How the Israeli Army became the most prolific innovation engine on earth.
Johnathan Torgovnik for Newsweek
Soldier/Civilian: Israeli innovation benefits from the mix.
By Dan Senor and Saul Singer | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 14, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 23, 2009
How does Israel—with fewer people than the state of New Jersey, no natural resources, and hostile nations all around—produce more tech companies listed on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, and China combined? How does Israel attract, per person, 30 times as much venture capital as Europe and more than twice the flow to American companies? How does it produce, for its size, the most cutting-edge technology startups in the world?
There are many components to the answer, but one of the most central and surprising is the Israeli military’s role in breaking down hierarchies and—serendipitously—becoming a boot camp for new tech entrepreneurs.
While students in other countries are preoccupied with deciding which college to attend, Israeli high-school seniors are readying themselves for military service—three years for men, two for women—and jockeying to be chosen by elite units in the Israeli military, known as the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF.
As selective as the top Israeli universities are, certain commando, intelligence, Air Force, and high-tech IDF units are even more so. The prestige of these units makes them the national equivalent of Harvard, Stanford, and MIT for the Israeli tech world. Even outside the elite units, the military experience of Israeli job applicants tells prospective employers what kind of selection process they navigated, and what skills and relevant experience they may already possess.
For Americans, the idea that military service can be great training for business is surprising. “Innovation” is hardly the first word most people associate with the military. “Improvisation” is even less likely to come to mind. And “flat”—as in anti-hierarchical and informal—would be completely counterintuitive. Yet these are exactly the attributes that employers have come to expect from young people emerging from their stint in the IDF.
Talk to an Israeli Air Force pilot and you will see why. “If most air forces are designed like a Formula One race car, the Israeli Air Force is a beat-up jeep with a lot of tools in it,” one pilot told us. A U.S. Air Force “strike package” often consists of four waves of specialized aircraft: a combat air patrol to clear a corridor of enemy aircraft; a second wave to suppress enemy antiaircraft systems; a third wave of electronic-warfare aircraft, refueling tankers, and radar aircraft; and, finally, the strikers themselves—planes with bombs. In the Israeli system, almost every aircraft is a jack-of-all-trades. “You do it yourself,” one pilot noted. “It’s not as effective, but it’s a hell of a lot more flexible.”
The Israeli business culture’s emphasis on multidisciplinary skills—on everyone being able to operate in many sectors—rather than an intense and narrow focus in one area flows directly from the military culture. It also produces mashups: the combination of radically different technologies and disciplines.
Given Imaging, for example, is the Israeli startup behind the PillCam. The company’s founders took the miniaturized sensing systems from the nose cones of fighter jets to create a swallowable camera. The PillCam weighs 4 grams, and can beam a movie from inside a patient’s intestine out to a doctor’s monitor in the same room or across the globe. This is making some highly invasive and painful diagnostic surgeries all but obsolete. Given Imaging, listed on the NASDAQ, was the first company to go public after September 11, 2001.
The three founders of biotech mashup Compugen—president Eli Mintz, chief technology officer Simchon Faigler, and software chief Amir Natan—met in the IDF. Twenty-five of the 60 mathematicians in the company joined through the founders’ network of Army contacts. While still in the Army, Mintz created algorithms for sifting through reams of intelligence data to find the nuggets that have been so critical to Israel’s successes in hunting terrorist networks. When his wife, a geneticist, described the problems they had in analyzing enormous collections of genetic data, Mintz and his partners sought to revolutionize the process of genetic sequencing.
The American corporate giant Merck bought Compugen’s first sequencer in 1994, a year after the startup was founded and long before the human genome had been successfully mapped.
The IDF also offers recruits another valuable experience: a unique space within Israeli society where young men and women work closely and intensely with peers from different cultural, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds. A young Jew from Ethiopia, the son of an Iranian immigrant, a native-born Israeli from a swanky Tel Aviv suburb, and a kibbutznik from a farming family might all meet in the same unit. They’ll spend two to three years serving together full time, and then spend another 20-plus years of annual service in the reserves.
Not surprisingly, many business connections are made during the long hours of operations, guard duty, and training. This gives young Israelis a tight-knit network with global reach. Two out of three Israelis are immigrants or the children of immigrants. The military is much better than college for inculcating young leaders with a sense of social range.
