Israel-Turkey triangle-US: Israel should apologize?

The incident has led to an unprecedented crisis in relations between Turkey and Israel and has impacted negatively on the important U.S. regional alliance with two non-Arabs.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the Obama administration has tried to mediate between the two rival governments, citing the imminent release of the Palmer report of the UN on the incident, which certainly gives legitimacy to the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, and asked to express his condolences for the tragic results of the incident.

Erdogan’s government is well down the results of the inquiry commission of the UN insists that Israel publicly apologize and pay compensation to the victims in Turkey, otherwise it threatens to degrade the bilateral relations and take other unspecified measures .

The Netanyahu government has chosen not to yield to American pressure and Turkey with regard to apologize, and postpone its final position on the matter until after the publication of the UN report.

The Israeli government, or at least part of it, is not convinced that the apology will normalize relations and is concerned that the legitimacy that it would conduct could lead Turkey to take international legal action against politicians and Israeli military.

At the strategic level, the U.S. insistence that Israel apologize, hoping that this will restore the good-or-less correct relationship between two important allies, is due to its unstable regional position, as the results of the "Arab Spring" seem to move toward a more anti-American Islamic Middle East.

Furthermore, after Western intervention in Libya would cause uneven operating results and internal political setbacks for President Obama, Erdogan’s government seems to be the only international player capable of meeting the Assad regime, trapped in the bloody suppression of the Syrians .

A more leisurely analysis of the situation and future regional trends do not support the optimistic assessment of the Obama administration on the results that would have an apology from Israel to Turkey.

From the Israeli point of view, apart from Erdogan’s ultimatum to Israel "to apologize and compensate," there is the threat that "if the embargo is lifted [from Gaza] is not possible to improve relations between Turkey and Israel ".

This precondition makes it clear that Erdogan, who plans to visit Gaza in the near future, working hard to strengthen Turkish relations with Hamas, the Islamist movement to give international impetus and, ultimately, to secure a major obstacles to a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Just two weeks, Usama Hamdan, head of the international relations of Hamas, told a conference on "resistance" held in Cairo with the support of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: "The conflict [Palestinian-Israeli ] does not come to an end until Israel comes to an end … We will never recognize Israel, and today still say more, [say] Israel does not exist in our political vocabulary or intellectual. "

And while Turkey has recently condemned the Israeli decision to authorize construction of 900 apartments in East Jerusalem, his government condemned in no time the deadly terrorist attack by Palestinians on August 18 in southern Israel.

Paradoxically, that same day, the Turkish air force bombed "60 predetermined targets belonging to the separatist organization [PKK]" in Iraq, and artillery, using "hard", reached to 168 additional targets.

Turkey’s firm policy against the repression of the Assad regime is not so much an adaptation to the West and U.S. positions as the result of fear that instability in Syria, killing both Sunni and Alawite regime by the strong recovery of the Kurdish problem and PKK terrorism in Turkey, could jeopardize the efforts of the AKP government to obtain the regional hegemony and economic development necessary to achieve the interior.

In the long term, Ankara is already preparing for a scenario in which the Muslim Brotherhood to become the next governor and potential ally in Syria (and Egypt), as is Hamas today. This would further enhance the regional status of Turkey, although on a more Islamist, as a competitor of the other Islamist hegemony: Iran.

Domestically, Erdogan has almost completely neutralized the military following the resignation of their leaders and the arrest of dozens of senior officers, and is now working to amend the constitution and establish a presidential system, steps that do not bode good for Turkey’s secular regime.

For this reason, apologize to Turkey for the flotilla incident may bring calm to short-term bilateral relations with Israel, but no real strategic cooperation between the two former allies, is most likely that apology pose a boost to the credentials of the AKP’s Islamist government and its regional position.

Egypt: another problem with the apology
when this opinion is to be published, Israel faces a new "problem with apologies."

The criminal attack by a large Palestinian terrorist group, which has entered Gaza at southern Israel through the Sinai border with Egypt, fired rockets and automatic weapons, killing six Israeli civilians and two soldiers, he also result in death five Egyptian soldiers.

It is still unclear whether the Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli fire or by Palestinian terrorists. Strangely, these soldiers did not intervene to stop the terrorist attack that was occurring under their noses, and Israelis who escaped the fire of hell testified that the soldiers or terrorists disguised as Egyptian soldiers shot them.

The Egyptian military government, under public pressure fueled by the Muslim Brotherhood, accused Israeli forces of killing the Egyptian security guards during the shootings with the Palestinians, called to apologize immediately and an investigation was made, also threatened to call its ambassador.

It seems that neither the Egyptian government was satisfied with Israel’s official statements in which he said did not control the Sinai Peninsula.

The Egyptian government, the many Egyptian politicians who try to break into the future and disputed elections, calling for immediate retaliation against Israel and the Egyptian media as a whole, did not mention the deadly results of terrorist attacks from its territory, conduct reminiscent of the "Turkish model".

And what of the five attacks on oil pipelines in Sinai, which not only supplied Israel, but also to Jordan and Syria and caused huge economic losses to Egypt? And the terrorist attacks against Egyptian police in northern Sinai? And of the three Egyptian battalions sent to Sinai to combat these insurgents in coordination with and approval by the Israeli government?

The Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm said yesterday that the board security in northern Sinai had developed a plan to detect offenders in coordination with the board security in southern Sinai, Suez and Ismailia; the interior minister ordered Mansour al-Essawy send police to control points that had been attacked in recent days by armed groups, the head of the board of North Sinai security of the state of emergency announced in advance of other possible attacks by outlaws who could take the tension on the border to target important places and institutions, and that continued repression for the sixth consecutive day in Arish, where security forces try to root out jihadist elements. As detailed in this article, did not even mention the Palestinian attack!

The Israeli government, instead of apologizing, said he regretted the killing of Egyptian soldiers. Israel is clearly interested in keeping alive at all costs the peace agreement with Egypt. It is uncertain whether an apology will fledged curb the growing Islamist and anti-Israeli in Egypt.

At least three of the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks on southern Israel were Egyptian citizens of an Islamic extremist group, according to a report by Al-Masry Al-Yaoum. One of them had escaped from an Egyptian prison during the revolution. Palestinian terrorists in Gaza launched on Wednesday a short-range Kassam rocket at Rafah border with Sinai Egyptian city. Presumably they are angered by Egypt’s cooperation with Israel in the hunt for those responsible for the terrorist assault last week. The Egyptian daily Al-Shorouk reports that the Egyptian army planned closure of the smuggling tunnel linking Gaza and Sinai.