Maariv reports that Turkish prosecutors, who recently announced that they were pursuing murder charges against IDF officers who planned and carried out the Mavi Marmara massacre, had secured indictments and would seek life sentences against them. Further, Turkish authorities revealed they would ask Interpol to approve an international arrest warrant which would compel any member country to arrest them should they set foot on their soil:
Turkey announced its intentions to issue international extradition warrants for the arrest of the four. This would allow them to ask countries visited by the four figures to arrest and extradite them to Turkey.
Among those charged are former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, former naval commander Vice Adm. Eliezer (‘Chaney’) Marom and the former head of air force intelligence, Brig. Gen. Avishai Levy. Other commandos who participated in the attack were charged but their names have not been made public:
…The Turkish judges authorized indictments against a number of other Israeli fighters involved in the Marmara incident for manslaughter, attempted murder and causing damage to the ship. These soldiers remain anonymous, as Israel has ignored Turkish requests to hand over their names.
Should anyone wonder why Israel’s leaders have become especially sensitive to BDS and the so-called delegitimization campaign against Israel, they have only to look at this case. The international travel of four of Israel’s leading military figures is about to become severely circumscribed. This means that the acts of all of Israel’s senior military leadership will be scrutinized closely and when they violate international law there will be further attempts to hold them accountable in ways that they can never be within Israel itself.
In a statement that sounds like vintage Danny Ayalon, Maariv quotes an anonymous “Jerusalem official” as making this typically colorful, awkward, and idiotic statement:
“Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is conducting a ‘targeted killing’ of [Turkey’s] relationship with Israel.”
Knowing that Israel is one of the nation’s in the world best known for targeted killings, this moron decides the best way to respond is by reminding the international audience of this fact. His political riposte attempts to turn the spotlight on Turkey as the supposed offender, but does little more than shine that light back on Israel. To many of us who observe Israeli politics, it appears more and more like Israel, or at least its political system and foreign policy, are in the midst of a slowly building nervous breakdown.
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““Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is conducting a ‘targeted killing’ of [Turkey’s] relationship with Israel”
Puts Clouseau to shame.
Remember how rapidly the UK was changing its own law to avoid the possible detention of, think it was, Zipi Livni?
My phantasy do not reach to imagine any western country detending an Israeli top military or politican on behalf of turkish demands…
Do you really think “Mavi Marmara massacre” is an appropriate phrase?
Seems a bit charged – and not accurate – way of describing what happened.
Well, how many non-Jews are needed to call it a massacre ? Or is age having any importance ? In Toulouse they were 4, three kids and an adult, and I haven’t heard anybody contesting the use of the word ‘massacre’. I for one surely wouldn’t. On the Mavi Marmara, they were nine, in international water, one of them was shot by a bullet in his head from a helicopter.
I love “Mavi Marmara Massacre” or “Murder in the Mediterranean”. Spielberg already has the choice between two titles for the film…
All hasbara has been debunked about the Mavi Marmara Masscre here and elsewhere. It was one of the moments where Edelstein called in all the hasbara-troops, so you’re two years late…. they literally came by the dozens on the social media, all had the same “explanations”, the same photoshopped images, the same IDF-manipulated videos and sound-tracks.
Wow, you got all your usual talking points in.
1. Implying a distinction between the deaths of Jews and non-Jews (when none was made).
2. Bringing up an altogether different situation where Jews were killed, which has nothing to do with what happened on the Mari Marmara.
3. Using the phrase: “All hasbara has been debunked” – this, incidentally, should maybe be your signature line.
4. And of course your usual reference to “hasbara troops” and other similar nonsense.
It would be great if you could actually just give a direct response to the question posed.
My argument is that overuse of the word “massacre” cheapens and dilutes its meaning. It also carries an implication that may not be apt for describing what happened.
Here is a quote from a noted anti-Zionist:
“The attack on the Turkish MV Mavi Marmara was NOT a massacre, although it was certainly a brutal attack.”
Is that not a reasonable position to hold?
Come on, Bob, We know that your nitpicking is quite selective.
And because Alan Sabrosky (that’s the only person who came up when I googled your quote) states it wasn’t a massacre, it doesn’t prevent other people from using the term.
My “How many non-Jews are needed to call it a massacre” was in fact a rhetorical question. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to accuse YOU of racism: I had in mind the French Israeli-firster clown Bernard-Henri Levy (among others) who has spent a lot of energy to ‘explain’ that there was no massacre in the Jenine Camp in 2002 neither in Gaza in 2008-2009 and he surely knows, he went there on an Israeli tank….
I guess the “purity-of-arms”-doctrine doesn’t permit the use of the word ‘massacre’.
My argument is that “massacre” is a perfect use of the term & that this event was outright murder. The only defense Israel can offer is that through the fog of war its soldiers & commanders may’ve gone beserk as U.S. troops appear to have done at Mylai with the resulting mass murder as a product. But Israel hasn’t made that argument. If it had I could actually respect Israel & have a small amount of understanding of what happened. But it hasn’t done this, so I have nothing but disdain for all hasbara efforts including your feeble ones.
