Assaf Wohl
Photo: Shai Vaknin
Don’t you dare apologize
Op-ed: Prime Minister Netanyahu has no right to apologize to Turkey on our behalf
Excuse me, Bibi,
what year is it? No, I did not ask what time it is. What year? You know what, forget about the year. Do you have any idea which historical era we are currently living through? Guess what: It seems like you’re no longer living in the sovereign State of Israel.
You traveled back in time to the Ottoman Empire. Isn’t it fun?
Making Amends
Turkish prime minister wants to normalize relations with Israel before upcoming June elections, but defense minister, IDF officials refuse to issue apology, a Turkish newspaper report claims
Once you regain your senses and travel back to the future, to our era, you may discover some amazing surprises and unimaginable inventions. One innovation that may especially excite you is an application known as “the Jewish state.” You are going to love it. We all love it around here. We are talking about a new gadget that enables the Jews to defend themselves without being stepped on. Isn’t it amazing?
So, my honorable prime minister: I am not apologizing for the flotilla incident. Moreover, you have no right whatsoever to apologize on my behalf. No regrets, no apologies, and nothing that even resembles it.
I am not ashamed of being Jewish, and I am most certainly not ashamed of still being alive. Moreover, I demand that if a terrorist vessel again approaches my home, the very same Navy commandoes deployed last time be dispatches to face it. Yet this time don’t equip them with paintball guns, please.
After all, when Israeli tourists vandalize a motel in Cyprus, we are all embarrassed and want to let them have it. Yet the Turks dispatched a ship full of radical, violent Islamists but they are nonetheless demanding that we apologize.
In fact, it is the Turkish people who need to be ashamed over this provocation.
The notion of “honor” characterizes backward cultures, and believe me that talking about “Jewish honor” makes me feel unwell. It smells of primitivism and even of fascism. However, if we wish to survive here, we need to conduct ourselves this way vis-à-vis some states and societies. They must internalize that Jews too have respect.
And if we are into apologizes already, then we should in fact apologize to the Armenians for our silence, to the Kurds for our hypocrisy, and most of all to our Navy commandoes. Equipping them with paintball guns? What exactly were we thinking?
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