An Opportunity for an Apology

The United Nations issued a rare vindication for Israel this month, when it found that the naval blockade of Gaza does not violate international law. Now that the Palmer Report, which investigated whether Israel was within its rights to seize a ship in a flotilla in May 2010, has debunked the  European political consensus, will European governments rescind their resolutions and public statements against Israel?

After Israel intercepted the Turkish-sponsored Mavi Marmara vessel, whose organizers sought to break Israel’s legal naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in May 2010, European Union parliament president Jerzy Buzek had slammed the Jewish state for “a clear and unacceptable breach of international law, especially the fourth Geneva Convention.”

The German Bundestag, in an unprecedented, unanimous legislative act, condemned Israel’s seizure of the Mavi Marmara and the Turkish jihadists aboard the ship. The members of the Vienna city council, ranging from Social Democrats to Greens to conservatives, even joined forces with the extremist right-wing Freedom Party, which has ties to Austrian Nazis, to criticize Israel’s actions. Austrian officials issued their rebuke the day of the interception, while Germany’s parliamentary deputies waited a month.

France’s then-foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said he was “profoundly shocked” by the events, and that “nothing can justify the use of violence such as this, which we condemn.” Italy’s government issued a similarly Pavlovian reaction, with foreign minister Franco Frattini declaring “I deplore in the strongest terms the killing of civilians.  Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron termed Israel's interception of the Mavi Marmara “completely unacceptable.”
The Palmer report notes that “Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza,” adding that “the naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.”

The report cites the violent resistance from Turkish jihadists on board the Mavi Marmara, and confirms that the flotilla’s organizers “acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.”

Over a year ago, in early July 2010, Germany’s major democratic parties, including chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), joined forces with the radical anti-Israel  Left Party, which sent two Left Party deputies on the  Mavi Marmara,  to condemn Israel in the Bundestag.

In response to the anti-Israel Bundestag resolution, Munich-born Israeli expert Melody Sucharewicz, who serves as Israel's voice for public diplomacy in the Federal Republic, said that “The Palmer Report provides an opportunity to at least symbolically alleviate this political error.”

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened  Israel with Turkish naval war actions in the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara’s overreaction speaks volumes about its complicity in stoking Islamist-animated violence against Israel.

Europe is at an important crossroads in its relations with both Israel and Turkey. Either the European Union can align itself with the a country that represents the best of liberal Western democratic values, namely Israel, or continue to lean toward Turkey’s increasingly reactionary form of political Islam.

If European countries are serious about fostering an objective discussion of Israel’s security interests, they could at the very least apologize for their hyperbolic and wrong-headed criticisms of Israel’s actions in the Mediterranean, which even the UN have found to be legitimate measures of self-defense.
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Benjamin Weinthal is a Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.