Gantz backs Netanyahu’s mending ties with Turkey

The decision to mend relations with Turkey will benefit Israel’s ability to address future challenges, IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz said Sunday, in his first reference to Friday’s phone call apology by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Ankara over the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid.

Netanyahu “did well and acted to advance our interests,” Gantz said at an IDF Passover toast. Fixing our relationships with Turkey “will have a positive influence on our ability to deal with the future challenges facing us,” both from a strategic point of view and from the security perspective, he added.

President Shimon Peres also commended the move, and said in interviews with Turkish media that it was time to put the past behind, and look to the future, in Israeli-Turkish ties.

In contrast, Eliezer Marom, who headed Israel’s navy during the 2010 incident, told Army Radio he “wasn’t sure the apology will pay off for Israel.”

“I’m not sure I was waiting for this move, although the prime minister has the right to take action in the name of Israel,” Marom said. Netanyahu sees the large picture, he said, “but to some extent I question the timing and motives behind this apology.”

The former navy commander added he fully supported the soldiers who took part in the raid.

Israeli naval commandos who participated in the May 2010 raid on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara, meanwhile, expressed frustration with Netanyahu’s apology for the “operational errors” that occurred during the incident.

“I don’t feel we did anything wrong,” one of the commandos, who for security reasons requested to identify only by the initial “N”, told the Hebrew daily Maariv on Sunday. “We did the right thing, I’m not ashamed of it, and we have nothing to apologize for.”

Nine Turkish citizens were killed after they attacked the commandos, who sought to commandeer the vessel that was attempting to bypass Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. The incident led to a freezing of ties between the two former allies.

Despite N’s firm belief that his actions were justified, he was reluctant to criticize Netanyahu directly, stating that, from a diplomatic standpoint, reconciliation may actually make sense. “Although on the personal level there is no need to apologize, on a national scale it might have been a good idea,” he said.

“S,” another IDF commando who participated in the flotilla raid, voiced similar internal conflict. “On the one hand, something here seems very unfair and not right; when your’e in combat, you fight, and we’ve done nothing wrong,” he told Maariv .

“On the other hand, maybe it really is finally time to end this saga. The most important thing now is for the navy seal unit to disappear from the media headlines,” he said. “Let us do what we do best — return to silence.”

Other commandos were less inclined to accept the prime minister’s decision.

“What bothers us most,” a disappointed soldier told a Yedioth Ahronoth reporter, “is reconciliation with the Turks while some of us back here have not yet received the compensation and disability benefits we deserve as a result of the incident.”

Soldiers who participated in the raid still suffered from post-traumatic stress, and the government had not done enough to rehabilitate them, he claimed.

“Some of our friends are still deeply affected by the events on the flotilla, and not everyone has succeeded in recovering from it,” he said. “We fought aboard the [Mavi] Marmara in terrible conditions, and with this reconciliation agreement it seems that we’ve been given a cold shoulder.”

Friday’s dramatic reconciliation was facilitated by US President Barack Obama shortly before he left Israel for Jordan. Obama phoned Erdogan from Ben-Gurion Airport Friday, just before leaving Israel, and gave the phone to Netanyahu.

In the call, Netanyahu apologized to the Turkish people “for any operational errors that could have led to loss of life” in the Mavi Marmara incident, “and agreed to complete the agreement on compensation,” his office later said in a statement. Erdogan reportedly accepted the Israeli apology and said his government would end legal proceedings against Israeli officers and officials involved in the incident. (He later appeared to have backtracked on some of the understandings.)

Erdogan “expressed that it was saddening that relations, which are of vital strategic importance for peace and the stability of the region, have soured in recent years,” a statement said.