ISRAEL: SIEGE MENTALITY

Last week the UN released its Palmer report on the deadly Israeli attack on Turkish ship the Mavi Mamara that killed 9 Turkish peace activists delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. The non-binding report surprised many as it directly contradicted previous UN rulings - claiming that Israel’s siege of Gaza is a “legal security measure”. Less surprisingly the report stated that Israel used excessive force.

Quite how ‘legal security measure’ is defined remains open to debate, but considering that the investigation panel compiling the report included former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe – a man who spent most of his time in office ethnically cleansing his country’s indigenous communities – readers can draw their own conclusions.

The already frosty relationship between former allies, Turkey and Israel, has degenerated yet further. Following the report, Turkey downgraded its diplomatic status with Israel to “fuck you” and cancelled virtually all military/security agreements with the Israelis.

“Our people were murdered by an army outside of combat conditions,” Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkish foreign minister said. “What is binding is the International Court of Justice. This is what we are saying: Let the International Court of Justice decide.”

Just as the Palestinians are preparing to go to the UN in their bid for international recognition as a member state, Israel has again launched another in a series of PR own-goals; pushing regional superpower Turkey into fighting the same corner as the Palestinians. Turkey will no doubt be able to swing a fair number of central Asian and eastern European states to punish Israel and support the Palestinians.

Turkey is a much more stable country than its Middle Eastern neighbours. It booted out its generals a few years ago, and the old subservient-to-the-west autocrats have been replaced with a religiously conservative but economically social-democratic government. Conservative Islam is firmly pro-Palestinian, so the harder line PM Erdogan takes against Israel the more he assures his party’s popularity in the polls.

The United States is deeply worried at this breakdown in relations, and former US military chief Robert Gates (it’s always the former chiefs that speak their mind!) stated recently that the USA received “nothing in return” for its unconditional support of Israel’s far-right government. He went on to say that Israel is  “endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank.”

But let’s not allow politicians to take all the credit; without the tireless work of Turkey’s pro-Palestinian activists mobilising public opinion, these developments may never have materialised.

And there’s still a long way to go before reaching the Promised Land...  

* See also www.freegaza.org