But the military can also do something much more counterintuitive: it breaks down hierarchies. Normally, when one thinks of military culture, what comes to mind is unwavering obedience to superiors. But the IDF doesn’t fit that description. One way that the IDF exhibits a flat, non-hierarchical culture—more like a startup than a large corporation—is that it works to drill responsibility down to lower levels. “The IDF is deliberately understaffed at senior levels. It means that there are fewer senior officers to issue commands,” says Edward Luttwak, a military historian. “Fewer senior officials means more individual initiative at the lower ranks.”
In the reserves, which are the backbone of the Israeli military in time of war, this flatness and dispersion of responsibility is most pronounced. Hierarchy is naturally diminished when taxi drivers can command millionaires and 23-year-olds can train their uncles. This helps to reinforce that chaotic, anti-hierarchical ethos that can be found in Israeli society, from war room to classroom to boardroom.
It creates an openness to challenging, debating, and probing—even of one’s superiors—that permeates the Israeli startup scene; it helps produce unconventional solutions to tough business problems. Nati Ron is a lawyer in his civilian life and a lieutenant colonel who commands an Army unit in the reserves. “Rank is almost meaningless in the reserves,” he says. “A private will tell a general in an exercise, ‘You are doing this wrong; you should do it this way.’ “
This is not to say that soldiers aren’t expected to obey orders. But, as Amos Goren, a venture-capital investor with Apax Partners in Tel Aviv and a veteran Israeli commando, says, “Israeli soldiers are not defined by rank; they are defined by what they are good at.”
Innovation often depends on having a different perspective. Perspective comes from experience. Real experience also typically comes with age or maturity. But in Israel, you get experience, perspective, and maturity at a younger age, because the society jams in so many transformative experiences when its citizens are 18 to 21 years old. By the time they get to college, their heads are in a different place than those of their American counterparts.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 45 percent of Israelis are university-educated, which is among the highest percentages in the world. But is it really the university, or is it the fact that Israel is the only country where most university students have also had a crucible leadership experience before they even begin their post-secondary education? Or perhaps it’s that Israel’s university students get so much more out of the college classroom because—unlike American students—by the time they go to campus they are far more mature and grounded. By their early 20s, they know the true meaning of “life and death,” and—as one Israeli general told us—the “value of five minutes” when having to make high-stakes decisions in the fog of ambiguity. That’s a skill that’s just as valuable on the corporate battlefield as on a real one.
LIVE TALK WITH MR. ADNAN OKTAR AND RABBI MENACHEM FROMAN
(from the TV program on Kanal Urfa TV, Adıyaman TV and Kral Karadeniz TV, November 10th, 2009)
Rabbi Froman with his wife Hadasah
PRESENTER: Today we have very important guests. A very well known rabbi and his dear wife. Mrs. Hadassa and Mr. Froman are with us. First of all, wellcome. Wellcome to the studio.
RABBI FROMAN: Thank you.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah. Yes Mr. Froman is such a person who is compassionate, loving the Turkish, seeking peace, seeking beauty between countries. A very precious person. Now you can translate what I said. Mrs. Hadassa is also very precious. They love each other so much insha’Allah. They’ve been married for years now. His wife is also Jewish. She is full of love for Turkey. And we love them so much. Untill the Last Day, both Israel and Turkey will live in friendship and brotherhood insha’Allah. Look, it mentions the courage of Salahaddin Ayyubi, who is Kurdish you know, Salahaddin Ayyubi. Kurdish, Turkish, Circassians, Laz, we are all brothers. Jews are also our flesh and blood insha’Allah. Christians are also our brothers, our flesh and blood. Our Muslim nation is already our soul insha’Allah. Together we will have a