Israel to apologize to Turkey?

why doesn't Turkey apologize for killing Kurds?

After more than a year of refusing to do so, Israel's defenseless 'defense minister' wants to apologize to the Turkish Islamist terrorists who tried to murder IDF soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara in May of last year (Hat Tip: Joshua I).

Internal discussions between defense officials and Justice Ministry officials over the past few weeks have suggested that a cautious apology could stop possible lawsuits by Turkish organizations against Israel Defense Forces officers and bring the affair to an end.
A report by the UN-sponsored Palmer Committee on the incident, of which Israel received a draft earlier this month, is scheduled to be released in a few weeks. The report focuses on the events of May 31, 2010, when nine Turkish nationals were killed and dozens of participants were wounded after Israeli commandos took over the ship, which was part of a flotilla to Gaza.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been trying to reach a compromise between Turkey and Israel.
The committee has accepted Israel's claim - as has the Turkel committee which investigated the incident (where there were two foreign observers ) - that Israel's maritime closure of the Gaza Strip is legal, and that Israel acted lawfully in deciding to stop the flotilla.
However, the report harshly criticized the way Israel acted in doing so; these actions led to the deaths of nine Turks, members of the radical Islamic group IHH, who were shot by Israeli naval commandos aboard the Mavi Marmara.
The committee determined that Israel used excessive force and said deaths could have been prevented in several cases - although participants armed with clubs and iron rods attacked the commanders as they descended from a helicopter to the ship.

Well, look at the picture above. It's a picture of an IHH terrorist with a live weapons. The morons at the Defense Ministry just released it last month, even though they have known about it forever (in fact, they did not want to release it at all). Was that picture before the Palmer Commission when they decided that the IDF used excessive force in response to Islamist terror?

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has recently come out publicly against an apology, which he said would humiliate Israel and serve as a blow to national pride. Defense officials counter that an apology now will prevent legal problems later for officers and soldiers.

Lieberman is right and no, it won't. The pictures are out there. Keep reading.

Photographs of several IDF personnel involved in the raid have been posted on the Internet and are now in the hands of leftist and Islamic groups in Europe. Defense and justice officials have expressed concern that these groups will take steps similar to those of British pro-Palestinian groups, which have prevented senior Israeli officials from entering Britain for quite some time.
In this case, however, a ban would extend to young soldiers who took part in the raid, many of whom are about to be released from the army and are planning trips abroad.

So we're going to humiliate the IDF in the hope that they can peacefully join 60,000 other Israelis doing drugs on the beaches of India? Brilliant....

Senior defense officials told Haaretz that Israel has a major stake in improving relations with Turkey in light of Turkey's standing in the region, its past economic relationship with Israel and the opportunity to renew defense-related export to Turkey.
Although these views do not represent the Defense Ministry's official stance, Defense Minister Ehud Barak intimated as much in an interview last week on Channel 1: "From a strategic point of view, we have an interest in smoothing things over with Turkey," Barak said. "National pride is important [but] in the end, we have to understand that we have other interests here ... Turkey can have an important role in issues relating to Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Hamas."

After the way Turkey has behaved for the last two years, only 'Israel's most decorated soldier' - who is rumored to have slept through the biggest battle of his military career - who tried to give much of the country away to Yasser Arafat in 2000-01, could believe that Islamist Turkey has a role to play on our behalf.
What could go wrong?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

a lot could go wrong with an apology. There is no benefit here. Forget the direct humiliation for a second and think... what was the real purpose of the flotilla in the first place? The intent was to humiliate so that Israel's integrity was disrespected. That was the entire reason for the altercation. Right now Israel looks pretty good to those who are not biased. by threatening or showing signs that they will apologize Israel could hurt it's own ability in the future to protect itself and it's citizens. This is a real problem. If you have people in the government who really think they should apologize then they really need to be thrown out of their position. Are not these the same people who agreed to force these young IDF heroes to show up on the boat with paintball guns? This is really sick to now apologize.