My oh my, what a sad state of affairs it is when the prime minister of another country takes a stronger stance than the U.S. government has on the killing of an innocent U.S. citizen.
Charlie Rose interviewed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last night, and Erdogan explained why Turkey was so angered at the Israeli massacre on the Mavi Marmara:
This is state terror. It would be impossible to define it in any international legal terms. In one of the ships, there were volunteers, and the other two ships had toys, food, medicine, construction material, et cetera, humanitarian aid.
And the attack came from the sea and from the air, and there were plastic bullets used, guns used. Nine people died, eight of them Turkish, one a U.S. citizen. The American citizen, the U.S. administration should take ownership of this situation because there was an American citizen involved.
We as the Turkish government do the same because the families have a right to ask their government what has happened. That’s what they do. They ask us, why? Why what has happened, happened? What about my husband or my son? And the same thing is true for all countries. And we will act within international law, taking into consideration the medical reports.
Why hasn’t the Obama administration taken a similar tack on the death of Furkan Dogan, or the injury of Emily Henochowitz?
One reason was offered up in a recent Yedioth Ahronoth article highlighted by Didi Remez: Obama can’t put pressure on Israel (in this case regarding the settlement "freeze" and the Gaza blockade) because doing so would jeopardize relations with the Netanyahu government at a time when Democrats need all the help, funds and friendly pictures they can get.
But considering the firm demands to be made in the private meetings, White House officials are planning quite a warm reception for Netanyahu. Obama’s advisers are preparing quite a few “photo ops” in which the president and Netanyahu will be seen together in public. According to the plan, they will go out into the Rose Garden, which overlooks Obama’s office, where they will answer questions from the media.
Reliable sources say that one of the reasons for the special effort is requests from Jewish Democrats running in the interim Congressional elections this coming November, who are urging the White House to provide them with “friendly pictures” of Obama and Netanyahu.
White House officials are even looking into the possibility that Obama will invite the Israeli prime minister to come with him to Camp David for talks that will go far into the night. The president’s advisers are examining the idea, the purpose of which, in essence, is to see first-hand which compromises Netanyahu is willing to strive for in a final status arrangement with the Palestinians and with Syria.
What a wonderful country. There’s just no contest when it comes to deciding whether to placate the Israel lobby or whether to bring justice to American citizens who have been harmed by Israel.
