Turkish Forum

Category: Israel

  • MPs join Gaza protest against BBC

    MPs join Gaza protest against BBC

    By Mark Hookham
    Political Editor

    Fabian Hamilton, MP

    THREE Leeds MPs have added their voices to the mounting criticism of the BBC for its refusal to televise an appeal for victims of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

    John Battle (Leeds West, Lab), Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East, Lab) and Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West, Lib Dem) have joined more than 100 other MPs in signing a parliamentary motion urging the corporation to reverse its decision.

    The Disasters Emergency Committee’s two-minute Gaza Crisis Appeal was screened on Monday by ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

    However, BBC bosses have insisted that airing the film would threaten its impartiality and that the corporation should not give the impression it was “backing one side” over the other.

    Protests

    The decision has sparked more than 15,500 complaints and protests at BBC Broadcasting House.

    Mr Battle, a former junior minister, has also raised the issue with ministers at a Commons international development select committee.

    Relatives of his sister’s husband live in Gaza and have given him first hand reports of the intense suffering caused by the bombing.

    Fabian Hamilton, a member of Labour Friends of Israel, said: “To a child who has lost his parents and whose house is a pile of rubble it doesn’t matter whether it was Israelis or an earthquake. That child needs aid and our help. We have a duty to relieve that suffering.”

    Greg Mulholland said he thought the BBC’s reasoning was “utterly flawed.”

    A RALLY is to be staged outside the BBC’s regional HQ in Leeds to protest at the corporation’s refusal to broadcast a charity appeal for funds to help the people of Gaza.

    The rally takes place this evening from 5pm to 7pm outside BBC Broadcasting Centre in St Peter’s Square, near Leeds bus station.

    The BBC has refused to broadcast the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee which includes charities such as Christian Aid and Oxfam.

    It says to do so might lead to accusations of “bias.”

    Source: Yorkshire Evening Post, 28 January 2009

  • Major American-Jewish Organizations May no Longer Back Turkey in Congress

    Major American-Jewish Organizations May no Longer Back Turkey in Congress

    From: BENJAMIN YAFET [mailto:byafet@juno.com]

    Subject: American Jewish organizations are ready to support the Armenian Genocide resolution !!!

    Major American-Jewish Organizations

    May no Longer Back Turkey in Congress

    There are serious indications that Israel and American-Jewish organizations are no longer willing to support Turkey’s lobbying efforts to block a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide.

    The dispute between the two strategic allies began with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan harshly denouncing Israel’s incursion into Gaza and accusing the Jewish state of committing crimes against humanity. He suggested that Israel be barred from the United Nations as mass demonstrations were held throughout Turkey with banners that read: “Gaza will be a grave for Israel” and “Put Israel on trial for war crimes.” Israel’s Consul General in Istanbul, Mordehai Amihai, told Milliyet that the consulate received hundreds of anti-Semitic e-mails every day during the fighting in Gaza.

    Initially, Israeli officials expressed their displeasure through diplomatic channels. But as the anti-Israel rhetoric intensified, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister publicly warned Turkey that Tel Aviv might retaliate by acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert invited the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic to dinner in Jerusalem after their summit meeting in nearby Egypt. Significantly, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul, who also had attended the summit, was excluded from the dinner.

    American-Jewish organizations, which had for years supported Turkey’s denialist agenda on the Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Congress, were highly incensed by the Turkish condemnations of Israel. The American Jewish Committee sent a letter to Erdogan on January 8, to express its “grave concern over recent official statements” by Turkey’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. On January 21, a second letter was sent to Erdogan, this time signed by five leading American-Jewish organizations, expressing their “profound concern over the current wave of anti-Semitic manifestations in Turkey.”

    In their joint letter, the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs complained about “gravely distressing” recent incidents: “Protestors besieging the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul have expressed their hatred of Jews. Billboards around Istanbul are full of anti-Jewish propaganda posters. The door of a Jewish-owned shop near Istanbul University was covered with a poster that said, ‘Do not buy from here, since this shop is owned by a Jew.’ The defacing of an Izmir synagogue has brought about the temporary closure of all but one of that city’s synagogues.” The American-Jewish groups also stated that the Jewish community in Turkey feels “besieged and threatened. A connection is clearly perceived between the inflammatory denunciation of Israel by Turkish officials and the rise of anti-Semitism.”