brotherly, happy, carefree, troublefree, thornless, beautiful life until the Doomsday. They are entrusted to us from the Prophet Moses (pbuh), the Prophet Abraham (pbuh). Insha’Allah we don’t let anybody touch even their single hair, by the leave of Allah. They will live so comfortably, in tranquility and security, insha’Allah. In Israel, they will also be in peace and calm. We will demolish those walls. Those protective walls in Israel. There will no more be anarchy and terror. They will live in such joy in the Turkish Islamic Union. Isha’Allah Rabbi Froman will come here, they will travel in composure, we do not accept any kind of danger for them. Our Palestinian brothers will also be at ease, Syria will also be at ease, Iraq will also be at ease, Armenia will also be at ease. Insha’Allah they will live peacefully in the compassion and mercy of the Turkish Islamic Union. There will be full freedom for worship, they will worship as they wish insha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: First of all we have to thank Allah. That’s the beginning of everything, Bismillah. I want to thank Allah that brought me here from Jerusalem to Istanbul this afternoon. And I have no words how to express my obligation to Allah that gave me such a great grace to come here.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah, Masha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: Then after we thank the messengers, the messengers of God Who brought, Who brings His grace to us and now I want to thank Harun Yahya for bringing me from Jerusalem to Istanbul and hosted me in such, me and my wife, in such a generous and nice way and I have no else way of how to again thank him for such an expression of the grace, of course. I thank God that we met. I thank God that He decided to bring me here. And I am obliged to this world of grace to continue the channel of grace that Harun Yahya began.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: This invitation is a proof, is against satan against iblis. Satan, iblis tries to convince everybody in the world that Islam is a religion of hatred that the more you are Muslim the more you hate Jews, Americans, Europeans. And we have to stone iblis, we have to stone satan, to throw stones against him. And this invitation, a kind invitation of Harun Yahya is a very concrete stone against satan. Another lie of satan is that necessarily there is hatred between Jews and Palestinians in the Holy City. Harun Yahya have not invited only me, he invited with me a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine, and my family, my wife, Sheikh Bukhari who is going to come in a few minutes. Perhaps he is now in the airport I don’t know. And we are going to be here together as two men from Jerusalem, two men from the Holy Land. One Jew and the other is Palestinian. One is Rabbi, the other is a Sheikh, as good friends, and as together, by the grace of God Who sent us Harun Yahya. We want to, again, stone satan that lies that necessarily that there’s hatred between Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land.
ADNAN OKTAR: By Allah’s leave, it will be like this until the Last Day, insha’Allah. In any case, we will never let anyone do any harm to the Children of the Prophet Abraham (pbuh), to the Children of the Prophet Moses (pbuh). One is the Children of the Prophet Jacob (pbuh) and the other is the Children of the Prophet Ishmael (pbuh). As you know Arabs, the Palestinians are the Children of the Prophet Ishmael (pbuh). And these beautiful beings are the Children of the Prophet Jacob (pbuh). Both are the Children of the Prophet Abraham (pbuh). By Allah’s leave, we will never let anyone touch even their single hair. No country can harm Palestine nor Israel, no one can harm Jerusalem. From now on, an age of peace will prevail. This century is the century when the Turkish Islamic Union will form. A century, which everyone will live in peace. For instance, Israel will be a national state, Iran will be a national state, Turkey will be a national state but the Turkish Islamic Union will be formed. This will be a union of hearts, love and affection. We will make peace prevail in the whole region, insha’Allah with the emergence of Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). This will be consolidated by the emergence of the Messiah (pbuh).
