There’s some fascinating day two news coming out of Israel and the Obama trip this morning. A short time ago, the White House press pool released a report saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu had “apologized” to Prime Minister Erdogan over the Mavi Marmara flotilla raid back in 2010.
To say the issue of an apology has been a charged and fraught one would be an understatement. And my first thought was that we were hearing this account via the White House press pool, rather than via the Prime Minister’s office or the Israeli press.
But via Twitter, Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu’s spokesperson to Arab Media, confirmed and expanded on the story, notably using the word apology.
PM Netanyahu apologized to the Turkish ppl for any mistake that could have led to loss of life,agreed to complete the compensation agreement
— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) March 22, 2013
(See the other tweets here.)
Also notable, the White House pool report notes that this all happened on call between the leaders and that President Obama joined that call for at least part of the half hour call.
More to come.
No doubt this was part of a package that emerged out of Obama’s visit.
