Turkish Forum

Category: Israel

  • Idan Ofer visited Kurdistan (sic.)

    Idan Ofer visited Kurdistan (sic.)

    Idan Ofer
    Idan Ofer Photo by: Motti Kimche

    By TheMarker and Agencies

    Idan Ofer, the chairman of the Israel Corporation, visited Sulaimaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan (sic.) a month ago – reports the French Jewish website JSS and Intelligence Online.

    JSS revealed that Ofer, accompanied by six businessmen, flew from an unidentified European city on May 27 to meet with senior Kurdistani (sic.) officials, including Vice President Kosrat Rasul Ali and Prime Minister Barham Salih. The visit was to show support for the Kurdish people and help develop economic ties between Kurdistan (sic.) and Israel.

    Ofer is interested in investing in developing oil installations in Kirkuk, reported JSS, as well as building refineries in conjunction with European and Asian partners. Kurdish officials view worsening Turkish-Israeli ties as an opportunity to strengthen their relations with Israel.

    Ofer’s spokesman said he does not comment on Ofer’s schedule or private affairs.

    https://www.haaretz.com/2010-06-25/ty-article/report-idan-ofer-visited-kurdistan/0000017f-e875-df2c-a1ff-fe755df80000, 25.06.10

  • Gilad Shalit: Hostage of Hamas

    Gilad Shalit: Hostage of Hamas

    The struggle to bring the soldier home has become a national passion for Israelis.9k=

    By MICHAEL OREN

    In a small Jerusalem café, I sat with Noam Shalit and tried to discuss his son, Gilad. I say tried because each time Noam, a soft-spoken, bespectacled man, began a sentence, the owner of the café rushed over with complimentary plates of humus, salads and desserts. Passersby, glimpsing Noam through the window, burst inside to embrace him. “We are with you,” they cried. “We will get our Gilad home.”

    That our is the key to understanding the devotion that Israelis feel for Gilad Shalit. The Israel Defense Forces is a citizens’ army in which most young men serve for a minimum of three years, followed by several decades of reserve duty. Young women serve for at least two. Our soldiers are literally our parents, our siblings, our children. Israel is also a small country with few if any degrees of separation between families. Even those who have never met the Shalits know someone who has. And all of us have loved ones—a brother, a son—who could suffer the same ordeal that Gilad began four years ago today.

    Early on the morning of June 25, 2006, Hamas terrorists—using a tunnel secretly excavated during a cease-fire with Israel—infiltrated across the Gaza border and attacked an IDF base. Firing rocket grenades and automatic weapons, they killed two soldiers—Lt. Hanan Barak and Sgt. Pavel Slutzker, both 20—and kidnapped the 19-year-old corporal, Gilad Shalit. The IDF promptly launched a massive manhunt in Gaza, suffering an additional five fatalities, but failed to find the abductors. Hamas, meanwhile, demanded that Israel release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, most of them convicted terrorists, in exchange for Gilad’s freedom.

    Since then, Gilad’s parents, Noam and Aviva Shalit, have only received three letters from their son as well as a brief video showing an emaciated hostage with a haunted expression and lightless eyes. Hamas has refused to allow the Red Cross or other NGOs to visit Gilad, or to permit mail or aid packages to reach him. And to mock the Shalit family’s suffering, Hamas has staged re-enactments of the kidnapping, most recently in a Gaza summer camp, and plays in which actors portraying Gilad beg for their release. An animated Hamas film depicts an aged Noam Shalit grieving over his son’s coffin.

    The plight of Gilad Shalit poses painful dilemmas. Should Israel negotiate with Hamas, a terror organization sworn to its destruction, and unleash hundreds of terrorists, many of whom will quickly return to murdering? Or can Israel leave Gilad to languish alone indefinitely, prolonging his family’s agony and undermining the faith in which other families send their children to battle?

    There are no easy answers. Yet Israel has consistently sought to secure Gilad’s freedom through the good offices of intermediaries, all the while striving to reconcile the nation’s security needs with the time-honored Jewish principle of pidayon shivuyim, the redemption of prisoners.