RABBI FROMAN: I want to say something, personal, little personal. For years I thought that Turkiye has the historical task to bring peace to the region. I think that we have to, three years I thought, that we have to reestablish the Ottoman Empire not of course the Empire of army, of conquering but empire of love, empire of Islam, empire of salam. Because Islam is from salam, it is the same word. By inviting me and other Jews, other Rabbis Harun Yahya represents the whole Turkish nation. I remember after years of thinking that Turkiye is the fact of, is the state that can bring us peace. “Us”, I mean the Palestinians and the Israelis, the Jews and the Arabs. I was in the middle of one of my lectures I said. We’ve many students together and I forgot to lock my mobile and then in the middle of the lecture I have a call. I asked, “Who is speaking?,” “Seda Aral from Istanbul” and she invited me to come to Istanbul and to meet her teacher and to begin a period of peace. For me it is like a miracle. It is like a great grace of God that I was thinking. What I was thinking about the task of the Turkish Nation and God sent me the telephone from Istanbul in the middle of my lecture, in the middle of my speaking to my students and invited me to come and to begin a period of peace.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: I want to add something more.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: A few months ago I was invited by the special messenger of President Obama to Washington by George Mitchell. He invited me to meet him and to think together how to bring peace to the Holy Land. I came again with an Arab friend with a Palestinian friend – a Sheikh, Sheikh Manasra his name. Together we came to Washington and we sat with George Mitchell and his coop and we spoke about the ways of how to bring peace to the Holy Land. Half of the time of the long meeting that we had, we talked, I and my Palestine friend, about Turkiye. About the task of Turkiye. We tried to explain to Mr. Mitchell, to Senator Mitchell that the power that can bring peace to the Holy Land is the Turkish-Union. And he was so moved. When he was departing he said that in the end of the conversation: “I am very moved from what you say, Rabbi Froman.” And I got a very clear impression that the result of the conversation will be a visit of President Obama in Ankara in Turkiye. There after I came here as the guest of Harun Yahya and I was interviewed by many Turkish journalists and I said, “Look here I see that very soon President Obama will come here.” They looked at me like, I don’t know, lunatic. It was in the quite in the beginning of the period of Obama. After 3 weeks I think or 4 weeks, I heard in the radio President Obama chose Turkiye as the first country in the Middle East that he is visiting. It was I think 3 months after he was elected. I think that the task of Turkiye to make peace in the whole region and especially in the Holy Land will be recognized very soon by the whole world. If the Turkish nation will work for this historical task, national task that they have, the whole world will honor the whole of Turkiye in the region in the whole world.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah, Alhamdulillah.
RABBI FROMAN: I want to add something, perhaps for the end of the program. From history of this evening, in this evening after being hosted so kindly, so generously by your students, by your followers, I wanted to pray. We, the Jews pray to the direction of Jerusalem. So I asked Ali and Emre, I wanted to know what is the direction of Jerusalem in my apartment. One of them perhaps Ali, one of your students said, “You know that Istanbul is a place perhaps the only place in the world, the direction of Jerusalem and the direction of Mecca, the kiblah is the same direction, exactly the same direction. From Istanbul if you pray to God, you pray to God in Jerusalem, in the temple in Jerusalem, you pray to God in the mosque of Mecca.” So that gives this place Istanbul a very significant importance, very significant importance in the whole world. I hope that the Turkish nation led by Harun Yahya will fulfill this historical task.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah, Masha’Allah. My leadership can be such that it only can be an intellectual leadership. It cannot be physical leadership. It does not mean a political leadership. It is an intellectual leadership, leadership of hearts. May Allah let me be a means in this task, insha’Allah. Masha’Allah. Israel and Israelis as a whole, are entrusted to us by Allah. Children of Ishmael (pbuh) are entrusted to us by Allah, Children of Jacob (pbuh) are also entrusted to us by Allah. Turks will fulfill the task of leadership perfectly with their beautiful souls full of love, full of kindness and full of compassion. This is destiny insha’Allah. Allah created it as it is in the destiny, the whole world will see it. Turkish nation will bring ease, abundance, wealth and peace not only to a certain region but to the whole world, insha’Allah. Allah will make this nation a means to fulfill this task as a leader insha’Allah. Masha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: And in the end perhaps we should finish with the beginning of the program Kemal Ataturk. One of the lies of the satan is that you can oppose God. But Allahu Akbar, everything that is happening in the world, in the end helps, supports the word of God. I am not surprised from what you read from Kemal Ataturk. Every positive man, every positive party is the deed of God and for me if Kemal Ataturk is a positive figure, then he is supporting religion and not against religion. That’s what I mean what I say, when I say several times a day “Allahu Akbar”. Allahu Akbar means that even those factors that in our eyes, in the first time are seen to be against the power of Allah, in the end it is very clear that they support the word of Allah. With this perhaps we can be sure that the victory of Allah, Whose one of the nicest names is “Salam” is “peace.” You can be sure that “Allahu Akbar” means peace will win victory, peace will win victory. Allahu Akbar.
