations with Israel. The "myth" of friendship Klein dismisses was quite real. Things began going wrong when Israel responded to Hizbullah's capture of three of its soldiers by launching a full-scale war against all of Lebanon. Like most other nations, Turks were appalled by what Israel had done, and relations began souring from then on. Even if one wants to blame Erdogan for being irresponsible in demagoguing and whipping up Turkish anger, there would have been no occasions for his demagoguery if Israel had not engaged in its excessive and destructive military actions in Lebanon and Gaza.
Israel has shown extremely poor reciprocity toward the United States, as well, in part indicated by its espionage scandals, weapons sales, and recalcitrant attitudes about settlements. Murdering Turkish and American humanitarian "flower children" on the high seas was just another data point showing the complete disregard Israel has for its allies.
Leon Wieseltier fears that Israel is succumbing to a paranoid bunker mentality:
Rules of military engagement that allow soldiers to fire on political activists (I leave aside the question of their humanitarianism for a moment) may signify something still deeper and even more troubling. It is hard not to conclude from this Israeli action, and also from other Israeli actions in recent years, that the Israeli leadership simply does not care any longer about what anybody thinks. It does not seem to care about what even the United States-its only real friend, even in the choppy era of Obama-thinks. This is not defiance, it is despair. The Israeli leadership seems to have given up any expectation of fairness and sympathy from the world. It is behaving as if it believes, in the manner of the most perilous Jewish pessimism, that the whole world hates the Jews, and that is all there is to it. This is the very opposite of the measured and empirical attitude, the search for strategic opportunity, the enlistment of imagination in the service of ideals and interests, that is required for statecraft.
As I noted elsewhere, there appears to be a gleeful abandonment of reason and humanity in some segments of Israeli society over this latest incident of excessive violence against peaceful political statements, a reaction that led not only to the murder of allied citizenry, but the celebration of those unthinkable acts in front of the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv. Whether this truly represents despair or glee, it is quite simply madness, and this apparent go-it-alone bunker mentality is a self-fulfilling and self-defeating attitude. |
