What Israel's payoff for Turkish civilians means for Palestinians
Now that Israel has agreed to compensate the families of the Mavi Marmara casualties it calls terrorists, Palestinians are hoping to advance their own claims for compensation.
As part of its reconciliation agreement with Turkey, Israel made a commitment to pay some $20 million to the families of those hurt during the Mavi Marmara flotilla raid. Inevitably, the clause prompted sharp responses in the Israeli political world. HaBayit HaYehudi leader Naftali Bennett said that he and the other ministers from his party will oppose the agreement because "compensation to the perpetrators of a terrorist act is a dangerous precedent Israel will regret in the future.” Former Minister Gideon Saar wrote on Facebook, “When the Palestinian Authority compensates the families of terrorists, we are outraged, and rightly so. … Creating this kind of precedent by compensating aggressors is not only an assault on our national dignity. It is also a serious strategic error by Israel, whose struggle against terrorism is far from over.”
But Israelis aren’t the only ones infuriated. The agreement to compensate those injured by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) actions, whether they were “terrorist activists,” as they are called in Israel, or “human rights activists,” as they are called in Turkey, has also angered groups in Gaza and the West Bank. For years, human rights organizations have tried to get the Israeli government to take responsibility for harming civilians, but Israel passed a series of laws that prevent Palestinians from suing for damages to body or property.
Soon after the second intifada, the Knesset approved amendments to its civil tort law. In Israel, these amendments were nicknamed the “intifada law,” though human rights activists prefer to call them “Israel’s defensive wall.” Amendment 4, which was passed immediately after Operation Defensive Shield, was intended to halt a tidal wave of claims by Palestinians who suffered as a result of IDF activities.
“We are not even talking about people who conducted terrorist attacks in Israel. We are talking about the most basic and logical thing imaginable: compensating civilians who were injured by Israeli fire over the years,” said Mustafa Ariq, a civil rights activist in the Gaza Strip. “We cooperated with groups in Israel like Adalah to prompt Israel to recognize its responsibility to civilians who were killed or injured,” he added. According to him, not only are there thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip who suffered injuries as a direct result of IDF assaults, Gaza is also full of people who have paid a steep price over the years for the illogical and inhumane closure that Israel imposed on the territory.
