“If the report really says that they did not have the adequate intelligence, obviously they are lying,” Sedat Laçiner, from the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK), told Today’s Zaman.
The official report from Israel’s military investigation was prepared by a military commission led by Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general. Reports in the Israeli media said that the findings pointed to “flawed preparation [in intelligence] prior to the arrival” of the Mavi Marmara.
Laçiner said that if the reports are accurate, this has only one meaning: that Israel seeks to avoid responsibility. “If you ask an establishment about its own mistake, usually their answer is: ‘We did not do it. It is not our mistake.’ But there was a crime that resulted in the murder of nine people,” Laçiner said.
He added that the Israeli army’s claim of inadequate intelligence is not persuasive at all. “Well, as someone who lives in Ankara, I was able to contact the Mavi Marmara and able to ask them how the situation was. They told me that there was a group of people on the ship, preparing sticks to use against Israeli soldiers if they tried to intercept them. If I knew that, sure Israel knew about it, too,” he said.
Nihat Ali Özcan of the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) said if the Israel is really claiming that it had inadequate intelligence, this means it does not know anything about the changing characteristics of conflicts and should urgently replace its analysts.
“Recent developments in the world tell us that if you confront a group, you have to learn their conflict culture, not their physical capacity. The passengers of the ship were from a civil society organization, but not a Norwegian-style [one],” he told.