    Ironically, Abraham Foxman, ADL’s National Director, who is now complaining to Prime Minister Erdogan about anti-Semitism in Turkey, had presented a prestigious award to him in 2005. Foxman conveniently overlooked the fact that four days before he gave that award to Erdogan, the Middle East Media Research Institute, based on a report from Hurriyet, revealed that Erdogan in 1974 had written, directed and played the lead role in a play called “Maskomya,” an acronym for the triple “evils” of Masons, Komunists (Communists), and Yahudis (Jews).

    Having given Erdogan one of ADL’s highest awards, Foxman must have been shocked by the Turkish Prime Minister’s recent criticisms of Israel. Foxman told Milliyet last week: “Turkey was our friend. We were friends. I still can’t believe it. I am very sad and confused. The Jews in Turkey are threatened…. They feel encircled…. The Prime Minister spoke very harshly. We were friends. How did we come to this situation?” Jacob Isaacson, an official of the American Jewish Committee, was also unhappy with the Turkish reaction. “Once you start poisoning the well, you do not know where it leads,” he said. Moreover, an unnamed American-Jewish leader was quoted as saying: “This time, we are going to face great difficulty. In the past, we defended the Turkish position, not only because Turkey was right, but also because we were friends.” Yet another American-Jewish official, washing his hands from further involvement in Turkey’s lobbying efforts on the Armenian Genocide, told Milliyet: “Count us completely out of this problem. We don’t believe Congress should deal with it. Let Armenia and Turkey resolve it between them.”

    In another indication of diminishing support for Turkey among Jewish circles, Prof. Benjamin Yafet advised this writer that he had “very reliable information that all major American Jewish organizations are now fed up with Turkey and are ready to support the Armenian Genocide resolution.”

    It appears that this time around Israel and American-Jewish organizations will not be as forgiving as they have been in the past, in the face of persistent and vicious anti-Semitic attacks emanating from Turkey. After the loss of lobbying support from American-Jews, Pres. Obama’s election, and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, Turkey is expected to have great difficulty in the coming months to block a renewed attempt to pass a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide. Faruk Logoglu, Turkey’s former Ambassador to Washington, should know! He told Milliyet: “The Jewish lobby is the strongest in the United States and the only one supporting Turkey. Therefore, the letter of disappointment sent to Erdogan [by 5 Jewish groups] is of great importance.”

    To listen to this writer’s hour-long interview with radio KZSU Stanford on this subject, please go to: .< >< >< >< ><–>

  • Marching for Hamas

    Marching for Hamas

    by Denis MacEoin
    Jerusalem Post
    January 22, 2009

    https://www.meforum.org/2056/marching-for-hamas

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    Hamas is a bully aided by a bigger bully, Iran. And, just as strident and threatening human bullies get away with their aggression so long as no one calls their bluff, so Hamas has been getting away with murder and torture because the UN and many states won’t call its two-faced self-portrayal as the victim in the piece. In the struggle to take over Gaza from Fatah, it went on a rampage that killed hundreds of Palestinians. Even during this most recent assault, in early January, it executed Fatah members for violating their house arrest. A few weeks ago, Hamas determined to hurt yet more of its compatriots by introducing Islamic hudud punishments to the Strip, from amputations and stonings, to crucifixions and hangings.

    Like all bullies, it likes to taunt its victims. It did just that for years after Israel left Gaza, firing rockets every day into towns like Sderot or Netivot. No one who has dismissed these rockets as harmless homemade toys has ever had the guts to spend a few weeks in Sderot, scurrying from shelter to shelter. And, oh yes, it also built up an arsenal (supplied by Iran) of Grad missiles that certainly aren’t anybody’s toys.

