Category: Israel

India-Israel Defense Relations Threatened by Scandal

Mayank Bubna | 13 Apr 2009

WORLD POLITICS REVIEW

NEW DELHI, India — One of India’s biggest ever defense deals with Israel, worth $2 billion, hovered on the brink of collapse earlier this month after allegations of graft to the tune of $120 million surfaced. Indian Defense Minister A. K. Anthony was quick to deny the claims, while asserting that the government would take strict action against the Israeli company and the Indian middlemen involved should the charges be true. This was, however, the second blow to Indo-Israeli relations in a matter of days — the first being a controversial video produced by Israeli defense firm Rafael and shown at a recent arms expo that lampooned India’s Bollywood movie industry.

The bad news came at a time when ties between the two countries could not have been stronger. In March, Israel officially overtook Russia to acquire the enviable position of India’s largest arms supplier. Now the deal involving the sale of surface-to-air missiles by Israel Aerospace Industries to the Indian government seems to have been jeopardized.

India-Israel strategic relations have traditionally been defined around security. Prior to the 1990s, India regarded with skepticism military ties to a state founded around its religious identity. Struggling to deal with the growing menace of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, though, and impressed with Israel’s successes in wars against neighboring Arab nations, India has cultivated closer ties since then.

The shift was also aided by weakening Indo-Russian relations, frayed in the immediate aftermath of the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Several problems have arisen in Indo-Russian bilateral defense cooperation since 1991, including but not limited to issues of spare parts provision, technical documentation and what one analyst called “scant respect for contractual obligations” — a reference to Russian delivery delays, property rights disputes and avoidable cost escalations.

But if Israel has emerged as a partner of convenience in India’s efforts to diversify its arms procurement, the relationship has also presented potential problems. According to P. R. Kumaraswamy, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, restructuring India’s defense capabilities to facilitate purchases from Irael might be detrimental in the long run. “Israel does not export platforms, rather it only offers high-tech innovation upgrades,” he says, referring to Israel’s limited arms inventory. Technology is not as tangible as military hardware. Furthermore, India is incapable of a “complete military overhaul,” which according to Kumaraswamy would become necessary if India shifted completely from one major supplier to another.

Another critical factor is the political costs of courting Israel. Domestically, politicians fear the loss of the Indian Muslim vote. Problems in Kashmir may be very different from and seemingly unrelated to the Palestine issue. But in an age of increasing globalization, many in India have strong sympathies for the Palestinian cause.

Internationally, however, India stands to lose less. According to Kumaraswamy, it is “unfashionable” to speak of the Israeli factor as affecting Indo-Arab strategic ties. Arab apprehensions, if any, have usually been discussed only in private circles. Historically, Arab nations have grudgingly accepted Indo-Israel strategic relations, even as thousands of Indians continue to live and work in several Middle Eastern nations.

Iran, too, has pursued an India policy independent of Israel. According to Kumaraswamy, Iran can afford to do this because there are “certain things that Iran can supply which Israel cannot, like energy security.” Israel’s strength lies in security cooperation, an area of collaboration where Iran has little to offer India.

Yet, growing India-Israel cooperation could now be in peril, thanks to public outrage over the recent corruption allegations. While defense procurement fraud is hardly news to the Indian public, this most recent incident stands out for its dimensions. The largest previous scandal involved the sale of Swedish howitzers in the 1980s, in which several Indian ministers were alleged to have received about $12 million in kickbacks. The current Israel deal involves corruption charges amounting to 10 times this amount.

Traditionally India has somehow brushed off these humiliations, managing to treat corruption as inevitable and therefore tolerated within the Indian political system. Whether this same sense of fatalism can help it endure this most recent crisis remains to be seen.

Mayank Bubna is a freelance war correspondent and consultant. He is presently based in India.

Source: www.worldpoliticsreview.com, 13 Apr 2009

April 14, 2009
Turkey in a Dialogue of Interests

Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat – 08/04/09//

The Turks welcomed the stances announced by the new American President Barack Obama with much fanfare and support. The officials underlined the unity of stances and interests, while the press focused on the stardom of the guest and his ability to speak to the Turkish audience.

This Turkish sense of pride at the renewal of the relations with the United States, following the setback caused by the rise of the Islamists to power, they who refused to have their country used in the invasion of Iraq, goes beyond the bilateral context to an identical analysis of and approach to the regional developments. This is based on the new American policy and the Turkish ability to cooperate with its goals.

