After the Israeli Turkel Commission cleared the Israeli soldiers of wrongdoings during last year's deadly raid on a Turkish flotilla bound for Gaza, the relations between Turkey and Israel are expected to remain strained.

The Commission, appointed by the Israeli government and headed by a retired supreme court judge to investigate the Israeli commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in Mediterranean last year which killed nine Turkish citizens, reported its finding that the soldiers acted in accordance with international law.

According to the report, Israel was acting in accordance with international law when it stopped the ship, part of a six-ship flotilla heading to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's naval blockade on the Hamas-controlled enclave. The commission also found the use of force by the Israeli soldiers that rappelled on to the ship was proportional, because their lives were threatened.

While the finding of the report was praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted by saying the Israeli report has no value or credibility.

Local pundits said the tense relationship between the two countries, the historically close partners, would most likely continue as each side expects the other side to take the first step towards reconciliation. Furthermore, analysts said there is a tendency in both countries of not being able to look at the problem from the other side's perspective.

BLACK AND WHITE

Hugh Pope, the Turkey/Cyprus project director at the International Crisis Group, told Xinhua the relationship between Turkey and Israel will most likely remain strained as neither party was expected to change their position.

"It seems unlikely to me that Prime Minister Erdogan is going to back down from his position, which is unfortunate because when the Turkey-Israel relationship was a functioning relationship, it was a very positive factor in the Middle East," Pope said.

He pointed out that in the past the close relationship had enabled Turkey to play a very productive role in inching Israel- Syria peace talks forward.

"The idea that both sides can exonerate themselves from blame is wrong," Pope said, adding that Israel's manner of dealing with the incident had taken a long time to reach a conclusion.

"Especially in Israeli public opinion, there is not enough emphasis being put on what happened that night and what happened on the days afterwards," Pope said, "I don't think many people in Israel are actually aware of the enormity of what happened out there and they certainly don't seem to feel it. I mean nine people were killed on the high seas."

Pope said the Turkish report found that the ship itself was actually sailing towards Egypt at the moment it was attacked by the Israeli soldiers.

"I don't think many people in Israel are aware that Turkish authorities sincerely believed that they had a deal with the Israelis that there would not be an attack on the ship," Pope said.

He said Israel had not really taken onboard that it was a proactive decision of Israel to attack the ship on the high seas when Turkey was hoping to avoid a violent incident. He said the Israelis seemed to believe Turkey wanted to attack Israel and hence sent the ship, ignoring the fact that it was an international flotilla and that others had done this before.

BLAME GAME

Dr. Efrat Aviv of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv said that unfortunately both sides are so set in their position that they are hindering any attempt at reconciliation.

"It's going to be worse and the process of deterioration is going to continue," Aviv said, "I don't expect any good news on the relationship between Israel and Turkey."

Aviv said that while there is room for compromise, she does not see any intention from either side to engage in a dialogue. One of the reasons she cited was the increasingly harsh statements from Prime Minister Erdogan recently, in which he has spoken out against the situation in Gaza. This has angered many Israelis and convinced the political establishment that there is very little they can do to improve the situation.

Erdogan has demanded that Israel apologize for the attack on the ship and has so far rejected the attempts by Israel to avoid using the word "apologize."

NO QUICK FIX

Dr. Anat Lapidot-Firilla of the department of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said she wasn't surprised by the result of the Turkel inquiry as its mandate had been very limited from the beginning.

"If people expected it to heal the wounds, I think it was a very naive thought," Lapidot-Firilla said.

She believes that the conclusions reached by the commission were widely expected and did not offer much hope for healing the rift between the two countries. Also, the Israeli government remained firm in its unwillingness to apologize, as Turkey is demanding.

Lapidot-Firilla agreed with Pope that there is a tendency in both countries to see everything in black and white, but she also supports Aviv's claim that it is Turkey that has the upper hand.

"The relationship between the two states were always and will continue to be determined by Turkey, who could either promote relations or harm them," Lapidot-Firilla said.

She said Israel has only two options - accept the rules determined by Turkey, or reject them. For political reasons, the current Israeli government has chosen to say no to Ankara.