    The struggle to bring Gilad home has become a national passion for Israelis. His birthday and the anniversary of his abduction are both commemorated with dramatic public events. In one such rally, some 2,000 young people sailed a “freedom for Gilad” fleet of homemade rafts across the Sea of Galilee. Photographs of Gilad as a whimsical teenager loom from public walls and flutter on flags from car antennas. His name is emblazoned on bracelets popular among Israeli youth and the days of his captivity are displayed on a booth near the prime minister’s residence.

    But the campaign to free Gilad Shalit is hardly limited to Israel. The mayors of Miami and New Orleans have made him an honorary citizen, as have the cities of Paris and Rome. President Nicolas Sarkozy has declared Gilad’s release “a top French priority,” and President Barack Obama has further condemned his “inhumane detention.”

    Nevertheless, Gilad Shalit remains in solitary confinement—in spite of the protests and his parents’ unflagging appeals to the international community. Lost in the recent tumult surrounding Israel’s efforts to block Iranian and Syrian arms shipments to Hamas, which has fired 10,000 rockets at Israeli civilians to date, is the unending nightmare of the Shalit family. Their pain is shared by countless Israelis and well-wishers worldwide. We must not rest until our Gilad is once again safely at home.

    Mr. Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

  • The Privileged Slander: Why the Media Laps Up The Anti-Israel Lying Campaign

    The Privileged Slander: Why the Media Laps Up The Anti-Israel Lying Campaign

    RubinReports

    RubinReports

    Honorable journalists and scholars should take note and approach these false stories more skeptically. They should also reexamine their stereotypes and remember that their political views should be kept as much as possible out of their professional work.


    Posted: 27 Jun 2010 08:21 AM PDT

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    By Barry Rubin

    Israel is subject daily to scores of false claims and slanders that receive a remarkable amount of credibility in Western media, academic, and intellectual circles even when no proof is offered.

    Palestinian groups (including the Gaza and Palestinian Authority regimes), associated local and allied foreign non-government organizations, Western radical and anti-Israel groups, and politically committed journalists are eager to act as propaganda agents making up false stories or transmitting them without serious thought or checking.

    Others have simply defined the Palestinians as the “victims” and “underdogs” while Israel is the “villain” and “oppressor.” Yet truth remains truth; academic and journalist standards are supposed to apply.

    While regular journalists may ask for an official Israeli reaction to such stories the undermanned government agencies are deluged by hundreds of these stories, and committed to checking out seriously each one. Thus, the Israeli government cannot keep up with the flow of lies.

    So the key question is to understand the deliberateness of this anti-Israel propaganda and evaluating the credibility of the sources.

    An important aspect of this is to understand that Israel is a decent, democratic country with a free media that is energetic about exploring any alleged wrongdoing and a fair court system that does the same. To demonize Israel into a monstrous, murderous state—which is often done—makes people believe any negative story.

    Some of these are big false stories—the alleged killing of Muhammad al-Dura and the supposed Jenin massacre—others are tiny. Some—like the claim Israel was murdering Palestinians to steal their organs– get into the main Western newspapers while others only make it into smaller and non-English ones.

    Taken together, this campaign of falsification is creating a big wave not only of anti-Israel sentiment but of antisemitism on a Medieval scale, simply the modern equivalent of claims that the Jews poisoned wells, spread Bubonic Plague, or murdered children to use their blood for Passover matzohs.

    Come to think of it even those claims are still in circulation. Indeed, on June 8, the Syrian representative at the UN Human Rights Council (oh, the irony!) claimed in a speech that Israeli children are taught to extoll blood-drinking. No Western delegate attacked the statement.

    Here are three actual examples of well-educated Westerners believing such modern legends reported to me recently by colleagues:

    –A former classmate, one told me, claimed that the Palestinians are living in death camps, being starved, etc. Asked to provide facts and provided with evidence to the contrary, he could provide no real examples. Finally, he remarked, `The truth is always somewhere in the middle.’”

    –Hundreds of American college professors signed a petition claiming that Israel was supposedly about to throw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of the West Bank though there was zero evidence of any such intention and, of course, nothing ever happened.

    –A British writer of some fame claimed, on the basis of an alleged single conversation with a questionable source, that Israel was preparing gas chambers for the mass murder of Palestinians. When asked if she was really claiming this would happen, she stated that it wasn’t going to happen but only because people like her had sounded the alarm to prevent it.