ADNAN OKTAR: Masha’Allah, Masha’Allah. Masha’Allah. Our Ataturk, our pride. If it wasn’t Ataturk, Allah forbid I can’t even imagine what could happen. He granted this holy, this beautiful country to us to completely protect it, isn’t it? We are free, democrat, republican, we have the freedom of thought, we speak as we like, we perform our prayers as we like. We live in a modern country. It is a great blessing for everyone to express his ideas. There is no bigotry, no fanaticism. Ataturk didn’t allow communism, he also didn’t allow fascism, of course. He said: “Gentlemen, not to forget, the biggest foe of the Turkish nation is communism. In every condition it should be crashed wherever it is seen.” he says. He never allowed. At his time they made so much pressure, yet he never allowed anyone. He never allowed the fascists, he never allowed the communists. In his ideal there was always the Turkish Islamic Union. One day the Turkic nations will unite, the Islamic world will unite. It will bring peace to the whole region. His wonderful ideal is about to be realized. There is too little left insha’Allah. Turkey is insha’Allah in duty as a nation to make the world live in peace, with love, friendship, brotherhood, modernity, republicanism, democracy, humanity and beauty; and to encourage and protect it. Our heroic army and our heroic nation has this excellent mission insha’Allah. It should not be forgotten that in every condition communism should be crashed wherever it is. So he did not allow communism and fascism. I will recite you a verse from the Qur’an. Surat az-Zumar, 41: “We have sent down to you the Book for mankind with truth. So whoever is guided is guided to his own good and whoever is misguided, it is to his detriment. You are not set over them as a guardian.” There are very beautiful words in the Torah compatible with the Qur’an. Some of which are unchanged words, Allah knows the truth. For example from the Proverbs: “Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path.”Look how beautiful, for example it says: “for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.” For example, it says: “Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. You will be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging. “They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt! They beat me, but I don’t feel it! When will I wake up so I can find another drink?” It says “Wisdom is too high for a fool”. (It says that the wisdom is unreachable for a fool. It says for example that “He who plots evil will be known as a schemer.” It says, “The schemes of folly are sin”, that is, scheming, the schemes of folly are sin. It says, “men detest a mocker”. Mocking is not a good thing. Everybody hates a mocker. Insha’Allah.
RABBI FROMAN: So your teacher read the Holy Qur’an and read the Wisdom of Solomon and this is no wonder that the words of Qur’an and the words of Solomon are going in the same direction. Because these Books are the words of God, those Books are the words of One God. So that’s exactly the direction that we have to go, in the direction of your teacher to find the word of God in Turkish, in Arabic, in English, in Hebrew, in every language in this Book, in this Book, in all the books of God, all the Books that God has given us in order to guide us to the right direction which is of course the way to Him, to Himself. His name again and again I remember, that in Arabic and in Hebrew the very name of God is Salam or Shalom. And he works for God, he works for Shalom.
ADNAN OKTAR: Of course Judaism and Islam are particularly very much alike. We believe in One Allah, we believe in all the Prophets, we believe in the angels, we believe in the Hereafter, our belief in the Hereafter is the same. There’s also daily prayer (salat) in Judaism, the Jews also take ablution and pray. There are video shootings about that. They fast as well. The adultery is forbidden, the theft, killing of innocent people are forbidden as well. Loving your neighbors, protecting them are also ordered (fardh) in the Torah.
Tensions in the Turkey- Israel relations will not affect the deep Jewish-Turkish friendship, National Director of the giant U.S. organization Anti–Defamation League, Abraham Foxman said, CNN Turk reported.
“This is an old and strong friendship and therefore new problems [between Turkey and Israel] cannot affect it,” Foxman said at the meeting on the relations of the Turkish and Jewish communities.
Tensions between the two strategic partners arose after Ankara’s refusal to participate in joint military trainings with Israel on the backdrop of Turkey’s rapprochement with Syria and Iran.
“If Turkey wants to be close to the Arab and Middle Eastern countries – there is no problem. But why should it be to the prejudice of the Turkish-Jewish friendship,” Foxman said. “I hope these tensions will be temporary in nature.”
Regarding the 1915 “Armenian genocide”, Foxman said the Anti-Defamation League’s position on this issue remains unchanged.
According to Foxman, the problem of the “Armenian genocide” should be solved between Turkey and Armenia, but not in the U.S. Congress or in the French Parliament.
