Israel Matzav

Prime Minister Netanyahu's appearance before the Turkel Commission

Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared before the Turkel Commission on Monday. The Turkel Commission was set up by the government under the leadership of a retired Supreme Court judge and includes two international observers who are supposed to satisfy President Obama. It is tasked with looking into the flotilla incident and will hear testimony from the political echelon, but supposedly not from IDF soldiers. This is from Netanyahu's opening statement.

When I began serving as Prime Minister, I quickly understood that many of our friends around the world were repeating the Hamas claim that the limitations imposed in 2007 and the naval blockage imposed in January of 2009 had created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

However, the information we obtained clearly proved that this claim was baseless. There was no hunger in Gaza and there was no lack of medicines or other essential items.

Though the territory in question is controlled by a hostile terrorist force that calls for our destruction, Israel did not stop supplying electricity, water or fuel to Gaza, and we enabled the entry of food, medicine and other basic goods.

We also continued to accept patients from Gaza in our hospitals in both life-threatening cases or to treat unique medical problems. On average, 1,500 patients and accompanying family members come into Israel each month.

There is nothing that more clearly proves the absurdity of the claim that Israel is acting inhumanely toward Gaza. If only Hamas’s terrorist regime would act towards Israel’s population and our kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, with a fraction of the humane sentiment Israel has shown towards the population of Gaza and towards the prisoners of Hamas.

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Forces hostile to Israel used the baseless allegation of a humanitarian crisis to try and break the naval blockade. This was and remains the primary motivation of Hamas in its efforts to encourage the various flotillas. From time to time, these things are even said explicitly, as a spokeswoman for the flotilla said on May 27, 2010: “Our mission is not to provide humanitarian aid, but rather to break the blockade.”

It is worth mentioning that it was Israel, through the UN, and not the flotilla organizers, that sought to ensure that the goods aboard the flotillas were ultimately transferred to Gaza.

At the meeting of senior ministers called “the Seven” [Netanyahu, Barak, Yaalon, Lieberman, Meridor, Begin and Yishai. CiJ] that was held before the flotilla arrived on May 26, 2010 -- I presume you will read the protocol of that meeting - I stressed the need to clarify Israel's policy in light of the attempts to undermine the security blockade through the false claim of a humanitarian crisis.

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I would like to explain how dangerous a open sea lane to Gaza is for the security of the State of Israel. On one ship, the Karin A, Iran tried to send dozens of tons of weapons to Gaza. On another ship, the Francop, Iran tried to send Hezbollah hundreds of tons of weapons, approximately two-thirds of the total ammunition fired at Israel during the Second Lebanon War.

Due to all these security considerations, my government continued to enforce the naval blockade imposed by the previous government. We did so for the flotilla in question, as well as with the two ships that followed – the Irish ship and the Libyan ship.

Before this flotilla, the IDF prepared to enforce the blockade, as it had during previous flotillas.

Given the number of ships, their size, the number of passengers on board and their stated intentions, we saw the need to make a special diplomatic effort to try and prevent the flotilla’s arrival to the shores of Gaza – or at the very least to convince its organizers to dock at Ashdod or El-Arish and from there to direct the goods through land crossings after the appropriate security checks.

During the month of May, a continual diplomatic effort to this end was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs vis a vis many countries, including countries whose citizens were onboard or whose harbors could be used by the flotilla at any stage of its voyage – including Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Britain, the United Nations, and above all with Turkey. The Minister of Defense even participated in these efforts.

Given the importance I attributed to Turkey’s central role in this flotilla, my office worked directly to assist in the diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis Turkey.

Beginning on May 14, my office was in contact with the highest echelons of the Turkish government. These contacts, and later on the contacts of our Minister of Defense with the Turkish Foreign Minister whom he has known for many years, were intended to prevent any conflict with the Marmara flotilla. They continued up until the eve of the flotilla's arrival off the coast of Gaza. I too personally appealed to a senior official in the Egyptian government on May 27 so that he would intervene with the Turkish government.

