Arabs Casting Doubt on Erdogan's Integrity

7 June 2010
Israel, backed by the United States, are counting on a gradual waning in international interest in the Israeli massacre of martyrs on the freedom flotilla. It is essential then that the popular and official pressure to end the blockade on Gaza, as demonstrated in numerous marches across the globe, be maintained and that a neutral and independent international investigation is conducted to reveal the full facts and bring the Israelis involved in these war crimes to international justice to receive the punishment they deserve.

The interception of ships on the high seas and hijacking them to the occupied Palestinian Ashdod Port is nothing short of the worst kind of piracy, even if it is conducted in a peaceful way, as the Israeli authorities claimed all day yesterday. They bragged that no violence occurred on the Irish ship Rachel Corrie, contrary to what happened on the Turkish ship Marmara and to the activists on board.

One of the moving letters I read that commented on one of my previous articles came from a Somali reader. He said he was ashamed that some Somalis carried out acts of piracy. But, after hearing and reading about the Israeli piracy and how Israeli commandos stormed the freedom flotilla to prevent the delivery of food, medicine, wheelchairs for old people, and building materials, he now feels that the Somali pirates were of higher character and more humane than the Israelis (the difference in motives and intentions notwithstanding). This is because Somali pirates did not attack and kill any of the seamen, and in fact, many of the pirates died because of their actions.

The reader concluded his letter by saying that he hopes the Israeli pirates, who say that they are from a democratic UN member state, would face what the Somali pirates faced - that is, brought to justice.

To keep this issue alive and prevent Israeli and Western attempts to suppress it, as they suppressed the Goldstone report on the Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip, the present momentum must continue until the goals are achieved and the blood of the freedom flotilla martyrs is not gone to waste. To keep this issue alive, we propose the following:

First: We hope that [Turkish Prime Minister] Recep Tayyip Erdogan persists with his plan to sail to the blockaded port of Gaza at the head of a Turkish flotilla escorted by Turkish warships flying the NATO flag, of which Turkey is an original member. We hope he does not submit to American pressure not to go ahead with his plan.

We know that there are Turkish voices, and regrettably, Arab voices that cast doubt on his intentions. These murmur that he should not try to be more Arab than the Arabs and remind him that big Arab states, like Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are doing nothing to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip. But, God has chosen him for this humanitarian mission, and more than 1.5 billion Muslims regard him as the spokesperson who expresses their sentiments. Great leaders do not choose their fates; they are placed upon them.

Second: Any Israeli, American, and European pressures to prevent an independent international investigation of the massacre that took place on the Turkish ship Marmara must be rejected and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call for such investigation must be supported.

The Netanyahu government has said through its ambassador in Washington Michael Oren that it rejects such an investigation, because Israel is a democratic state and has the ability and the right to conduct its own investigation. We reject this statement, which constitutes a new link in the chain of Israeli lies and deceptions. A democratic state does not practice piracy and does not hijack ships and their passengers. It does not kill innocent people with live ammunition (the British Guardian newspaper said that an investigation of the massacre has proven that some Turkish activists were killed by bullets in their foreheads fired from a distance of 45 centimeters).

Third: Lawsuits should be filed in international and local courts in Europe and the United States against the Israeli war criminals involved in this massacre, like Netanyahu, Defence Minister Ehud Barak, and Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, exactly as the Jews did in trying Nazi war criminals in Nuremburg. Many organizations and societies that support humanitarian causes are ready to undertake such a task. They only need financial support to cover their expenses, and there are more than two trillion dollars in Arab money invested in the West and a very small portion can be used for this purpose.

Fourth: All proposals promoted by Israel and supported by some Western governments to search the relief ships at the Ashdod Port to confirm they were not carrying weapons and then allow them to proceed to the Gaza Strip must be rejected. The goal of these relief ships is not limited to delivering basic materials. The goal is to break the blockade and draw attention to the big prison in which two million Palestinians live under impossible, inhumane and psychologically damaging conditions.

Fifth: We must always underline a basic and important fact. The blockade of the Gaza Strip is one of the side effects of a more serious illness, which is the Israeli occupation of Arab territories and depriving more than 10 million Palestinians of their inalienable rights. These rights include the right of return and the right to establish their own independent state on their territory, end the occupation and all forms of settlement-building activity, and return occupied Jerusalem with all its Christian and Muslim sacred places to Arab sovereignty.

We are afraid that the splendid popular uprising, which has spread in the entire world in support of the steadfast people under blockade in the Gaza Strip, might run out of steam due to deliberate ploys by some Arab governments. These governments were more disturbed than Israel about this uprising because it has revealed their failure to fulfil even the most minimal national and Islamic duties. We are also afraid for Recep Tayyip Erdogan because these ploys also cast doubt on his intentions, just as they cast doubt in the past on all the honourable leaders that championed the Arab and Islamic rights in Palestine.

The Israeli Government has initiated contacts with some Arab officials to contain and end this popular outcry before it develops into a war of ships moving to the Gaza Strip from various parts of the world.

An international news agency (the German Press Agency) carried a report from Cairo about the secret arrival of an Israeli envoy in Cairo on board a private aircraft to convey messages to the Egyptian leadership on how to coordinate positions to confront these campaigns aimed at breaking the blockade. The independent Egyptian Al-Shuruq newspaper revealed two days ago that the Egyptian Government opened the Rafah Crossing at the official request of Israel to ease the blockade and siphon off world indignation following the Marmara ship massacre.

Israel is currently going through its worst days,rejected, hated, and condemned of crimes - including piracy and massacre, in various parts of the world, particularly in the West. We are talking about the people and not the conspiring governments that support its crimes and massacres. It was regrettable that British Foreign Secretary William Hague chose to cable the Israeli Government to congratulate it for not using violence in dealing with the Irish ship Rachel Corrie, as if hijacking of this civilian ship having storming it were a legitimate and lawful action.

We must expose these hypocrite Western officials before the entire world. We must also expose some of their media that have refused to mention the name of the American martyr Rachel Corrie after whom the Irish ship was named. They refused to mention her name so they would not have to report that she was martyred under the wheels of the I sraeli bulldozer she threw herself in front of to prevent it from demolishing a house in occupied Rafah.

I admit that for the first time in my life I felt like a "moderate" writer after reading the editorials of British newspapers like the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Mirror, and even the conservative weekly the Economist. My articles were modest compared with what they said about Israeli piracy and the other massacres in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and with their honesty and objectivity championing what is right and the weak in the face of this blood-thirsty Israeli arrogance.

It is regrettable that some Egyptian government newspapers have criticized Turkey instead of praising its efforts to break the blockade, although the formal relations between Cairo and Ankara have traditionally been good until the freedom flotilla massacre took place.

It is as if some officials do not want to have mercy or let God's mercy descend on the blockaded people.

Instead of siding with the Egyptian masses that demonstrated on the "Friday of anger" in support of Gaza, they decided to continue to delay the entry of aid, although the crossing meant to be officially open.