Israel to gain if Turkey rapprochement fails, minister says

If Israel and Turkey don’t end up repairing relations because of Ankara’s demands, Jerusalem will earn credit with the international community for offering to make amends with its former ally, Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz (Hatnua) said Monday.

Speaking on Israel Radio, the former defense minister said that should the Israel-Turkey reconciliation deal fall through because of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israel would score points on the world stage for having extended the olive branch and being rebuffed.

Erdogan on Sunday appeared to vacillate on his agreement to restore normalized relations with Israel, in a phone conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two days earlier. Netanyahu, in a dramatic US-brokered phone call to Erdogan, apologized “for any errors that could have led to loss of life” in the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, and “agreed to complete the agreement on compensation.”

Nine Turkish citizens were killed after the IDF boarded the ship bound to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Erdogan accepted Netanyahu’s apology and the two agreed to return their respective ambassadors and pledged to overcome differences. In an apparent backtrack, however, the Turkish premier said Sunday that normalized relations with Jerusalem would only happen if Israel implemented its side of an ostensible new bargain with Turkey which, he said, included lifting the blockade.

Peretz’s statement came a day after his party leader, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, told Channel 2 that Netanyahu’s apology to Erdogan on Friday was “better late than never.”

The most important thing, she stressed, was to reassure the naval commandos that the apology involved zero criticism of the soldiers who participated in the event. The commandos who boarded the Marmara did what they were asked to do, and they did so without any moral flaws, she said. Netanyahu acknowledged “operational errors” in the incident, she noted, precisely as an Israeli investigation had done.

“There were attempts to heal the rift before Obama’s visit,” but various events — including Erdogan’s perceived anti-Semitic comments — stalled the process, Livni told the news station.

Also on Sunday, during an interview at the President’s Residence with CNN Turk, President Shimon Peres urged Turkey to restore normalized relations with Israel, citing mutual interest and common history as two of several factors that require the mending of ties between the former allies.

“I can think of a thousand reasons why Turkey and Israel should be friends,” Peres said. “I cannot find one reason why they shouldn’t be friends.”

Aaron Kalman contributed to this report.