    Here is one example plucked from today’s mail. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry claimed that Israel was holding up seven oxygen machines intended for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and paid for by the Norwegian government. It said that a protest was being made to Norway. The story was picked up by several European newspapers. No evidence or specifics—what Israeli agency held them up? What dates? What hospitals were these for?–was provided.

    Asked to look into this, an Israeli official did so and pointed out that there were no controls over such imports into the West Bank so there would be no basis for holding up anything. As for the story generally, no applications to import such machines had been filed, there was no record of any such machines arriving, and thus nothing had been held up.

    In short, the story is completely false, presuming that the Palestinian Authority health ministry won’t provide documents and specifics. But that isn’t going to happen as it will just be on to the next false story, hoping for a bigger media response.

    Having seen so many such stories disproved over the years—as Israel’s credibility, while not perfect, has compared favorably with that of any Western democratic state—one might think a lesson would be learned. But as the great American journalist Eric Severeid remarked many years ago, nothing can protect someone when the media sets out deliberately to misunderstand and report falsely about them.

    In addition, they should only repeat, report, or believe stories based on credible identified sources citing specific names, dates, and details. In addition, stories or claims should be internally logical and make sense given known facts. The idea that Israel enjoys killing or injuring Palestinians for fun does not meet that test.

    Honorable journalists and scholars should take note and approach these false stories more skeptically. They should also reexamine their stereotypes and remember that their political views should be kept as much as possible out of their professional work.

    Not so long ago, the above points would have been taken for granted as the most basic and obvious principles. They need to be relearned.

    Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
    Europe Battles Over Its Future: A Dutch Case Study

    Posted: 26 Jun 2010 02:39 PM PDT

    The following article was published in PajamasMedia here. If you forward or reprint it please give them the link and credit. Please note that they chose a title different from the one I preferred and have put into this text. I include the full article below for your convenience.

    Please be subscriber 16,708. Put your email address in the box, upper right-hand of the page.

    We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.

    By Barry Rubin

    The political situation in Europe today is quite different from the stereotype of a continent hostile to the United States (even if Obama is personally popular) and Israel; appeasement-oriented toward Iran and revolutionary Islamism; and eagerly multicultural and Politically Correct. True, it is more oriented in that direction than North America, but there is a real struggle afoot.

    In many countries—notably the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany, and to a slightly lesser extent the United Kingdom and France—the partisan gap between the left and center-right marks a boundary of much greater significance than a decade or two ago. Although each situation is different, the parties of the left tend to be more anti-American and anti-Israel and less alert to the threat of revolutionary Islamism as well as favoring continued large-scale immigration and big-state, big-spending policies.

    Take the Netherlands as a case study. After elections last month, the parties of the center-right hold 83 seats while those of the left have 67. Since there are ten parties in parliament, talks to form a coalition government will last for weeks, especially since the two largest have only twenty percent each. In the elections, only three seats changed hands between blocs.

    But the big news was the shift within the center-right, the rise of the People’s Party for Freedom (PVV) led by the controversial Geert Wilders, which almost tripled its vote, going from 9 to 24 seats. To his enemies, almost no epithet is too extreme to throw against him. The flamboyant Wilders has been outspoken in opposing immigration and especially that of Muslims, making a sharp critique of political Islamism and sometimes Islam itself.

    The power of the Dutch state was turned on Wilders, who is currently on trial for making statements which in America would fall well within Constitutional protection. State television ran documentaries during the election designed to show he was a virtual Nazi.

    What is Wilders’ program? First, a sharp limitation on asylum seekers admitted into the country and none from Muslim-majority states. No dual nationality; new mosques; separate Islamic schools; wearing of burqas; or government subsidies for Islamic media. Mosques where violence is propagated will be closed and heavy punishment for female circumcision. For their first ten years in Holland, immigrants receive no social benefits or citizenship. At the end of that period, those with no criminal record will receive full citizenship.

    The rise in support for Wilders’ party is in large part a response to serious concern over the domestic situation in the country. Aside from the assassination of a filmmaker by a radical Islamist, there has been a steep increase in crime and social welfare spending. Amsterdam, not long ago the most gay-friendly city in the world, is a place where homosexuals might be attacked in the streets by Muslim immigrant youth, while a recent television program that followed three Jews wearing identifiable garb as such in a stroll around the city showed them being harassed and insulted. Twenty percent of Dutch teachers report that attempts to teach about the Holocaust, in the country of Anne Frank, were rejected or disrupted by immigrant children.