Obama came to Ankara, the capital of Ataturk and secularism, and to Istanbul, the capital where civilizations and religions meet, following two exceptional summits in Europe, the G20 economic summit and the NATO summit.

He came fully aware of the depth of the problems facing his country on the ground, problems that are not solely confined to its image which hit an all-time low because of his predecessor’s policies. As in the G20 summit, where the United States was forced to concede to its partners over the measures to confront the financial crisis, it was also forced during the NATO summit to take their views and goals into account.

Turkey, in this regard, presents the most prominent example of responsiveness to the new American approach given its potentials and geo-strategic position. The Justice and Development Party has successfully harmonized its Islamic roots and the secular system, overcoming the financial and economic crisis that rocked Turkey in the past to record high growth rates before the Turkish economy, like all others, succumbed to the latest crisis.

In this sense, the party reconciled an Islamic regime with the requirements of democracy and wise economic management. But Turkey is more advanced than other Islamic countries with similar successes, like Indonesia which was presented more than once as the first Muslim country from which Obama will potentially address Muslims.

Turkey is superior to the other Islamic countries because it understands the dialogue of interests, not only the dialogue of religions. It is a full member of NATO and the only Islamic country to send forces to Afghanistan. Its troops are also deployed in south Lebanon as part of the UNIFIL in implementation of an international resolution. It almost sent forces and observers to Gaza as part of the efforts to solve the issue of the siege and the border crossings.

In tandem with these military roles, Turkey also played the role of mediator in the indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiations and is prepared to resume these negotiations. It also played an important role during the Israeli aggression on Gaza. It is an important player in Iraq, given its ties to the Kurdish issue and its position as a neighboring state with common interests. Ankara also enhanced its political and economic relations with the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, so that it has become an important economic partner.

In addition to this Atlantic and Arab role, Turkey overlooks a crescent of crises of interest to the United States, whether in the Caucasian region with its economic and political issues or in Iran where the nuclear program constitutes a source of anxiety for Ankara and Washington alike. Before all that, Turkey remains the eastern gate to Europe which supplies it with cultural diversity and reconciliation between religions.

Thus Turkey has all the prerequisites of a perfect partner for the United States. This is why Obama chose to declare the principles of his policy on Turkish soil. With its regime, leadership, regional and economic relations, reconciliatory approach, and diverse historical background, Turkey embodies Obama’s goals and principles.

April 9, 2009
Turkey: Bridging the divide
Editorial
Tuesday 7 April 2009

It is an inconvenient truth that the two most influential countries in the Middle East are both non-Arab – Iran and Turkey. But some hope must lie in the fact that Barack Obama yesterday chose to make Turkey the focus of an attempt to bridge the gulf between Islam and the west. Alighting on Turkey as an example of the deal that can be struck between the US and the Muslim world is as bold in foreign policy terms as it is risky in domestic ones. There are plenty on the right who would seize on Mr Obama’s self-identification as an American who has Muslims in his family. But to choose the Turkish parliament as the venue to say that his country is not and never will be at war with Islam is the mark of a man who is showing increasing confidence on the world stage.

The French president and the German chancellor, who have bolted the door to Europe, have dropped the ball on Turkey. They have yet to see what Mr Obama has already understood. Turkey’s biggest asset is its geopolitical role, and it is using it intelligently. The president, Abdullah Gul, has gone to Armenia on the first visit by a Turkish leader in the two nations’ bitter history. Ankara is also trying to transform its relationship with Iraqi Kurds. Turkey mediated indirect talks between Syria and Israel, and when the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, telling the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, that he was killing people in Gaza, Turkish flags went up all over Palestine.

At a time when Washington is reviewing its policy on the stalled Israeli-Arab peace process, Mr Erdogan’s message that Hamas must be represented at the peace table carries weight. Not least it gives Israel, which maintains close ties with Ankara, cause for concern. If any country can reinforce the message to Mr Obama that the current status quo is untenable it is Turkey.

Mr Erdogan is not without his domestic problems. His Justice and Development party won about 39% of the vote at recent local elections, well down on the 47% it got two years ago. It was 36% in Istanbul and the coastal cities, a clear sign that he must listen to the progressive areas of his country. He has relaunched moves to widen ethnic and religious freedoms, and promised to work on a new and less authoritarian civilian constitution. Turkey is always reforming and never reformed, and Mr Erdogan may have personally lost faith in the ultimate goal of seeking accession to the EU, no thanks to Mr Sarkozy. Turkey is not a model country, any more than any other is. But it is a telling example. It undermines the western notion that Islam and modernity are somehow fundamentally incompatible, and it does have useful regional contacts. Next stop Iran.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/07/barack-obama-turkey-east-west

April 7, 2009

By ROGER COHEN

Published: April 5, 2009

Roger Cohen

LONDON — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is a man of brisk, borderline brusque, manner and he does not mince his words: “Hamas must be represented at the negotiating table. Only then can you get a solution.”

