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Israel offered $6 million to Turk raid victims: lawyer
ANKARA |
ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish lawyer said on Thursday that Israel had offered to pay $6 million to victims of Israel's storming of a Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla to settle lawsuits against the Israeli military.
However, a senior Israeli official who declined to be named said that Israel, having indicated last year that it was prepared to indemnify victims without accepting blame, had not renewed its offer.
Turkey and Israel fell out badly in 2010 when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara aid ship to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists.
Ramazan Ariturk, one of several lawyers representing 465 victims and victims' relatives, told Reuters that the Israeli government had made a proposal to him through an intermediary foreign ambassador in Ankara just over one month ago.
He said the money would have been paid to a Jewish foundation in Turkey for distribution, and been followed by a statement of "regret" for the raid by the Israeli government.
"I told the ambassador I did not think the offer was appropriate or moral and also discussed the issue with the victims and their friends and they also stated that they could not accept this," Ariturk said.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry agreed with his decision, saying Israel should have contacted it directly, he said.
Ariturk declined to disclose the nationality of the ambassador or reveal the name of the Jewish foundation to which the payment would have been made.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry could not be reached for immediate comment, while Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declined to comment.
Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and froze all military cooperation with its former ally after a U.N. report into the incident last September largely exonerated the Jewish state.
Turkey has demanded a formal apology from Israel alongside compensation for victims and the families of the dead, but Netanyahu has only voiced "regret".
On Wednesday an Istanbul prosecutor submitted an indictment seeking life sentences for four former Israeli military commanders in connection with the raid, including the Chief of General Staff at the time.
The U.N. report on the raid last September was meant to encourage a rapprochement but ultimately deepened the rift when it concluded Israel had used unreasonable force but that its blockade of Gaza was legal.
Israel said its marines had been attacked by activists wielding metal bars, clubs and knives when they boarded the Mavi Marmara, and had opened fire in self-defense.
(Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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The spectre of an Israeli-inspired nuclear war in the Middle East escalating into a global nuclear war involving also Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and the EU, is now all too real. The fundamental factor that invariably clouds this issue is the deliberate ploy of this Israeli government to claim that Israel acts in the name of all Jews. That, of course, is a transparent trick to try to more than double its legitimate `constituency from about 6 million to 13 million! The plain fact is that the majority of Jews live in America and Europe: do not live in Israel and have no wish to live there.
Furthermore, Jews worldwide, particularly those at university and young professionals, are often sickened and ashamed at the violation of human rights perpetrated daily by Israel in its prisons and detention centres, in its continuing blockade of a half a million Palestinians families in Gaza, that is now in its sixth year, and its illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in contempt of international law.
This is a war that will come about as a direct result of the illegitimate influence of the American Israel lobby upon the US congress. However, the clear majority of Jews, worldwide, want peace not war and condemn Israel’s warmongering and its constant threats to attack non-nuclear states.
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