    While Muslims still comprise only a bit more than 5 percent of the population, whole areas of Dutch cities have a majority of people who are recent immigrants and whose commitment to assimilation into the country’s norms is questionable. For example, polls show that much of the country’s Muslim population sympathizes with the September 11 attacks. Certainly, they disagree with the Netherlands’ rather libertarian views on women’s rights and homosexuality.

    One of the main arguments against mass immigration is that it is incredibly costly to Dutch taxpayers. It is possible to be suspicious of a report commissioned by Wilders showing that the cost is 7.2 billion Euros a year to a country of about 16 million people that means each citizen. But in fact that report was written by the country’s most respected independent think tank and is not that much higher than the government’s own estimate of 6 billion a year.

    And here’s where it gets interesting. For while the focus was on Wilders’ VVD, the second biggest winner was the mainstream conservative (in European terminology, liberal) People’s party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which went from 22 to 31 seats. The VVD favors lower taxes, smaller government, less government regulation. While Wilders often focuses his criticism on Islam itself, the VVD is quite critical of radical Islamism.

    And though the VVD’s positions are less extreme than Wilders, it also favors serious reductions in immigration, the closing of mosques where radical doctrines are preached, and the denial of social welfare payments for immigrants during their first decade in the country. These two parties received one-third of the vote and three Christian parties, from whose voters Wilders and the VVD obtained their increased support have somewhat similar stances.

    For instance, here’s what the platform of the Christian Union, the most liberal—in the American sense of that word—of these parties:

    ”Every Dutchman has the right to assembly, to religion and to express his opinion. But financial support of Dutch political, cultural and religious institutes from demonstrably non-free countries (such as Saudi-Arabia and Iran) is not permitted. It’s allowed to protect a free society from the importation of bondage.” It also supports banning the burqa from public buildings, public transport, and schools.

    A similar pattern emerges regarding stances toward Israel. Wilders is an outspoken supporter but the other parties are also sympathetic, though there is an anti-Israel minority in the VVD. The foreign minister, for example, a Christian Democrat, said that Israel was entitled to stop Gaza flotilla ships in international waters, refused to condemn Israel’s actions, and supports tough sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. While the four non-Wilders center-right parties are more nuanced in their attitude than decades ago, they are certainly not kneejerk anti-Israel in their positions.

    Thus, about 55 percent of Dutch voters backed parties that want a real change in key policies.
    Why is nothing dramatic likely to happen? Because 45 percent endorsed parties on the left and given the Dutch passion for consensus, the existence of so many parties, and the reluctance of several parties to bring Wilders’ party into government some kind of broad coalition will likely emerge.

    On the left, the largest party, Labour, led by former Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen, got less than half of the overall vote. It can be described now as the party of the Dutch status quo, that is, continuation of existing policies. Despite being led by a nominal Jew, it is very critical of Israel and totally uncritical of Hamas. The left favors increases in taxes and government regulations.

    Outsiders would view this situation of deadlock between two sides with such different visions of Dutch politics and society as a big problem. In contrast, the Dutch believe they thrive on this kind of paradox, finding some compromise to ease them through. Yet can a major crisis be long avoided given the economic and social issues faced by the Netherlands and so many other European states today?

    Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
  • Siddiqui: Turkish PM sets roadmap for better Israeli relations

    Siddiqui: Turkish PM sets roadmap for better Israeli relations

    By Haroon Siddiqui
    Editorial Page
    Note: This article has been edited from a previous version.

    Turkey has not given up its dream of joining the European Union. It
    has not become “anti-West.” It does not have any intention of cutting
    its longstanding relationship with Israel.

    That’s what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Star
    in an interview yesterday.

    But he added that relations with Israel will remain strained until
    Israel fulfills four conditions:

    *apologizes for the May 31 commando raid on the Turkish ship that was part of the flotilla taking humanitarian aid to Gaza;

    *pays compensation to the families of the nine people killed, eight
    Turks and one Turkish-American;

    *agrees to an international probe, as called for by UN
    Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon into the incident (as opposed to an
    Israeli inquiry); and

    *lifts its embargo on the Gaza Strip.

    Reminded that Israel has already announced an easing of the embargo,
    Erdogan said:

    “We’ve heard those statements but no steps have been taken. Similar
    statements have been made in the past.”