However, as the date of the flotilla’s arrival neared, it became clear that diplomatic efforts would not stop it.

In contrast, diplomatic efforts did assist in preventing violent confrontations with the two ships that came after this flotilla – because the Irish government and parties in Libya acted responsibly and helped prevent a confrontation and also because the organizers of those flotillas did not have any intention of confronting our forces – unlike the organizers of the flotilla in question, or more precisely, unlike the IHH activists on the flagship, the Mavi Marmara.

In fact, even in that flotilla, the passengers on the other five ships did not want a violent confrontation, and therefore there was no such confrontation. That was not the case on the Marmara.

Despite our ongoing diplomatic efforts, ultimately the Turkish government did not prevent the Marmara’s attempt to break the naval blockade. All our suggestions to re-route the ship’s cargo to undergo a security inspection in Ashdod and then be transferred to Gaza through the land crossings were in vain. We also did not hear a public message from the Turkish government to cool the heated tempers of the activists onboard.

Apparently the Turkish government did not see that a possible incident between Turkish activists and Israel was against their interests, and certainly not something that justified exerting effective pressure of the IHH activists.

I must point out that on the 17th of that month, the Turkish prime minister met with Iranian president Ahmedinijad and with the Brazilian president to make a joint statement regarding an Iranian nuclear that was opposed by the United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council. Turkey thereby strengthened its identification and cooperation with Iran just days before the flotilla.

Regarding the IHH activists, not only did they not prevent a confrontation, they announced their intention to seek one -- they announced that they wanted to break the blockade and that “the Jews need to go back Auschwitz."

Given the lack of effective pressure by the Turkish government and the lack of any desire on the part of the flotilla organizers to redirect their ships to alternative ports, none of the diplomatic efforts were effective:

• We tried to prevent the launch of the flotilla at the diplomatic and security levels. We did not succeed.
• We suggested transferring the goods through the Ashdod and El-Arish ports. We did not succeed.
• We held continuous contacts vis-à-vis and with the most senior levels of the Turkish government. We did not succeed.

During the closed forum, I will expand on my statement and explain why none of our diplomatic efforts would have prevented the Marmara’s desire to try to break the blockade.

When it became clear several days before the flotilla’s arrival that this was the situation, I decided to convene “the Seven” in order to prepare for the event in a coordinated manner in terms of the media, public relations and diplomacy. Since this would be a media event surrounding a military operation, in addition to the Ministers, I invited the Chief of General Staff, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and members of the National Information Directorate to the discussion.

I asked to receive an update regarding recent diplomatic and communication efforts, and to hear additional ideas as to how to minimize the public relations and diplomatic costs of a confrontation that already seemed inevitable.

At the end of the meeting, I authorized diplomatic and communication assignments as I was about to leave for a very important meeting with the President of the United States.

I asked that the confrontation be minimized as much as possible and “that a supreme effort be made to avoid harming anyone”. I know that the Minister of Defense and Chief of General Staff gave the same order.

I also authorized a number of actions in order to reduce the damage to Israel's public diplomacy efforts.

I would like to call your attention to one of those directives: embedding foreign reporters with IDF forces so that they could record and film the unfolding events in order to prevent the dissemination of false reports.

I wanted to ensure that there would be complete coverage of what would happen when our soldiers boarded the ships because I was afraid that, once again, there would be an attempt to try to slander IDF soldiers as part of the ongoing propaganda war against Israel.

On Israel Radio, at least, most of Netanyahu's opening statement was ignored. Instead, they focused on the fact that Netanyahu testified that since he was abroad at the time (he was in Canada and was supposed to go on to the US but canceled the last leg of the trip and returned to Israel instead), Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in charge. The media here lambasted Netanyahu for saying that. Barak testifies on Tuesday.

Of course, the opposition joined in with the media.

Kadima slammed the Prime Minister for his testimony before the Tirkel Committee and claimed that "Netanyahu's remarks prove that Israel is a country without a leader and that this government lacks leadership. During Netanyahu's moment of truth, he spread blame for the incident amongst everyone but himself."

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:21 PM