Israel owes no apology to Turkey over the
Mavi Marmara incident, and should not
have issued any type of apology to Egypt over the killing of three security
officers there, outspoken US Congressman Allen West (RFlorida) said in an
interview with
The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
West, 50, a Tea
Party-associated freshman congressman from South Florida already being touted as
a possible presidential candidate in the future, is in the country with a
delegation of 27 Republican congressmen. He spent 22 years in the US military,
including fighting in the First Gulf War and in Iraq, and retired with the rank
of lieutenant- colonel.
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Despite strained ties, IDF attache welcomed in Turkey Barak apologizes to Egypt over security officers' deaths “Not only does Israel not owe Turkey an apology,
but I think the fact that [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak
apologized for the
[killing of] three Egyptian soldiers before we knew the circumstances of their deaths are the types of things that get played
out in the international media that end up making you being castigated as the
bad guy,” West said.
“You have to be very careful with words, and how
words are used in the international arena,” he said.
Israel need not
issue “any type of apology to Egypt. When these terrorists [who carried
out Thursday’s attack] transferred through Egypt, they obviously felt safe and
secure doing that. And then they launched a very well-coordinated ambush
– this was not just a bunch of guys getting lucky in the middle of the night,
this was a well-coordinated event – that meant the routes were wellplanned out
as well,” West said.
He said if you take that incident, coupled with
Iranian war ships transiting the Suez Canal since the fall of Hosni Mubarak and
the repeated attacks on the natural gas pipeline to Israel, “I think Israel has
every right to be concerned about what they are seeing in
Egypt.”
Regarding Turkey, West said Israel had the “right to uphold that
blockade [of Gaza], which is very important, and you shouldn’t have to apologize
when your military has been attacked.”
Asked whether it might not be wise
for Israel to swallow its “national pride” for the long-term strategic benefit
of good ties with Turkey, West said, “It does come back to your national pride
and your stature. Because if someone is going to look at you in a
negative light anyhow, you don’t need to throw more dirt upon yourself. Turkey
knows you had every right to do what you did, and I think you need to be able to
express that to Turkey.”
Regarding the
Mavi Marmara incident, West said
that the fact that the IDF commandos landed on the ship carrying paint guns
showed that the country did everything necessary to try and have “less of a
confrontation, but yet you were attacked. What I told people in America is that
they should think about what if America was participating in a sanction-led
blockade, and all of a sudden we boarded a ship, and our Navy SEALs were
attacked. What would you expect our Navy SEALs to do? We should allow Israel to
do the exact same thing.”
West, who along with the rest of the
congressional delegation will be meeting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad on Thursday, said his message to the PA was “not to try and back
door” the Israeli- Palestinian diplomatic process.
“I think they need to
reject this reconciliation pact with Hamas, because Hamas’s Charter is
definitely anti-Israel and talks about Israel’s elimination, and never its
recognition. I think the PA has to present itself as a credible peace partner,”
he added.
The congressman also said that “for us to believe that there
can be a return to pre-’67 lines is not a viable alternative for the security of
Israel.”