    He also suggested that Turkey is planning to sue Israel on behalf of
    the victims.

    Erdogan, in Toronto for the G20 summit, was to raise the issue with
    Barack Obama at a bilateral meeting last night. He was to augment his
    arguments with forensic pictures of and reports on the dead that he is
    carrying with him.

    Turkey, a member of NATO, has long been Israel’s best Muslim ally. But
    relations have been strained since the 2008-09 Gaza war, which Erdogan
    condemned and reportedly called Israel “the principal threat to peace
    in the Middle East.”

    There was Turkey’s initiative with Brazil for a compromise over the
    Iranian nuclear issue, which was rejected by Washington. Turkey voted
    against the U.S,-led resolution in the U.N. Security Council on fresh
    sanctions on Iran.

    And following the May 31 incident, Erdogan said that Israel had made
    “a historic mistake,” that “Israel risks losing its most important
    friend in the region if it does not change its mentality,” and that
    “peace and stability will not come to the region as long as the
    blockade of Gaza persists.”

    In the interview yesterday, Erdogan said the Gaza aid flotilla was
    organized by non-governmental organizations, was carrying volunteers
    from 33 nations, along with humanitarian aid – food, medicine, toys,
    construction material, etc.

    It was attacked “in international waters, 72 miles (….) out of the
    territorial waters of Israel. Unfortunately, guns and rifles and
    plastic bullets were used.”

    He said he is familiar with the argument that Israel has a right to
    defend itself. “Of course, you can protect your borders against armed
    people or against a military enemy, and you can consider such action
    in your own national borders.

    “But you have no right to do that in international waters …

    “I interpret this as state terror.”

    He said some of the dead had been shot “at close range,” “at point
    blank range,” “from the chest up,” “from behind the neck.”

    If the intent was not to kill, the plastic bullets could have been
    fired at below the knee level, he said.

    When the boats were towed to an Israeli port and the passengers held
    in custody, Erdogan said he called Obama, “and thanks to very intense
    efforts by the Americans, the people who had been held in prison were
    delivered to us within 24 hours.

    “So I am very grateful to President Obama for his intervention. If it
    hadn’t been for this very speedy response on the part of President
    Obama, things could have been more problematic.”

    Erdogan cited United Nations and other reports that Gaza is a
    humanitarian disaster, and added that the aid promised at a donors’
    conference is yet to be delivered. Destroyed infrastructure remains in
    ruins.

    Is Turkey becoming anti-Israeli?

    Not so.

    “I want to be very clear. In the Middle East, Turkey is the only
    friendly country to Israel, so much so that during the (Ehud) Olmert
    government, Turkey helped Israel hold indirect talks with Syria.

    “We held five rounds, the last one was in my official residence–for
    six hours, with Olmert present. We had gotten down to writing words
    for some sort of an agreement … That meeting was on a Monday. And we
    had decided that we will come back on Friday to complete the work.”

    That Friday meeting never took place, and on Saturday the “Israeli
    bombing of Gaza began.”

    As that Friday was approaching, the Israelis “weren’t answering our
    calls–must have been in preparation of the Gaza bombing. Earlier,
    whenever we had called, they’d always call back but this time they
    didn’t.”

    As Turkey pursues closer relations and increased trade with its
    neighbours, and is emerging as a strong regional player in the Middle
    East, is it turning away from the West?

    “That would be a very wrong conclusion. Turkey is developing contacts
    all over the world. But Turkey has not cut off relations with anyone.
    Such a thing is not on the agenda.”

    How about the European Union – has Turkey given up on it? U.S. Defence
    Secretary Robert Gates     recently blamed Europe for having “pushed and
    pushed”     Turkey away. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini agreed, saying, “We Europeans have made a mistake in pushing Turkey eastwards instead of bringing it towards us.”

    But Erdogan said Turkey still very much wants to join the EU.

