Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan could have been expected to restrain his rhetoric to some extent following the apology by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the killing of Turkish civilians in the [May 2010 Israeli raid on the Mavi] Marmara flotilla. However, Erdogan’s statements in the past few days have provoked a sense of discomfort in large parts of the Israeli public.
The Turkish Prime Minister said that as long as Israel did not fully comply with his conditions, that is, compensation for the families of the Marmara victims, as well as the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, the relations between Israel and Turkey would not be fully restored. There will be no normalization without these, Erdogan stated on March 24.
And as if to emphasize that nothing has really changed yet, Erdogan keeps using the same rhetoric. Thus, notwithstanding the apology, Erdogan still insists on referring to the killing of civilians on the Mavi Marmara as no less than “massacre” and, according to the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet, Erdogan has even bragged that, in addition to receiving the written apology notice, he recorded his phone conversation with Netanyahu and thus has in his possession a recorded evidence of the pledge made by Netanyahu to cooperate with the Turkish government on the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.
For close to three years, the Israeli Prime Minister sought to find a way to make amends for the tragic consequences of the takeover of the Mavi Marmara by Israeli naval commandos without acceding to the demand for an apology and financial reparation paying compensations, which would have meant assuming responsibility for the killing of the nine Turkish civilians. And all through that time, envoys on behalf of Erdogan were meeting with their Israeli counterparts and listening to the various Israeli proposals, alas to no avail. The Turkish Prime Minister adamantly refused to budge even an inch from his threshold requirements, until ultimately, Netanyahu accepted all the requirements set by Turkey as a prerequisite for the resolution of the crisis.
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