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THE WORLD
In a crisis, Netanyahu looks homeward first
DEFIANCE BRINGS
ISRAELIS’ SUPPORT
But toughness can turn to pragmatism when needed
by Janine Zacharia
jerusalem — When Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered his angry response to a cascade of inter- national condemnation of Israel on Wednesday, he spoke first in Hebrew to a domestic Israeli audience. Choosing to address his home constituency, rather than the broader world, was a sign of his continued willingness to accept interna- tional ire as the price of upholding pol- icies that are broadly supported at home. Defiance has been a signature of Ne-
MURAD SEZER/REUTERS
Cigdem Topcuoglu embraces the coffin of her husband, Cetin Topcuoglu, at his funeral in Istanbul. He died in the flotilla raid.
American among those killed in raid
Death of teen, who held
dual citizenship with Turkey, adds to fallout
by Glenn Kessler
One of the nine activists killed by Is-
raeli commandos aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was a teenager who held U.S. citizenship, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday. The disclosure further complicates the fallout from the incident, as the death of an American overseas can prompt a U.S. government investigation. Until now, the Obama administration has backed Is- rael’s assertion that it can conduct its own inquiry. Clinton identified the victim as Furkan Dorgan, 19. He was born in Troy, N.Y., while his father, Ahmet Dorgan, was pur- suing an MBA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The elder Dorgan received the degree in 1992, according to his Web site at Erciyes University in Kayseri, Turkey. Furkan Dorgan apparently returned to
Turkey at age 2 and held dual citizenship. Turkish media reports said he attended Kayseri science high school and had been accepted to a university for the fall. He wanted to be a doctor. “Our ambassador to Turkey, Ambassa-
dor Jim Jeffrey, has been in contact with the family,” Clinton told reporters. “We’ve offered not only our heartfelt condolenc- es but any kind of consular assistance that the family might need at this time.” She said that another U.S. citizen was injured on one of the ships and that a third — later identified as Emily He- nochowicz, 21, of Potomac — was hurt during a subsequent protest of the in- cident. According to Israeli media re-
ADEL HANA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians in a fishing boat decorated with Turkish and Palestinian flags hold a pro-Turkey demonstration off the shore of Gaza City in response to the Israeli raid.
“I feel my son has been blessed with heaven. I am hoping to be a father worthy
of my son.”
— Ahmet Dorgan
ports, Henochowicz lost an eye after be- ing hit by an Israeli tear-gas canister. “We have made no decisions at this point on any additional specific actions that our government should take with re- spect to our own citizens,” Clinton added, but she renewed her call for “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent in- vestigation that conforms to interna- tional standards.” Ahmet Dorgan, an accounting profes-
sor, told the state-run Anatolia news agency that he had identified his son at a morgue and that he had been shot in the forehead. But he did not express sadness. “I feel my son has been blessed with heav- en,” he said. “I am hoping to be a father worthy of my son.” State Department spokesman P.J.
Crowley said Dorgan died of “gunshot wounds,” but he declined to confirm Turkish media reports that he was shot four times in the head and once in the chest at close range. Israeli officials had no comment on
Dorgan’s death, saying they did not make the identification and did not examine the bodies before turning them over to Turkish officials.
kesslerg@washpost.com
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
DIGEST
AFGHANISTAN
Conference likely to back Taliban talks
After two days of sometimes acrimonious debate, President Hamid Karzai on Thursday looked likely to win a national peace conference’s support for his plan to invite the Taliban to negotiations to try to end Af- ghanistan’s nearly nine years of war.