    “We continue with determination to walk on the European path, despite
    the efforts on the part of the European Union to prevent the opening
    of some of the chapters that are part of the negotiations process.”

    hsiddiqui@thestar.ca, Jun 27 2010

  • US Warns Turkey to Stop Playing Both Sides

    US Warns Turkey to Stop Playing Both Sides

    Philip Gordon
    Philip Gordon, US Diplomat on EU Affairs

    On June 11, Turkey and Brazil both voted against further sanctions on Iran, a disappointing vote to the Obama Administration. On one hand, Turkey has applied to join the EU and is now a member of NATO, long hailed to be one of the only Muslim countries with a democracy and a western outlook. On the other hand Turkey has been strengthening ties with Iran. Turkey imports a significant portion of its natural gas from Iran and a Turkish company helped build the airport in Teheran. Turkey’s philosophy has changed, Turkey wants to play a significant role in regional relations. In order for that to occur it needs to develop its credibility with nations such as Syria and Iran.

    One way to accomplish that is to “play hardball” at the U.N. Turkey was of course aware of the fact that its vote would not prevent the sanctions resolution from passing but a negative vote would be appreciated by Iran. Another way is to minimize its relationship with Israel. And indeed, Erdogan’s administration that supported the flotilla to Israel eventually used its outcome to do so.

    US recognizes that Turkey is currently playing both sides, as Gordon added:

    “There is a lot of questioning going on about Turkey’s orientation and its ongoing commitment to strategic partnership with the United States,” he said. “Turkey, as a NATO ally and a strong partner of the United States not only didn’t abstain but voted no, and I think that Americans haven’t understood why.”

    www.worldofjudaica.com, Jun 26, 2010

  • Punishing Turkey

    Punishing Turkey

    giraldiDoes anyone remember the movie The Boys from Brazil?  It told the story of how a group of top Nazis had moved to Brazil where they made a number of clones of Hitler-as-a-child that were being strategically placed around the world to eventually bring about a Fourth Reich. The movie ended ambiguously, with many of the Hitler children still alive and evidently expected to eventually turn into Hitler adults.  The movie makers were clearly on to something because there have been a lot of Hitler sightings by Israel and its friends over the past few years.  Saddam Hussein was described as a new Hitler while Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been depicted in even more heinous terms as a reborn Nazi leader preparing a new Holocaust.  More recently Israel demonstrators have displayed effigies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the hairline altered and a moustache added to create a caricature of Hitler.

    The Turkish prime minister’s Hitler-like leanings first appeared when he dared confront Israel’s President Shimon Peres at an international meeting in Davos in January 2009.  Referring to the slaughter of Gazan civilians earlier that month, Erdogan told Peres “…you know well how to kill.”  But if there was any lingering doubt, Erdogan definitely became Hitler through his support of the flotilla that sought to bring aid to Gaza three weeks ago followed by his denunciation of the massacre initiated by Israeli commandos. His diabolical intent was made manifest when he then demanded justice for the nine Turkish citizens who were murdered.  Hitlerization is the price one inevitably pays for criticizing Israel or opposing its policies.

    Whenever Israel discovers that yet another foreign nation has turned Nazi and is intent on recreating the Holocaust, the American lap dog soon picks up the scent.  Andrew Sullivan has recently described the phenomenon as “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” which he describes as a “…form of derangement, or of such a passionate commitment to a foreign country that any and all normal moral rules or even basic fairness are jettisoned.  And you will notice one thing as well: no regret whatsoever for the loss of human life, just as the hideous murder of so many civilians in the Gaza war had to be the responsibility of the victims, not the attackers.  There is no sense of the human here; just the tribe.”

    The Gaza flotilla has been handled by the mainstream media in precisely that fashion – blaming the victim with a unanimity that overwhelms both justice and fairness.  No humanity, no mention of the deliberate attempt to starve Gaza most recently endorsed by alleged United States Senator from New York Charles Schumer who said “strangle them economically.”  Or, if one prefers the wisdom of Representative Eliot Engel, also from New York, the flotilla was “filled with hate-filled provocateurs bent on violence.”  Confronted by such hatred it is surprising that the Israeli commandos were so restrained, killing only nine passengers and wounding about forty more.

    As the popular narrative in the media has unfolded, Turkey was the aggressor and Israel yet again the victim.  Turkey now has to be punished.  Congress is already considering passing the frequently shelved Armenian Genocide resolution and Representative Mike Spence warns “There will be a cost if Turkey stays on its present heading of growing closer to Iran and more antagonistic to the State of Israel.”  Representative Shelley Berkley agrees, saying that she would actively oppose Turkey’s attempt to join the European Union.   Just exactly how she will do that is not completely clear.

