The following is from a White House press pool report– written by a reporter, circulated by the White House– from Israel today.
Two senior admin officials came back to address the issue of the phone call between [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Turkish PM Recep] Erdogan. Transcript is forthcoming, here are highlights: Netanyahu apologized for the Mavi Mara flotilla incident and acknowledged “operational mistakes,” said one official. Erdogan accepted the apology, according to this official. The other sao [senior administration official] called this a “first step” toward normalization of relations between the two countries. They said this had been the subject of talks between Obama and Netanyahu in Jerusalem this week. The call took place in the trailer at the aiport just before Obama took off. The leaders talked for about 30 minutes. At some point, Obama got on the phone.
Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla ship, the Mavi Marmara in 2010, killed nine people, including one Turkish-American, and led to a breakdown in Israeli-Turkish relations.
We will of course still hear Erdogan using his anti-israeli rhetoric, while in reality he is keeping his ties open with Israel covertly. Past years, up to 2011, Erdogan was seemlingly a quite rational guy on his policy on the Middle East issues, today however – he belongs to the same group of US and israeli puppet regimes of the Gulf.
Yet again, Obama and USA are the dedicated agents of the zionist criminal regime, doing what needs to be done for the interest of israel and israel only. How sad a superpower like USA is so dominated by and subjected under the control of a zionist foreign entity and foreign ideology. No more USA pride.
That’s eight Turkish citizens. What about the ninth — American citizen, Furkan Dogan? Has Netanyahu apologized for him? Or is he just chopped liver to our politicians like other Americans, Rachel Corrie and the crew of the USS Liberty?
More details are coming out: the media here are reporting that together with the Israeli apology for “operational mistakes” , Turkey will cancel the legal procedures initiated against Israelis. The Turkish demand to end the blockade of Gaza has also been dropped (or become irrelevant). Ambassadors will return to Tel Aviv and Ankara.
So Obama’s only actual accomplishment on this trip carefully avoids having anything to do with Palestinians, but reinforces the Israeli position? As I said yesterday in another thread, this trip could be called the Status Quo Reinforcement Tour. Shoring up Israel, Abbas, and Jordan. The only thing it’s lacking is a quick jaunt over to Saudi Arabia to be sure they still are keeping activists in Gulf down.