    Like all bullies, Hamas likes to make boastful threats. Its 1988 Covenant is replete with them. It threatens to destroy the State of Israel by violence and violence alone. It says it will never accept the work of conferences or peacemakers, and only jihad will solve its problems. Meanwhile, the Palestinians see their lives drained away in a culture that embraces death and martyrdom, their children exposed to a steady diet of military training and preparation for violent death as suicide bombers.

    Even if the Palestinians want peace, Hamas won’t let them have it, because Hamas knows best, and jihad “is the only solution.” Don’t believe me, read the Covenant. It likes nothing better than killing Jews, and the bigger bully in Teheran thinks that’s a damn fine thing too. No one says a word, because the UN is dominated by the Islamic states, and the Western governments know where the oil comes from, and nobody likes the Jews much anyway. The people calling for the end of Israel while they march on the streets of London and Dublin aren’t all Muslims by any means.

    There can be no greater indication of this boastfulness than what has happened in recent days. Having taken a heavy battering from Israel, Hamas now proclaims a “great victory,” and its supporters dance in the ruined streets of Gaza, drunk on their own demagoguery. For all its bluster, Hamas, like all bullies, is a coward at heart. Watch those films of Hamas gunmen dragging screaming children along with them to act as human shields, watch how they fire from behind the little ones, knowing no Israeli soldier will fire back. And even as they put their own children’s lives at risk, they shout to high heaven that the Israelis are Nazis and the Jews are child-killers. This blatant pornography spreads through the Western media, and people never once ask “what does this look like from the other side,” because they are addicted to the comforting news that the Yids are baby-killers as they’d always known, that they do poison wells, that no Christian child is safe come Passover. Hamas has become proficient at resurrecting the blood libel, just as its fighters use the Nazi salute, just as their predecessor in the 1930s and ’40s, Haj Amin al-Husseini, conferred with Hitler about building death camps in Palestine and raised a division of SS troops in Bosnia to fight for the Reich.

    We watch The Diary of Anne Frank on television, and some of us attend Holocaust Remembrance Day events, and others pay lip service to Jewish victimhood; we like our Jews emaciated and helpless under the SS boot. But the moment real Jews stand up and show themselves the stronger for all their deaths, it awakens an atavistic fear, and people recoil from them. Jews in uniform, how unseemly. Jews beating the bully, how unheard of. Jews with their own state, what upstarts.

    IN MY home country of Ireland, we glamorize the great nationalist heroes who rebelled against the bullying forces of imperial Britain in the uprising of Easter Sunday 1916. In France, they venerate the heroes of the Resistance against the occupying forces of Nazi Germany. In Spain, they have not ceased to heap praise on those who fought against the forces of fascist bullies and lost. To stand up against an enemy bent on your destruction is everywhere counted an act of bravery. But not when it comes to Israel. In 1948 and 1967 and 1973 and 2006, Israel fought off overwhelming forces who made no secret of their plans for an imminent massacre of the Jews. But nobody now seems to care, no one lauds the courage the Israelis displayed, and no one praises the extraordinary restraint they showed in victory.

    In a bizarre reversal of all their commitment to human rights and the struggle of men and women for independence and self-determination, the European Left has chosen again and again to side with the bullies and to condemn a small nation struggling to survive in a hostile neighborhood. It is all self-contradictory: The Left supports gay rights, yet attacks the only country in the Middle East where gay rights are enshrined in law. Hamas makes death the punishment for being gay, but “we are all Hamas now.” Iran hangs gays, but it is praised as an agent of anti-imperialism, and allowed to get on with its job of stoning women and executing dissidents and members of religious minorities. If UK Premier Gordon Brown swore to wipe France from the face of the earth, he would become a pariah among nations. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens to do that to Israel and is invited to speak to the UN General Assembly

    Israel guarantees civil liberties to all its citizens, Jew or Arab alike, but it is dubbed “an apartheid state”; Hamas, ever the bully, kills its opponents and denies the rest the most basic rights, but we march on behalf of Hamas. The Left prefers the bully because the bully represents a finger in the face of the establishment? Almost no one on the Left has any understanding of militant Islam. Their politics is a politics of gesture, where wearing a keffiyeh is cool but understanding its symbolism is too much effort even for intellectuals.

