Freedom Flotilla: Political headache for both Erdogan and Apartheid Israel

Crescent International

Shawwal 20, 1445 2024-04-29

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

For several days, an international freedom flotilla with humanitarian aid bound for Gaza has been stuck in Türkiye.

The official reason advanced by Turkish politicians is that Guinea Bissau has withdrawn the registration of two ships, under pressure from apartheid Israel.

The world remembers the ill-fated May 2010 Freedom Flotilla, when aid workers on the vessel Mavi Marmara were murdered in cold blood by zionist forces.

Writing on the current attempt to deliver aid to Gaza from Turkiye, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig John Murray states: “Just days before sailing, the Mavi Marmara had changed its flag from Turkey to the Comoros Islands. On a vessel at sea outside the twelve- mile territorial limit of a state (as the Mavi Marmara was when boarded), the law that applies is that of the flag state. Had the vessel still been Turkish flagged, the murderers would have been within Turkish jurisdiction and subject to investigation by Turkey and prosecution in Turkish courts. I flew to Izmir to investigate the case and I concluded that it was Turkish security services who had obliged the change of flag to the Comoros Islands, thus facilitating the Israeli murderous attack.”

In the same blog, Mr. Murray states: “I am therefore entirely perplexed that the organisers went with Guinea Bissau as the flag state rather than a state likely to stand up to Israel and the US.”

It is quite logical to assume that if the Turkish government was sincere in getting aid to Gaza as soon as possible, they would take all the paperwork upon themselves and get the ships going.

The Freedom Flotilla is of course no simple humanitarian operation; it is first and foremost a political act.

This is primarily so for the Turkish government, but it is also a political act in the eyes Israel.

If the Freedom Flotilla successfully reaches Gaza, it will score a political point for the loud-talking but no real action government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

If the Freedom Flotilla is aborted via a murderous zionist act as it was in 2010, due to the current situation surrounding Palestine and the wider region, it will be yet another political humiliation for Erdogan since the events of October 7.

It is quite clear that the zionist regime of Benjamin Netanyahu will do its utmost not to allow aid from Türkiye to reach Gaza and hand a political victory to Erdogan.

Israel and Türkiye are now stuck in a predicament.

If the Freedom Flotilla sales, Israel will have to use violent means to stop it.

Such confrontation will further discredit Israel’s already collapsed moral authority and mobilize global public opinion against the zionist entity and its western enablers.

If the flotilla is stopped through zionist aggression, there will be significant backlash in Türkiye demanding concrete action against Israel.

With the current high political temperature in the region, the Turkish population will not accept a passive response.

There will be political cost to Erdogan and his inner circle.

Netanyahu and Erdogan are thus stuck in a political check-mate situation under the control of the flotilla organizers.

If the flotilla organizers go ahead with their intended plan of action, it will put Erdogan and Netanyahu on a collision course from which only one of them can emerge victorious.

It is no exaggeration to say that the next major political blow to Israel will be delivered on board the Freedom Flotilla.

If its organizers are determined to deliver such a blow to Israel, nothing can save Netanyahu.

The question is: will Erdogan allow them?