But delegates differed about
exactly what to offer, and to whom and when. They argued over whether the top leadership should be welcomed to the nego- tiating table. And some said the three-day jirga, as the conference is known, was too short to achieve a meaningful outcome. The government says it called
together the 1,500 provincial, re- ligious, tribal and other leaders from across the country to advise Karzai on what to try next to end fighting between Taliban insur- gents and Afghan forces backed by U.S. and NATO troops. The president wants to offer
rank-and-file insurgents amnes- ties and other incentives to lay down their arms, and to hold talks with top Taliban leaders if they renounce al-Qaeda and vow to uphold the constitution. Winning the backing of the conference would politically bol- ster Karzai. But even broad sup- port from delegates would only
be a tentative first step toward negotiating an end to the con- flict.
—Associated Press
PERU
Holloway suspect held in killing
A Dutchman long suspected in the disappearance of an Alabama teen in Aruba was arrested Thursday in the slaying of a young woman in Peru. Stephany Flores, 21, was killed in a Lima hotel Sunday, five years to the day after Natalee Holloway disappeared. The suspect, Joran Van der Sloot, was arrested in neighbor- ing Chile, where he traveled the day after Flores died. He was de- tained while traveling in a taxi, about halfway to the coast on Route 68, said Prefect Alfredo Es- pinosa, chief national spokesman for Chile’s investigative police. Van der Sloot was also charged in Alabama on Thursday with trying to extort $250,000 in re- turn for disclosing the location of Holloway’s body.
—Associated Press
SOMALIA
Military, insurgents battle in capital
At least 17 civilians were killed
Thursday when government
forces backed by the firepower of African Union peacekeepers launched coordinated attacks against Islamist insurgent strongholds in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, officials said. At least 61 other civilians were wounded in the shelling and gun battles that started early Thurs- day in northern Mogadishu. A senior Somali military offi- cial claimed victory and said gov- ernment forces will hold on to the areas they captured. But a spokesman for al-Shabab, the in- surgent group, denied that its fighters were defeated.
—Associated Press
RUSSIA
Official: Olympics face security threat
Russia’s security chief warned
Thursday that terrorists intend to disrupt preparations for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, according to state news agency ITAR-Tass. Alexander Bortnikov, head of
the Federal Security Service, was quoted as saying that the Winter Games face the same kinds of ter- rorist threats that led to the can- cellation of the 2008 Paris-Dakar motor rally. The Black Sea resort of Sochi is
relatively close to Russia’s restive North Caucasus region, from where officials say the country’s chief terrorist threat emanates. Russia has endured a spate of
MUSTAFA ABDI/ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES
A man is carried to a hospital during clashes between troops and Islamist fighters in Somalia’s capital.
U.N. offers help in activist
terrorist strikes this year, includ- ing a double suicide bombing on Moscow’s subway system in March that killed 40 people. Offi- cials said the attacks were staged by Islamist militants based in the North Caucasus. Despite the attacks, govern- ment officials have given firm se- curity guarantees to the Interna- tional Olympic Committee.
—Associated Press
More than 100 killed in Ban-
gladesh fire: A devastating fire raced through several apartment complexes in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, killing more than 100 people and injuring just as many, local media reported Friday. Fire official Nazrul Islam said the blaze started when an electrical transformer exploded late Thursday.
death probe: U.N. Secretary Gen- eral Ban Ki-moon has offered to help Congo with an investigation into the death of a leading hu- man rights activist who was found dead early Wednesday. Flo- ribert Chebeya was found dead in his car in a Kinshasa suburb after being called to an appointment with the police inspector general.