    The American media and the punditry in Washington has obediently been lining up to condemn Ankara, using two basic arguments.  The first contention is that Turkey has become a stronghold of Islamism, is edging towards a political and economic alliance with Iran, and is even acting friendly to terrorism-supporting neighbors like Syria.  The second narrative is that Turkey is no longer reliable due to its support of initiatives like the flotilla and also its bid to negotiate a solution to the Iranian nuclear program dilemma.

    Those who know Turkey well realize that the country’s Islamism is a reflection of the simple fact that many Turks are deeply religious.  It does not mean that Turkish democracy is dead and the desire to make the state more reflective of religious sentiment will be held in check by the many Turks in the judiciary and military who see themselves as guardians of the secular constitution. Educated Turks in liberal urban environments are also frequently not religious at all and many are hostile to expressions of piety.  It is absolutely in the United States’ national interest to encourage the development of political systems in Muslim majority countries that accommodate both democratic pluralism and religiosity.  Turkey is far from perfect but it is a good example of how such a system might develop and should be encouraged, not subject to criticism that really has nothing to do with the Turks themselves and everything to do with Israel.

    As for the claim that Turkey is sliding eastward, Turks have always seen themselves as a bridge between east and west and establishing a modus vivendi with one’s neighbors is just good politics and good business in the Near East.  As for the charge that Turkey is no longer reliable, one only has to note that nearly the entire world excepting only Israel supports the lifting of the siege of Gaza while many nations welcomed Turkey and Brazil’s initiative to resolve the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  The United States, inevitably lining up in support of Israel and seemingly willing to go to war with Iran on Tel Aviv’s behalf, is, as usual, politically isolated in its support of policies that will go nowhere and accomplish nothing.

    The hysteria about Turkey is, if anything, more intense at the various neocon think tanks and in their websites on the internet where leading supporters of Israel are calling not only for punishing Turkey but also for kicking it out of NATO.  The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) has led the charge.  JINSA is the home base of leading neocons to include John Bolton, Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle and Kenneth Timmerman.  A JINSA report issued on June 8th cited Turkey for its “anti-Semitic ravings” and recommended that Washington “seriously consider suspending military cooperation…as a prelude to removing it” from NATO.  The hue and cry was shortly thereafter picked up by the other neocon heroes who continue to feature on the mainstream media in spite of their inability to get anything right.  The National Review Online’s Victor Davis Hanson called Turkey a “…sponsor of Hamas, ally of theocratic Iran, and fellow traveler with terrorist sponsoring Syria” conditions that are “antithetical to its NATO membership.”  Professor Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University added in a June 7th Wall Street Journal op-ed that “A combination of Islamist rule, resentment at exclusion from Europe, and a neo-Ottomanist ideology that envisions Turkey as a great power in the Middle East have made Turkey a state that is often plainly hostile not only to Israel but to American aims and interests.”

    In a Weekly Standard article on June 21st, Elliot Abrams chimed in with more of the same, observing that “it’s obvious that our formerly reliable NATO ally Turkey has become a staunch supporter of the radical camp. In the flotilla incident, it not only sided with but also sought to strengthen the terrorist group Hamas.”  As always the neocons speak with one voice in defense of Israel, making it appear that the entire process is orchestrated, which, of course, it is.  Will the neocons marginalize Ankara and succeed in forcing Turkey out of NATO?  Difficult to say, but one should fully expect moves by Congress to do just that or to pressure Turkey in such a way as to make Ankara withdraw from the alliance.

    Turkey is a vital strategic partner for Washington. With its large population and thriving economy, it might well be the indispensible nation in the arc of states running from the Mediterranean to central Asia.  It has a long history of friendship towards the United States combined with a national interest that compels it to encourage stability among the countries that it borders and more broadly throughout the Middle East.  In spite of misgivings about specific policies, it houses a major US airbase at Incirlik and has supported Washington’s nation building efforts in Afghanistan.  But now it must be punished because it has crossed the line by opposing the kleptocracy Israel.  And it will be punished, first pilloried in the US media, a process which is underway right now, and then by the US Congress and White House, which will together find some subtle and not-so-subtle ways to bring Ankara to heel.  And the loser in all of this will be the American people, who will alienate a good and staunch friend in the Middle East and make another unnecessary enemy.

    https://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2010/06/23/punishing-turkey/, June 24, 2010