Turkish Forum

Category: Ireland

  • ISRAELI BUTCHERY AT SEA BY GILAD ATZMON

    ISRAELI BUTCHERY AT SEA BY GILAD ATZMON

    GAAs I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured.  Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective  fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.

    For days the Israeli government  prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters.  Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along.  What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist  attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.

    Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters.  At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.

    Today we will see demonstrations around the world, we will see many events mourning our dead.  We may even see some of Israel’s friends ‘posturing’ against the slaughter. Clearly this is not enough.

    The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its ‘power of deterrence’  expands with the more dead it leaves behind. The Israeli decision to use hundreds of commando soldiers against civilians was taken by the Israeli cabinet together with the Israeli top military commanders. What we saw yesterday wasn’t just a failure on the ground. It was actually an institutional failure of a morbid society that a long time ago lost touch with humanity.

    It is no secret that Palestinians are living in a siege for years. But it is now down to the nations to move on and mount the ultimate pressure on Israel and its citizens. Since the massacre yesterday was committed by a popular army that followed instructions given by a ‘democratically elected’ government, from now on, every Israeli  should be considered as a  suspicious war criminal unless proved different.

    Considering the fact that Israel stormed naval vessels sailing under Irish, Turkish and Greek flags. Both NATO  members and EU countries must immediately cease their  relationships with  Israel  and close their airspace to Israeli airplanes.

    Considering yesterday’s news about Israeli nuclear submarines being stationed in the Gulf, the world must react quickly and severely. Israel is now officially mad and deadly. The Jewish State is not just careless about human life,  as we have been following  the Israeli press campaign leading to the slaughter,  Israel actually  seeks pleasure in inflicting pain and devastation on others.

    , MAY 31, 2010

  • Car bomb explodes outside NI police station

    Car bomb explodes outside NI police station

    A car bomb has exploded outside a police station in Northern Ireland, injuring two people, days after the final formal steps for the peace process in the province were put in place.

    Police northern Ireland

    The device blew up at the Newtownhamilton police station late Thursday night after a warning was telephoned to a Belfast hospital, police said.

    A car bomb was defused at the same spot in the county of Armagh 10 days ago. The Continuity IRA, which opposes the peace process and last year killed a police officer in the bloodiest three days in Northern Ireland for more than a decade, claimed responsibility for that bomb.

    A day earlier another republican group opposed to the peace process, the Real IRA, had detonated a bomb near the Northern Ireland offices of domestic spy agency MI5. The Real IRA shot dead two British soldiers last year, two days before the killing of the police officer.

    The latest attacks were apparently timed to coincide with the transfer of police and justice powers from London and the appointment of Northern Ireland’s first justice minister.

    The moves are the last formal steps under a process, launched by a 1998 peace deal, that has resulted in self-rule for the province by a government representing both Republicans and Unionists.

    Police said they were investigating reports of shots being fired before Thursday’s bombing, which shattered windows and forced homes to be evacuated and residents to be put up in a high school.

    “Those who planted this bomb want to drag Northern Ireland back to the dark days of murder and mayhem, they want to undermine the political process, they want politics to fail,” said David Ford, the newly-appointed justice minister.

    “I am determined that we will all continue to stand together so that they will not succeed,” Ford, the leader of the non-sectarian Alliance Party, said in a statement.

    Northern Ireland’s political leaders, First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, also condemned the attack.

    Analysts have warned that republican dissidents remain active, and police have said the risk of attack, chiefly on security forces, is severe.

    Police said the two wounded people had been taken to hospital but their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

    In a separate incident, a pipe bomb exploded outside a house in Coalisland in County Tyrone, shattering windows but injuring no one, police said.

    (Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian in Dublin; editing by Kevin Liffey)

    Reuters

  • Izmir (Symrna) arsons, Greeks and Turks

    Izmir (Symrna) arsons, Greeks and Turks

    Denis O’Callaghan’s letter (April 9th) condemning President McAleese’s laying of a wreath at the tomb of Ataturk because he was “responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Smyrna in Asia Minor” is a very partial view of history.The Turkish capture of Smyrna occurred as the culmination of a Greek attempt to conquer Anatolia, which led to large scale ethnic cleansing of Muslims, starting in Smyrna itself and reaching to where it was stopped by Ataturk, at the gates of Ankara.The Greeks were victims of their own irredentist dreams of a new Byzantium and their misplaced faith in Lloyd George, in attempting to impose the punitive Treaty of Sèvres on Turkey.In any other context, such as that applied to the second World War, the recapture of Smyrna would be seen as an act of liberation and the blame for the unfortunate events of September 1922 placed at the hands of the original aggressors. – Yours, etc,Dr PAT WALSH,Leyland Crescent,Ballycastle, Co Antrim.
    From The Author of
    Forgotten Aspects Of Ireland’s Great War on Turkey1919–1924(Unutulan Yönleriyle İrlanda’nın Türkiye’ye Karşı Büyük Savaşı: 1914–1924) Dr. Pat Walsh.  ATHOL BOOKS, Belfast 2009

