By Dave Anderson:
There are increasingly circulated rumors that the Turkish Navy will provide an escort to the next Gaza flotilla. That action escalates the tensions between Turkey and Israel, provides internal domestic political theatre in Turkey and keeps the civil disobedience campaign being successfully waged in the global news for at least another week. However any Turkish convoy escort will be impotent if the goal is to actually unload a merchant ship on a Gazan pier.
The Turkish Navy is a well equipped, well trained force. It is a balanced force with modern submarines, decent air-defense assets, good anti-submarine units, and balanced anti-surface capabilities. It has an at-sea replenishment capability. It can project power over its littoral and into the Aegean. Turkey currently is conducting an out of area deployment to Somalia and it is achieving good results in chasing down pirates.
However, any escort mission will be symbolic. Even assuming no ships are in for maintenance or upgrades and that all combatants are fully armed, and the rules of engagement for an escort force was weapons free against any potential threat within fifty miles, the Turkish Navy could not fight their way from Cyprus to Gaza. The Israelis would be fighting under their own fighter cover, within their own sensor net and defending a very narrow front. Under all variants of this scenario where actual combat occurred, most of the Turkish Navy would be sunk without any significant tactical or worse, strategic success. The Turks know this, the Israelis know this, and the rest of NATO knows this.
Therefore it is an absurd scenario.
The far more likely scenario is the following performance art.
The Turks may send a token escort of one or two frigates and a maritime patrol aircraft to escort the next flotilla that attempts to reach Gaza and breach the blockade. If the Israelis are smart, they'll send a maritime patrol aircraft to keep an eye on the convoy's position once it leaves either Cyprus or Malta but not harass the convoy. At fifty to one hundred miles out, an Israeli patrol boat would take station with the convoy but stay several miles away with the main gun pointed to the bow. And the convoy would proceed to the 12 mile territorial waters limit at which point, the Israelis have every right to demand the merchant ship(s) to stop and submit to a safety/smuggling inspection. The Turks can't stop the Israelis from doing this without it being an escalating act and if it escalates to armed conflict, the Turkish ships are extraordinarily vulnerable to anti-shipping strikes from the IAF. At that point, the Turkish captains signal the merchant ship "Good luck and thanks for all the fish", reverse course, and let the Israelis do what they were planning on doing anyways, just fifty miles closer to land than before.
The Israelis stopped the convoy so far off shore because they didn't want the confrontation to take place in daylight. A Turkish escort would increase the PR risk for Israel.
ReplyDeleteWhile you're probably correct that Israel can forcibly prevent aid shipments, Dave, the legal situation is much more complex. There are three possible ways to view the status of Gaza, and under any of these interpretations, the actions of Israel are wildly illegal.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Palestine could be considered an occupied territory. In this case, Israel is responsible for the well-being of the Palestinians, including paying for all humanitarian supplies. Israel is not doing that.
Second, Palestine could be considered an unoccupied territory. Israel would like the world to believe this, so that its responsibility for caring for the Palestinians ceases. But in that case, Israel has no right to stop aid vessels. By the fact that it not merely boarded but attacked and seized the vessels, it has proven that Palestine is occupied under the legal definition, even though no Israeli soldier is present within the physical territory.
Finally, Palestine could be considered a nation. This is most consistent with the original UN declarations (but less consistent with the definitions of what constitutes an independent state, since Palestine plainly does not really control its own territory). If it is a state, Israel has committed an act of illegal warfare, not merely against Turkey but against Palestine as well.
I think that Turkey's actions may surprise. The PM is a thoughtful man, and he is in a strong position domestically. Many times military force does not get one what one wants, a lesson the US has resisted learning for half a century.