samkorn's blog

Methinks that Turkey doth protest too much over Israel's armed boarding and seizure of five ships trying to run it's blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. They've called the Israeli naval raid everything from an "act of piracy", "massacre", "murder", and "state-sponsored terrorism", to name just a few.

Harsh words indeed, coming from a country that less than 100 years ago perpetrated a genocide of 1.5 million Armenian people, a crime against humanity that Turkey has yet to acknowledge, offer any kind of reparations for or even apologize. To this day, Turkey continues it's ongoing, brutal suppression of it's Kurdish population of about 15 million, to which it refuses to grant autonomy much less total independence.

Regrettably, nine Turks were shot dead on the lead ship when they ambushed and viciously attacked boarding Israeli commandos with wooden clubs, iron bars, knives, grabbed their weapons and even threw one of their soldiers overboard. Were these guys complete and utter morons; how did they think armed troops of any country would respond in their own defence?

However, Turkey permitted these ships, carrying armed Islamic militants from the group, Insani Yardim Vafki or IHH, interspersed among peaceful activists, to depart from Turkish ports and challenge the Israeli military blockade of Gaza. And this despite advance Israeli offers to distribute the humanitarian cargo on the ships to Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashdod, and warnings that the flotilla would be intercepted otherwise. Therefore, Turkey bears part of the responsibility of what happened to some of it's nationals.

Let he, who is without sin, cast the first stone...