    Contributed by Mr Yusuf Cinar, Mr Nizam Bulut, Galway, Ireland

  • Bomb explodes near N Ireland MI5 base

    Bomb explodes near N Ireland MI5 base

    The Real IRA has admitted it was behind a car bomb which exploded outside MI5’s Northern Ireland headquarters.

    Palace

    The blast seems to have been timed to coincide with the precise moment that policing and justice powers devolved from Westminster to Stormont.

    It happened at about 0020 BST outside Palace Barracks, in Holywood, County Down. Police said no warning was given.

    The bomb went off as the surrounding area was being evacuated. An elderly man was treated for minor injuries.

    The bomb was placed in a taxi, which had been hijacked in the Ligoniel area of north Belfast, about seven miles from Holywood, at about 2150 BST.

    The driver was held hostage by three men for about two hours before being told to drive his taxi to the barracks.

    The vehicle was abandoned at the base just before midnight prompting police and security staff to evacuate the area. The bomb exploded about 20 minutes later as the evacuation was still taking place.

    An elderly man walking near the barracks at the time of the explosion was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

    There were two explosions – first the bomb and then the petrol tank, destroying the car and damaging other property.

    Chief Superintendent Nigel Grimshaw said the police had not received a telephoned warning about the attack.

    He said the taxi used was destroyed in the “significant explosion”.

    The senior officer visited the scene on Sunday night.

    “I saw young children in the arms of mothers and fathers, where we had moved people from the community into a local community centre – that’s the type of people who were affected by this totally callous act.

    “There is no question in my mind that it was designed to kill or seriously injure and that’s exactly what would have happened, were it not for the actions of my officers, military colleagues and indeed the community themselves who co-operated fully with us.”

    Up to 60 people were moved from their homes and spent the night in a community centre.

    The attack appears to have been timed to coincide with the transfer of policing and justice powers from London to Belfast.

    Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said this “democratic transition stands in stark contrast to the activity of a criminal few who will not accept the will of the majority of people of Northern Ireland”.

    “They have no support anywhere,” he added.

    BBC

  • Turkey is an enormous present on Europe’s doorstep (Video)

    Turkey is an enormous present on Europe’s doorstep (Video)

    Turkey is an enormous present on Europe’s doorstep. Speaker: Professor Norman Stone

    Arguing against the motion ‘Let’s keep Turkey out of Europe’, Norman Stone asserts that Turkey’s history mirrors that of Spain, now one of Europe’s greatest success stories. The EU has a crucial opportunity to influence Turkey, to shape it, and create an entirely new civilisation. Europe should mean something for Turkey the way it held promise for post-Second World War populations. Turkey is an enormous present on Europe’s doorstep.

    Contribution by Mr Yusuf Cinar and Mr Nizam Bulut, Ireland

  • Turkey will make Europe a better model and actor (Video)

    Turkey will make Europe a better model and actor (Video)

    Turkey will make Europe a better model and actor (Video).  Speaker: Dominique Moisi

    Arguing against the motion ‘Let’s keep Turkey out of Europe’, Dominique Moisi says he regards the debate over Turkey as part of the battle between hope and fear. Europe’s dissolution is much more unlikely than proponents of the motion make it out to be. Europe’s role in the international system is as a model and an actor; Turkey’s inclusion would make it a better model and a more powerful actor. He argues that this is Europe’s great opportunity to show the rest of the world that it does not believe in a clash of civilisations between Islam and modernity, democracy and secularism. Finally, he believes that one of Europe’s key weaknesses in the years to come will be its demography, an ageing population lacking energy. Citing the success of earlier enlargement into Eastern and Central Europe, he says that Turkey will easily provide citizens hungry for progress and economic triumph that are lacking in today’s Europe. Europe needs new blood.

    Return to full video

    Contribution by Mr Yusuf Cinar, Ireland