There are international agreements that the people celebrate, and there are international agreements that the people swallow. The agreement Israel has just signed with Turkey – which the Israeli cabinet is likely to approve tomorrow, reluctantly yet responsibly – is of the second kind. According to a Channel 10 News survey, 56% of Israelis (65% of Jewish Israelis) oppose the agreement. They oppose it because it is emotionally unacceptable. It is instinctively enraging. It is disappointing. Israelis feel that they were wronged by Turkey and that their country is now apologizing for using a supposedly excessive level of force against an attacker.
What ignited the crisis between Israel and Turkey that is now ending was a stab, six years ago, following Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip. The Turks encouraged a flotilla to cross the Mediterranean and provoke Israel by attempting to get into Gaza, disregarding the blockade and challenging its legitimacy. Israel had to respond. It forcefully halted the flotilla. Its forces – elite navy soldiers – were attacked and defended themselves. Nine passengers were killed. Not innocent bystanders, but rather people that deliberately defied Israel’s authority and tried to maim and kill Israeli soldiers. Most Israelis have no feelings of remorse over their untimely death. Those who attack Israeli soldiers ought to know that they might die.
Turkey was furious. It demanded punishment and an end to Israel’s blockade. That was a non-starter for negotiations, as the blockade is essential for Israel’s security. It is necessary to prevent Hamas from smuggling even more weaponry into the strip. The UN report that investigated the incident accepted Israel’s position on this matter, concluding 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.” It also concluded that “the flotilla acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.” Israel was well within its right to prevent the flotilla from entering Gaza.
The investigation also concluded that Israel used “excessive and unreasonable” force to stop the flotilla. “Non-violent options should have been used in the first instance,” the report argued. Generally speaking, the Israeli establishment acknowledges that Israel’s preparation for the flotilla event and execution of the plan to halt it were insufficient. But it does not accept the “excessive force” accusation. The apology to Turkey is hence insincere. It is a price that Israel decided to pay for the purpose of ending the crisis with Turkey – and not the only price: it will also give money to a fund that will then compensate the families of those who were hurt in the incident. Israel argues: we are not compensating the families – it is the Turkish government that’s getting the funds. Legally, that is significant. Emotionally, it is not. It is the kind of action that Israelis call “Isra-bluff” – we say that we are not compensating the families when we actually are, via Turkey.
Israelis are also bothered by the fact that the agreement does not settle the issue of four Israelis that are still held by Hamas – two bodies, of soldiers that were killed in the last Gaza operation, and two living Israelis who wondered into Palestinian territory and are being held hostage. In the last three days the families have been running a campaign to stop the agreement. They say that the agreement is immoral if it does not include the return of their sons. Turkey – they argue – could use its leverage with Hamas to demand such a provision as a precondition for Turkish support. They also say that the Prime Minister promised them not to complete an agreement that does not include such a provision.
Israelis are highly sensitive to the complaints of families of fallen soldiers. They are highly sensitive when it comes to Israelis held – living or dead – by the enemy. Why indeed did Israel decided to allow Turkish assistance into Gaza without making the return of the bodies and hostages a precondition?
The government argues: We did all we could. The Turks cannot force Hamas to release the hostages. Letting assistance get into Gaza is Israel’s interest. With all due respect to the families and their justified grievances, a strategic agreement is on the line, and Israel’s huge interest in resolving its conflict with Turkey trumps the issue of the soldiers.
In the last couple of days there were essentially three main complaints concerning the agreement. The instinctive-emotional complaint: Israel does not need to apologize and compensate anyone for its just deeds. The we-could-have-achieved-more complaint: Israel needed to make the Hamas hostages issue a precondition. And the procedural complaint: the cabinet needed to approve the agreement before it was signed, and not just serve as a post-factum rubber stamp.
All of these three complaints are not easy for the Prime Minister to reject. The agreement is psychologically unpleasant. It is impossible for him (or for anyone) to prove that more insistence concerning the hostages would not have been fruitful – what-if complaints are a tricky thing. And as for the cabinet – he does indeed want it to be a rubber-stump. As most leaders want their cabinets to be.
Netanyahu argues that having better relations with a country as powerful and as important as Turkey is strategically important for Israel. He promised Israelis economic benefits as a reward for the agreement – boosting Israel’s ability to export its vast gas reserves. But Israelis, as greedy as they might be, think about the flotilla, and the dead soldiers, and the rupture with Turkey, more with their hearts than with their heads. They see the hateful anti-Semitic Turkish President Erdogan boasting that he got from Israel everything he wanted, and they fume. Did he really?
Not quite: he got the apology and some money – he does not really need the money, he just needs it as a symbolic sign of moral victory. He can also assist Gaza. But that is hardly a great achievement: Israel never prevented Turkey from assisting Gaza, it only demanded that all assistance goes through Israeli security – and that demand was accepted by the Turks. Assistance to Gaza will go through Israel. The blockade remains.
In other words: the real price Israel is paying by signing this agreement is the price of having to forgo its heart and use only its head. It has to accept an agreement that implicitly hints that Israel was somehow wrongful in stopping the Gaza flotilla the way it did.
That is a real price. A price that will make Israel swallow the agreement like a necessary yet bitter pill.
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