The draft resolution urging the Obama administration to recognize the so-called 1915 “Armenian genocide” at the Ottoman Empire was submitted to the Senate of the U.S. Congress on Oct.28. Senators Robert Menendez (Democrat from New Jersey) and John Ensign (Republican, Nevada) are the authors of the resolution, ITAR-TASS said.
The Israel-Palestine peace process – a top foreign-policy objective of the Obama administration – faces continued challenges after months of intense diplomatic talks engineered by George Mitchell, the U.S. envoy for the Middle East. These negotiations have produced a mere handshake between U.S. President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, without being able to produce any framework for an ongoing peace process.
Obama’s tough rhetoric against Netanyahu backfired, said Ami Ayalon, the former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service, and former commander in chief of the navy after a panel discussion at the J Street conference in Washington, D.C. The initial stalemate was presented by Netanyahu as a victory, which was in reality a mere defense of the status quo, he added. Ayalon also stated that after this first round of diplomacy, Obama started to be viewed as a collaborator with the current Israeli administration, which created some questions in the Arab world regarding the degree to which he can uphold his strong stance against Israeli demands.
Under these circumstances, I asked Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of the J Street movement, to describe his organization to me. “[J Street] is the political voice of American Jews and other Americans who believe that it is in our best interests and as well as that of Israel to end the conflict with the Palestinians and to have a two-state solution and a comprehensive peace process in the Middle East.”
J Street, with a history a mere 18 months in the making, attracted thousands of supporters, the support of hundreds of the members of Congress, high-profile attendees and the Obama administration’s unequivocal backing last week. The Obama administration has shown its support by sending the National Security Adviser, Ret. General James L. Jones, to represent the President and to speak at the conference. Gen. Jones concluded that “this U.S. administration will participate in J Street’s other activities in the future.” On the other hand, while J Street hosted many members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, the one person who shied away from the conference was Israel’s ambassador to Washington, D.C., Michael Oren. According to the statement that was released by the Israeli embassy, there were “concerns over certain policies of the organization that may impair the interests of Israel.”
One would rightly ask why is it that this new movement attracted so much attention and sparked a range of discussion in America and across the globe, while Israel already has a mighty lobby, centered around the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, in Washington, D.C., an organization that has been staunchly and unequivocally defending Israel’s policies? What is it that makes J Street so unique to draw thousands of participants, many of whom come from the other states and places as far away as Jerusalem?
I attended most meetings of the conference for two-and-a-half days to receive answers to these questions. I met many ordinary participants as well as religious leaders, rabbis and humanitarian workers from Jerusalem. I met a couple of the participants during the “Jewish Community Town Hall” meeting, after speeches by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism and Jeremy Ben-Ami. After these speeches, the crowd discussed some of the questions of the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the Israeli-Arab peace process in general. Two participants were from Oxfam International, a confederation of 14 organizations working in more than 70 countries to find permanent solutions to poverty and injustice. One of these participants was John Prideaux-Brune, Oxfam’s country director, who has been living in Jerusalem and Gaza for about five years.
John said that Israel still occupies Gaza from the sea, land and air, even if it claims officially it does no longer do so. According to the Geneva Conventions, Israel has to allow humanitarian help to enter Gaza. However, John argues, what is allowed to go into Gaza is incredibly limited. For example, macaroni cannot get in because it is considered a luxury food item. Israel only allows about 100 trucks of food to go in to Gaza a day, as opposed to 600-700 trucks before the Gaza conflict. Cement or any other construction materials are not allowed by the border officials as they could be used to make tunnels. His frustration goes further by talking about the terrible circumstances the Gazans live under; ordinary Jewish-American people also sitting at our table are equally angry and add their own criticisms to his frustrations. Another Jewish-American participant who is equally frustrated by the Israeli government’s harsh treatment of the Gazan people was Naftali Kaminski, a doctor, who joined the conference from Pittsburgh.
Therefore, the first reason for J Street’s success and wide popularity undoubtedly comes from the grassroots support of ordinary American Jews who are tired of Israel’s grinding policies in Gaza and stubborn settlement practices. The grassroots support is, I believe, the most important element for any organization to be effective and apparently J Street has it all. There is another very important reason for J Street’s immediate success, which is that it coincided perfectly with a new U.S. administration coming into office. J Street’s close relationship with and support of the Obama administration was seen very clearly during the conference and this special relation apparently makes the organization’s mission to fill a gap in American politics even stronger. J Street defends many parallel policies that fit well with the Obama administration’s plans, such as the two-state solution and a complete freeze of the settlements. It was also interesting to see that whenever a panelist talked about a two-state solution, criticized Israel for what it did during the last Gaza war or called for ending the occupation, the J Street crowd roared and applauded excitedly.
