The State Department has told both Turkey and Israel to "cool it," even as Israel has largely reserved comment and tried to downplay the crisis while Ankara continuously escalates its rhetoric and threats. The saber-rattling has gone in one direction.
And now, this. The charges are ridiculous, and are an attempt to intimidate and blackmail Israel by now making threats not only as one state to another, but threatening to attempt to ruin individuals' lives, and possibly to endanger them by publicizing their identities and leaving them vulnerable to individual acts of revenge.
"Report: Turkey obtains names of flotilla raid soldiers," from YNet News, September 9:
Amid rising tensions between Israel and Turkey over the Palmer Report, Istanbul's chief prosecutor approached the Turkish intelligence services in a request to reveal the identities of the Israeli soldiers involved in the May 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara ship, in which nine Turkish civilians were killed.
The request came after the prosecutor approached Israeli authorities for the information last May, but did not receive a reply.
Meanwhile, a lawyer affiliated with IHH– the Turkish group that organized the flotilla – claimed the organization handed the prosecutor a list with over ten names of IDF soldiers that were onboard the vessel, Turkish newspaper al-Zaman reported on Friday.
Appalling, if true:
"We have handed the list to Istanbul's prosecutor and are now waiting for arrest warrants," said Attorney Ramzan Turk, adding that the list is based on information received by other IDF soldiers who "regretted the incident and gave me the names of the soldiers."
Ramzan noted that the soldiers who provided the names did not take part in the raid.
In addition Zaman's claims, the prosecutor reportedly also approached the intelligence services for a list of names, a move which would enable to start proceedings against a long list of Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, Navy Commander Adm. Eliezer Marom and other officials involved in the flotilla raid.
The soldiers that participated in the takeover may face charges of premeditated murder and torture, as well as restricting the passengers' freedom of movement, the report said.
Meanwhile, Ankara diplomats on Friday stressed that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's north African tour will not include a visit to the Gaza Strip.
"Turkey doesn’t want to enrage the Egyptian authorities," an Ankara official explained the move.
......the list is based on information received by other IDF soldiers who "regretted the incident and gave me the names of the soldiers."
A lie! War is deceit.
Turkey is not behaving like a civilized country. Do they still posess that strategic importance that caused them to be welcomed into NATO? Or is it about time they were told to either behave civilized or look to the South for their future?
A 'must watch' video about the so-called freedom flotilla. Hilarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5CsGViY5JQ
What if names of Turkish soldiers killing tens of thousands of Kurds were to be published, and prosecution resulted from it? Who am I kidding? The UN and the so-called "international community" (the OIC-Sweden-Norway-LibDem/Labour/Tory Axis) would never even allow this issue to be discussed, lest their total hypocrisy become something that their lamestream-media lackeys would no longer be able to refrain from discussing.
@Proud_Kafir7908 It would be better still if the names of the Turkish soldiers and airmen who used chemical weapons against the Kurds were to be published. Just hoping.
The existence of international warrants would be a big problem for Israel, as countries neutral or hostile to Israel, and countries sympathetic to the idea of weakening individual borders would be inclined to take the individuals into custody.
In fact, I suspect that the top officials of the former Bush administration, especially former VP Cheney, do not plan to travel to any country that does not give them an ironclad guarantee of immunity from arrest.
The whole campaign for the international community to target individuals for policy decisions is another step in weakening civilized governments and their attempt to maintain a distinct and coherent country. Governments will inevitably commit barbaric acts. It takes violence to protect borders, and sometimes the results can be grizzly. It also takes violence to protect a country against attacks, and sometimes the results cannot be septic and surgical.
The rebels in Libya had it exactly right when they said they would not surrender Qaddafi to an international tribune, but would try him themselves.
The US should have a policy of immediately breaking diplomatic and commercial relations with any country which arrests US former officials on the basis of policy decisions they made or carried out, unless the actions were on the actual territory of the country involved.
By the way, this in no way implies that I defend in any way the actions of the Bush administration or its officials. But dealing with them should be a strictly internal matter.
"We have handed the list [of names of Israeli soldiers in the flotilla raid] to Istanbul's prosecutor and are now waiting for arrest warrants..." -- Turkish Attorney Ramzan Turk
Istanbul's prosecutor lacks jurisdiction over anything occurring on the high seas, so clearly this is a political stunt by Turkey playing to the Arab masses and designed specifically to burnish its anti-Israel credentials.
How about the US informing Turkey that its status as a member of NATO is being brought under review on account of this blatant disregard of international norms of civilized behavior, and if it persists it will not only be expelled from the organization, but that Israel, a country truly representative of Western civilization, will be invited to take its place?
The cold war ended twenty years ago and the Soviet Union is no more, so Turkey's continued membership in NATO as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism is no longer needed. Instead, it has become a fifth column within the North Atlantic organization, hindering efforts to stem a resurgent and anti-Western Islam. Turkey's expulsion from NATO could be accompanied by shelving indefinitely Turkey's bid for admission to the EU, and coupled with a halt to the immigration of Turkish citizens into EU countries.
Pure Turkish grandstanding.
Anyone who knows anything about the units that participated in the operation would know that this is an impossibility.
The suggesttion of the existence of "IDF soldiers [who did not participate in the operation] who regretted the incident" (note 'IDF soldiers' in plural) and have the names of those who did is laughable as indeed is an inteligence organisation who believe so.
"the list is based on information received by other IDF soldiers who regretted the incident and gave me the names of the soldiers."
If true (and I`m not saying that it is for sure), this would confirm what I and many others are suspecting: that Israel, even the IDF, is riddled with leftist traitors who at crucial junctions will collaborate with the country`s worst enemies, including obviously vile ones like Erdogan`s Islamic thugs, merely because of their hate towards their own nation`s rightwing leaders. Israelis should be very, very careful that dissension and treason from within their own ranks does not lead to their downfall and destruction.
Eastview
good points.
1. Turkey out of NATO.
2. Israel into NATO.
3. NO admission of Turkey into the EU.
4. NO Turkish Muslims to be permitted to immigrate into non-Muslim countries,,,anywhere.
And even entry as 'tourists' and 'students' to be limited and strictly regulated.
Turkish Muslims are causing trouble and behaving badly in many places besides Germany.
Here in Australia we had a Turkish Muslim 'student' who was frequenting kiddy chat rooms, looking for little underage girls to 'groom' for sex. He got caught by one of our counter-pedophilia police investigations. Ooops.
And we had a Turkish Muslim, born in Australia to immigrant parents, who murdered his own baby daughter rather than let her be raised in the non-Muslim family of his ex (who had wisely terminated a violent, dead-end relationship and had, of course, under western law, obtained custody of the child).
And Turkish Muslims resident in Australia - supported by the Turkish ambassador, who threatened and hissed and screeched in rage - kicked up a most unseemly howling when Assyrian Christians proposed to erect a monument to the thousands upon thousands of their forebears who were mass-murdered by Turkish Muslims (with assistance from Arab and Kurdish Muslims) in the early years of the 20th century, alongside the Armenians.
Despite the arrogant threats of the Turkish ambassador, who tried to force Australian authorities to forbid the building of the monument, the monument was approved, and built; and then, not long after, grossly desecrated...by Turkish Muslims resident in Australia, given that the ugly, gloating Mohammedan-supremacist graffiti that was scrawled upon it, was in Turkish.
Who wants people like that in one's country?