We were seated in his suite at London’s Dorchester Hotel, where a Turkish flag had been hurriedly brought in as official backdrop. Referring to Mahmoud Abbas, the beleaguered Fatah leader and president of the Palestinian Authority, Erdogan said, “You will get nowhere by talking only to Abbas. This is what I tell our Western friends.”

In an interview on the eve of President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey, his first to a Muslim country since taking office, Erdogan pressed for what he called “a new balance” in the U.S. approach to the Middle East. “Definitely U.S. policy has to change,” he said, if there is to be “a fair, just and all-encompassing solution.”

A firm message from Israel’s best friend in the Muslim Middle East: the status quo is untenable.

How Hamas is viewed is a pivotal issue in the current American Middle East policy review. The victor in 2006 Palestinian elections, Hamas is seen throughout the region as a legitimate resistance movement, a status burnished by its recent inconclusive pounding during Israel’s wretchedly named — and disastrous — “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza.

The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization. They won’t talk to it until it recognizes Israel, among other conditions. This marginalization has led only to impasse because Hamas, as an entrenched Palestinian political and social movement, cannot be circumvented and will not disappear.

Former Senator George Mitchell, Obama’s Middle East envoy, has expressed support for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. I think this should become a U.S. diplomatic priority because it is the only coherent basis for meaningful peace talks. Erdogan called Mitchell “perfectly aware and with a full knowledge, a very positive person whose appointment was a very good step.”

The Turkish prime minister, who leads Justice and Development, or AKP, a party of Islamic inspiration and pragmatic bent, earned hero’s status in the Arab world when he walked out on the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, during a debate earlier this year in Davos. Any regrets?

“If I had failed to do that, it would have been disrespectful toward myself and disrespectful of the thousands of victims against whom disproportionate force was being used,” Erdogan said. He alluded to the children killed in Gaza — 288 of them according to the United Nations special rapporteur — and asked: “What more can I say?”

Erdogan, 55, urged Obama to become “the voice of millions of silent people and the protector of millions of unprotected people — that is what the Middle East is expecting.”

He went on: “I consider personally the election of Barack Hussein Obama to have very great symbolic meaning. A Muslim and a Christian name — so in his name there is a synthesis, although people from time to time want to overlook that and they do it intentionally. Barack Hussein Obama.”

I suggested that synthesis was all very well but, with a center-right Israeli government just installed, and its nationalist foreign minister already proclaiming that “If you want peace prepare for war,” the prospects of finding new bridges between the West and the Muslim world were remote.

“Your targets can only be realized on the basis of dreams,” Erdogan said. “If everyone can say, looking at Obama, that is he is one of us, is that not befitting for the leading country in the world?”

Dreams aside, I see Obama moving methodically to dismantle the Manichean Bush paradigm — with us or against us in a global battle of good against evil called the war on terror — in favor of a new realism that places improved relations with the Muslim world at its fulcrum. Hence the early visit to Turkey, gestures toward Iran, and other forms of outreach.

This will lead to tensions with Israel, which had conveniently conflated its long national struggle with the Palestinians within the war on terror, but is an inevitable result of a rational reassessment of U.S. interests.

I asked Erdogan if Islam and modernity were compatible. “Islam is a religion,” he said, “It is not an ideology. For a Muslim, there is no such thing as to be against modernity. Why should a Muslim not be a modern person? I, as a Muslim, fulfill all the requirements of my religion and I live in a democratic, social state. Can there be difficulties? Yes. But they will be resolved at the end of a maturity period so long as there is mutual trust.”

The problem is, of course, that Islam has been deployed as an ideology in the anti-modern, murderous, death-to-the-West campaign of Al-Qaeda. But Erdogan is right: Islam is one of the great world religions. Obama’s steps to reassert that truth, and so bridge the most dangerous division in the world, are of fundamental strategic importance.

Synthesis begins with understanding, which is precisely what never interested his predecessor.

Category: Israel

India-Israel Defense Relations Threatened by Scandal

Turkey in a Dialogue of Interests

Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat – 08/04/09//

Turkey: Bridging the divide

‘terror without mercy’ in Gaza

Turkey Wants U.S. ‘Balance’

Israel pleased with new NATO chief