Alan Sabrosky, who I’ve never heard of in 50 yrs of Israeli peace activism, makes a comment & all the rest of us are supposed to hop to & salute?? Since when? Sorry my friend, but I’m entirely comfortable with my usage & if you’re not tough luck. You won’t get any sympathy here. I’ve written thousands of words on this massacre including a post that used actual forensic evidence to show how the murder victims were killed (by what gun, with what ammunition, at what range & angle, etc.) Massacre & murder it is.
Yeo, DY makes good points in colorful style. After you dismiss the coloration, the points remain. If “massacre” is acceptable in Situation A and Situation B is like A, but more so, then “massacre” is acceptable in describing B, etc.
I am unable to divine why “Bob Mann” makes such big points of such little things. This is so characteristic of him — to be hung up on the descriptors and not the deed. Maybe that’s it, Bob maybe wants to call attention away from the deed. And Bob’s list characterizing DY’s methods is too long to be spot on.
The Mavi Marmara massacre was a human-rights violation serious enough by its own right. Juxtaposing it with anything like the Mai Lai massacre, where hundreds of unarmed villagers, offering no resistance whatsoever, were rounded and murdered by our own kids next door, does justice to neither atrocity.
Talking war-crimes’ justice, Mai Lai’s “Last Train to Nuremberg” has never left its platform and, judging by ME history, neither will Marmara’s.
“I’ve written thousands of words on this massacre including a post that used actual forensic evidence”…….
Hi Richard, can you provide a link to the above post you mention? I would very much like to read it. Thank you.
Deir Yassin, my choice would be “Pirates of the Mediterranean” and maybe Johnny Depp would be available to play the late Furkan Dogan.
I like it: “Pirates of the Mediterranean”. We open in a Turkish Court where Brig. Gen. Avishai Levy is being crossed by a handsome Turk lawyer (our leading man). The rest is flashbacks from defendants to all the scandalous doings of the Israeli Navy in the Mediterranean from water cannoning of Gazan fishermen to our climatic scene onboard the Marvi Marmara, copters chopping up overhead…
Haha, I’m sure we could convince Johnny Depp to play Furkan Dogan. His French wife/companion/mother of his kids, Vanessa Paradis, cancelled a concert in Israel recently, joining the BDS.
I see Davey already has a great scenario, so maybe Spielberg isn’t necessary. Henning Mankell who was in the Gaza Flotilla could maybe give a helping hand.
Johnny Depp is too old. One of the greatest tragedies is that Furkan Dogan was only 19 years old. Let’s not forget that, nor the fact that there was a baby aboard the Mavi Marmara whose life was definitely at risk as Israeli commandos fired upon the ship from helicopters above.
Other than talking about making a movie about this massacre, perhaps it’s better to focus on the subject of Richard’s piece, that being justice for the victims.
I have been continuously appalled by the US government’s failure to push for justice for Furkan Dogan, who was an American citizen. Appalled, that is, but not surprised. Just last year Obama threatened American activists with possible prison should they participate in a US flotilla ironically on the boat named “The Audacity of Hope.”
(While discussing this transgression, vicious widespread massacres are taking place in Syria right now. Having said that…)
When the perpetrators confiscate the survivors’ recorded evidence (releasing only an edited version of some selected moments), one can justifiably call it anything.
Considering the number of victims, the circumstances of the aggression and the extreme imbalance between the heavily armed, professionally trained commandos and those resisting them, “massacre” sounds the obvious descriptive.
Wow, “Mavi Marmara massacre” is “a bit charged,” huh? So you think the murder in cold blood of 9 Turks was only “a bit charged?” Do you think it’s only a bit charged for the victims, their families, & other survivors? No, I’m afraid “massacre” is a perfectly apt description for nine civilians who were murdered at point blank range or with bullets to the back. Perfectly apt.
Thank you for your response. Your description of the incident definitely fits the term.
[Inane snarky comments especially about people who have been murdered will be deleted–your next effort in this genre will get you banned]
Joel is ever watchful, but doesn’t care a fig about the deeds themselves.
Joel is the guy who described the pogroms in ‘Asîra al-Qibliya as ‘Palestinians throwing stones at unarmed settlers’.
If he were a German, he would have been a Holocaust-denier.
I agree the term ‘Massacre” is overused (as are the terms ‘terror, terrorist, and terrorism’), but it gets attention, which is one of the objectives in launching the attempt to bring to justice those responsible for this sorry event that, apparently, is beyond the ken of, if perhaps not all, many branches of the Israeli government and their executive leaders.
Why is the murder of 9 humanitarian activists not enough to be called a slaughter?
semantics
After attempting to come up with a word which adequately describes the ‘Mavi Marmara Massacre Deniers,’ (that can be published), I’ve reached the following conclusion. There isn’t one.
How about the Likud party?
Lieberman and his friends announced after the massacre that there had been Al Qaeda operatives on board the Mavi Marmara. As if that would justify simply slaughtering people at random even if it were true.
If they were looking for Al Qaeda operatives, why shoot nine unarmed innocents? And if they did not want the operatives alive, or did not care, why board the ship at all. Just sink it.
I don’t think I’m taking a big risk in suggesting that Lieberman and his party may be lying! Indeed, the idea that these guys are liars has more traction, more legs, more veracity than virtually anything the party actually says. Everyone, probably even Likud itself, agree that they are liars.