—From news services
tanyahu’s career, and despite the expec- tations of some commentators that he would be more conciliatory during his second go-round as prime minister, that has not been the case over the 14 months since he returned to power. Even when it has meant publicly feuding with the Obama administration, Netanyahu has seemed to embrace the fight — a strat- egy that thus far has paid off for him po- litically. The latest showdown, coming this week after Israeli commandos killed nine activists in a melee at sea, has re- newed focus on Israel’s policy of block- ading Gaza as part of a strategy to weak- en the Islamist Hamas movement. De- spite U.S. pressure on Israel to change course in Gaza, Netanyahu has given no indication he is willing to do so in any fundamental way. That stance echoes the Israeli strategy last year, when it filibustered U.S. calls for a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Although Israel and the U.S. ultimately reached an understanding on the issue that required Israeli concessions, the Obama administration was first forced to make an embarrassing retreat from its initial demand for a complete freeze. Although Israeli politicians have tra- ditionally paid a price at home for tan- gling with U.S. presidents, Netanyahu has not been damaged politically by his challenges to Obama, who is generally unpopular in Israel. “If you look at Bibi in the last 15 months, you see one main line that di- rects him in his international and do- mestic behavior, which is his political situation in Israel,’’ said Yaron Deckel, a political commentator for Israel Televi- sion, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “You saw it with the Jerusalem crisis with the U.S., when he preferred his coalition to Obama. And now you see it with the international community when he de- fies it but keeps his public support in Is- rael.’’
With Israel under fire abroad, Netan- yahu used his first extended remarks on the flotilla crisis to launch an attack on the world.
“Once again, Israel faces hypocrisy and a biased rush to judgment. I’m afraid this isn’t the first time,’’ he said. Without even a faint nod to the inter-
national community’s concerns about Israel’s actions — which have led to calls
for an international inquiry, ambassa- dor recalls and deep damage to relations with Turkey — Netanyahu insisted Is- raeli policy toward the Gaza Strip would not change as long as it is controlled by Hamas. “Israel simply cannot permit the free flow of weapons and war materials to Hamas from the sea,” he said. Hamas has close links to the government of Iran, and Netanyahu said the interna- tional community “cannot afford an Ira- nian port in the Mediterranean.’’ Still, there were also signs that Netan- yahu may be tempering his tough rheto- ric with pragmatic steps to help ease this crisis.
By focusing on the need to stop the flow of weapons and war materials to Hamas “from the sea,’’ Netanyahu may have been signaling a readiness to allow more freedom of movement and goods across land — something the United States has insisted on since the flotilla incident. Netanyahu has long been regarded,
particularly abroad, as a hard-liner who is reluctant to make peace with the Pal- estinians. But when necessary, he has been willing to make pragmatic, tactical concessions. When Netanyahu first clashed with the Obama administration last year, he insisted there would be no settlement freeze as a precondition to peace talks with the Palestinians. Then in the fall, he agreed to a 10-month pause in the West Bank. In March, he publicly said housing construction in East Jerusalem would never be frozen. But then, as tensions with Washington continued to mount, the key committee that approves hous- ing temporarily stopped meeting. As for the flotilla, Netanyahu has
avoided a domestic political crisis amid international scorn because his position reflects the feelings of many Israelis, who think a blockade is the right thing to do to prevent Hamas from obtaining long-range weapons and firing them at Israel. Netanyahu “is a reflection of the au- thenticity of fears and suspicions’’ of Is- raelis, said Aaron David Miller, a long- time State Department negotiator. Netanyahu has also learned from mis-
takes he made in his first term as prime minister, in the late 1990s. He then often made decisions alone and alienated those close to him. Now he has made seven ministers part of every key deci- sion. One of them is his erstwhile politi- cal opponent, Defense Minister Ehud Barak. By keeping his rivals close, he has neutralized the criticism when an opera- tion — such as the flotilla raid — goes badly. Netanyahu isn’t just playing smart politics, however. Although he agreed to the idea of talks geared toward a two- state solution with the Palestinians last year, Netanyahu has told advisers he does not think the Palestinians are ready for a true peace with Israel. He sees Ba- rak’s unilateral withdrawal from Leba- non in 2000 and former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which have left Israel vulnerable to Hezbollah and Hamas rocket fire, as cautionary tales not to be repeated. Netanyahu’s policy-making ability is hampered, Miller said, by his internal conflict between the “tough-talking Li- kud politician and the tough, smart, pragmatic statesman.’’
zachariaj@washpost.com
FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
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