Even though J Street received heavy flak from AIPAC and other hard-line right-wing Israeli factions in respect to their criticism of Israel’s policies, the open-minded discussions and honest debates on the panels were exhilarating and personally lifted my hopes for the peace process. To see a crowd in an inaugural conference describe themselves ‘pro-Israel,’ but stand up against the country’s many wrong-headed policies gained my deep respect.
PS. Washington, D.C. marks its streets with letters, and J is missing from the actual map.
Ankara has healed relations with and between its neighbours. But it cannot bring itself to be diplomatic with Israel
Stephen Kinzer
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 October 2009 17.00 GMT
Article history
This week’s visit to Iran by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is to be warmly welcomed. Turkey is playing a highly positive new role in the Middle East. It seeks to be a conciliator, a mediator, a peacemaker. Reaching out to Iran is an ideal way for it to play this role.
Turkish leaders have spent several years pursuing a goal they call “zero problems with neighbours“. They have been highly successful. Turkey is on good terms with Greece, Bulgaria and Iraq. As for Syria, with which it almost went to war a decade ago, visa requirements have been abolished, and foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu asserted in Aleppo earlier this month that the two countries share “a joint destiny, a joint history and a joint future”. This came just days after Turkey’s highly promising breakthrough with Armenia, under which their border is to be reopened and diplomatic relations restored after a 16-year break.
Now Turkey is moving to a second, even more ambitious stage of its regional policy: “no problems between neighbours.” Its leaders realise that Turkey’s future prospects depend on regional stability, and are actively seeking to resolve disputes in the neighbourhood. Because of its size, its economic power, its history and its well-developed though still incomplete democracy, Turkey is uniquely placed to be both a model and a broker.
For most of Turkey’s modern history, the Muslim world has seen it as an apostate. Atatürk’s reforms pulled it so far from Islam that it seemed to have no religious legitimacy. Besides, it was perceived as Washington’s lackey, stigmatised by its embrace of American policies that many Muslims found abhorrent.
Neither of those objections applies to Turkey today. It is governed by pious Muslims and has its own foreign policy. Its leaders are warmly welcomed in many places where, in the past, they would not even have cared to visit.
Under other circumstances, Egypt, Pakistan or Iran might have emerged to lead the Muslim world. Their societies, however, are weak, fragmented and decomposing. Indonesia is a more promising candidate, but it has no historic tradition of leadership and is far from the centre of Muslim crises. That leaves Turkey – which, by happy coincidence, is eager to play this role.
One dark spot, however, has emerged to blot this happy picture. Turkey has begun to distance itself from Israel. This month it cancelled its participation in a joint military manoeuvre with the Israeli defence forces. Its leaders speak out angrily against Israeli policies – most notably prime minister Erdoğan, who at this year’s Davos conference denounced Israel’s invasion of Gaza as a “crime against humanity”. One of the region’s most important relationships is fraying.
Turkish leaders are allowing emotion to affect their attitude toward Israel. They are understandably angry over Israeli misdeeds. If Turkey is to be a bridge among nations, though, it cannot afford gratuitously to alienate any. The United States has brought itself much grief by isolating Iran; it would be just as foolish for Turkey to reject Israel.
Like Iran, Israel is a pariah in many circles, and is frozen out of Middle East security arrangements. This is bad for all parties. Pushing Israel into a corner, or making Israel feel that it is alone and friendless, does not serve the cause of peace.
Turkey has a history of excellent relations with Jews, and was one of the first countries to recognise Israel. Turning its back on that legacy, as it has apparently begun to do, contradicts its new diplomatic role as a broker of compromise. The contribution Turkey can make by playing that role is far greater than the feel-good effect of lashing out emotionally at Israel’s excesses.
