Item: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu demanded on Thursday that Israel apologise within 24 hours for killing Turkish activists who attacked its soldiers on the Mavi Marmara last year. Otherwise, he warned, his country would take diplomatic steps against Israel. Israel refused and Turkey, armed with the UN Palmer Report criticism of how Israel boarded the hostile ship, has downgraded its relations with Israel and even recalled its amabassador.
Dear Foreign MInister Davutoglu and the rest of Turkey:
As an Israeli – as a proud and nationalistic Israeli – I take your demand that my country apologise to you quite seriously. I understand that you cannot forgive the deaths of nine irregular combatants on 31st May 2010.
Obviously, those nine deaths loom far greater in your national consciousness than the many hundreds of Kurds whom your military has slaughtered over recent years.
I do not claim to represent Israel, the nation or the government: I am but a private citizen. Nevertheless, here is my apology to you:
I am deeply sorry that my government sent soldiers to board the Mavi Marmara armed only with paintball guns. I am sorry that those soldiers were not armed with machine-guns, as other armies would have done, to prevent the Mavi Marmara's motley crew and passengers from attacking them and trying to throw them overboard.
I am sorry that my government chose not to send a helicopter gunship (of which we have no shortage) to destroy the Mavi Marmara at zero risk to our soldiers, even if it meant that it would blow the Mavi Marmara and its terrorist supporters and their weapons out of the water with a single well-placed missile.
I am sorry that my government decided to free all the Mavi Marmara activists who were arrested and send them home at Israeli taxpayers’ (which means my) expense, instead of putting them on trial in an Israeli court for terrorism.
I am sorry that my government decided, seven weeks after the event, to release all three ships in the flotilla which were arrested and to send them back to you, instead of impounding them and requisitioning them for Israeli use.
I promise to make my best efforts to ensure that my nation, my government, and my military will not make these unforgivable errors in the future.
I am sorry that it is I, a private citizen, and not my Prime Minister and Government, which is making this apology to you.
Nevertheless, I make this apology sincerely, and I deeply hope that you will accept it in the spirit that it is intended.
Finally, I am sorry that I do not know how to speak and write Turkish, because if I could I would put this apology in a language which you would be sure to understand.
Daniel Pinner, Israeli citizen.