For Turkey to strengthen ties with Iran is good – as long as it does not turn its back on the United States. For it to cultivate relations with Hamas and Hezbollah is also good – but not if it breaks with Israel. Turkey shows unique promise as a regional peacemaker. To play that role, however, it must follow a cardinal rule that the US has for years ignored: shape foreign policy according to national interest, not emotion.
The foreign ministers of Turkey and Syria met in Aleppo in October 2009.
“There is no doubt he is our friend,” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, says of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as he accuses Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Gaza. These outrageous assertions point to the profound change of orientation by Turkey’s government, for six decades the West’s closest Muslim ally, since Erdoğan’s AK party came to power in 2002.
Three events this past month reveal the extent of that change. The first came on October 11 with the news that the Turkish military – a long-time bastion of secularism and advocate of cooperation with Israel – abruptly asked Israeli forces not to participate in the annual “Anatolian Eagle” air force exercise.
Erdoğan cited “diplomatic sensitivities” for the cancelation and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu spoke of “sensitivity on Gaza, East Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque.” The Turks specifically rejected Israeli planes that may have attacked Hamas (an Islamist terrorist organization) during last winter’s Gaza Strip operation. While Damascus applauded the disinvitation, it prompted the U.S. and Italian governments to withdraw their forces from Anatolian Eagle, which in turn meant canceling the international exercise.
As for the Israelis, this “sudden and unexpected” shift shook to the core their military alignment with Turkey, in place since 1996. Former air force chief Eytan Ben-Eliyahu, for example, called the cancelation “a seriously worrying development.” Jerusalem immediately responded by reviewing Israel’s practice of supplying Turkey with advanced weapons, such as the recent $140 million sale to the Turkish Air Force of targeting pods. The idea also arose to stop helping the Turks defeat the Armenian genocide resolutions that regularly appear before the U.S. Congress.
Ministers of the Turkish and Syrian governments met at the border town of Öncüpınar and symbolically lifted a bar dividing their two countries on October 13.
Barry Rubin of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya not only argues that “The Israel-Turkey alliance is over” but concludes that Turkey’s armed forces no longer guard the secular republic and can no longer intervene when the government becomes too Islamist.
The second event took place two days later, on October 13, when Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem announced that Turkish and Syrian forces had just “carried out maneuvers near Ankara.” Moallem rightly called this an important development “because it refutes reports of poor relations between the military and political institutions in Turkey over strategic relations with Syria.” Translation: Turkey’s armed forces lost out to its politicians.
Thirdly, ten Turkish ministers, led by Davutoğlu, joined their Syrian counterparts on October 13 for talks under the auspices of the just-established “Turkey-Syria High Level Strategic Cooperation Council.” The ministers announced having signed almost 40 agreements to be implemented within 10 days; that “a more comprehensive, a bigger” joint land military exercise would be held than the first one in April; and that the two countries’ leaders would sign a strategic agreement in November.
The cover of Ahmet Davutoğlu’s book, “Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position.”
The council’s concluding joint statement announced the formation of “a long-term strategic partnership” between the two sides “to bolster and expand their cooperation in a wide spectrum of issues of mutual benefit and interest and strengthen the cultural bonds and solidarity among their peoples.” The council’s spirit, Davutoğlu explained, “is common destiny, history and future; we will build the future together,” while Moallem called the get-together a “festival to celebrate” the two peoples.
Bilateral relations have indeed been dramatically reversed from a decade earlier, when Ankara came perilously close to war with Syria. But improved ties with Damascus are only one part of a much larger effort by Ankara to enhance relations with regional and Muslim states, a strategy enunciated by Davutoğlu in his influential 2000 book, Stratejik derinlik: Türkiye’nin uluslararası konumu (“Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position”).
In brief, Davutoğlu envisions reduced conflict with neighbors and Turkey emerging as a regional power, a sort-of modernized Ottoman Empire. Implicit in this strategy is a distancing of Turkey from the West in general and Israel in particular. Although not presented in Islamist terms, “strategic depth” closely fits the AK party’s Islamist world view.
As Barry Rubin notes, “the Turkish government is closer politically to Iran and Syria than to the United States and Israel.” Caroline Glick, a Jerusalem Post columnist, goes further: Ankara already “left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis.” But official circles in the West seem nearly oblivious to this momentous change in Turkey’s allegiance or its implications.
The cost of their error will soon become evident.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