    I have personally had enough of it all. The whining double standards, the blatant lies, the way their leaders have forced Palestinians to suffer for 60 years because peace and compromise aren’t in their vocabulary and because they won’t settle for anything but total victory. Painful as it was, in the 1920s Ireland created a republic by compromising on the status of the North. Ireland subsequently became a prosperous country and, in due course, one of the hottest economies in the world. When the Israelis left Gaza in 2005, they left state-of-the-art greenhouses to form the basis for a thriving economy. Hamas destroyed them to the last pane of glass. Why? Because they had been Jewish greenhouses.

    The writer is the incoming editor of the leading international journal Middle East Quarterly and the author of a blog entitled ‘A Liberal Defence of Israel.’

    Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy, Palestinians

  • Israel, Turkey and the politics of genocide

    Israel, Turkey and the politics of genocide

    GERALD CAPLAN

    Globe and Mail Update

    January 23, 2009 at 1:34 PM EST

    President Obama — I love saying those words — has momentarily united the world. Almost. Among the exceptions, though barely noticed by the mainstream media, is the estrangement of Turkey and Israel, previously staunch allies in the turbulent Middle East.

    At first blush, this alliance may seem counterintuitive, but in fact it makes good strategic sense for both countries. Israel gets a warm working relationship with one of the largest Muslim countries in the world, while enriching Israel’s all-important industrial-military complex. Less than two months ago, for instance, came the news of a deal worth $140-million to Israeli firms to upgrade Turkey’s air force. In the hard-boiled, realpolitik terms that determine Israel’s strategies, it’s a no-brainer. Almost.

    In return, Turkey gets military, economic and diplomatic benefits. But it also gets something less tangible, something that matters deeply for reasons hard for outsiders to grasp. As part of the Faustian bargain between the two countries, a succession of Israeli governments of all stripes has adamantly refused to recognize that in 1915 the Turkish government was responsible for launching a genocide against its Armenian minority. Some 2.5-million Armenian women, men and children were successfully killed.

    I should make clear that this Israeli position is not held casually. On the contrary. Over the years Israelis, with a few notably courageous exceptions, have actually worked against attempts to safeguard the memory of the Armenian genocide. (The bible on this issue is the excellent book by an Israeli, Yair Auron, called The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide, 2003.)

    For many, this may well be a pretty esoteric sidebar to the world’s many crises. But readers need to understand that every Turkish government for almost a century now has passionately denied that a genocide took place at all. Yet the vast majority of disinterested scholars of genocide have publicly affirmed that it was indeed a genocide, one of the small number in the 20th century (with the Holocaust and Rwanda) that have incontestably met the definition set down in the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention.

    For Armenians in the Western world, even after 94 years, nothing is more important than persuading other governments to recognize this. For Turkish authorities, even after 94 years, nothing is more important than preventing that recognition. In that pursuit, Israel has been perhaps Turkey’s most powerful ally. After all, if the keepers of the memory of the Holocaust don’t acknowledge 1915, why should anyone else?

    But the Israeli-Turkish bargain goes well beyond Israel. Not only is Israel, of all the unlikely states in the world, a genocide denier, but also many established Jewish organizations in other countries, especially the United States, have followed suit. In the United States, those who argue that denying the Holocaust is psychologically tantamount to a second holocaust have taken the lead in pressuring presidents and Congress against recognizing the reality of 1915. Resolutions calling for recognition are regularly pushed by American-Armenians and their many supporters. Jewish groups regularly lead the opposition. Some believe that members of these groups in fact understand perfectly well the rights and wrongs of the case. But a mindset that backs any and all Israeli government initiatives trumps all else. And successfully. Repeated attempts in Congress to pass this resolution has failed, even though the list of nations that now recognizes the Armenian genocide has grown steadily and, thanks to Stephen Harper, now includes Canada.

    It is this rather unseemly, if not unholy, Israeli-Turkish deal that has been among the many victims of the latest Israeli attack on Gaza. Whether the Israelis anticipated it or not, the Turkish government turned against its erstwhile ally with a vengeance, pulling few punches. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan accused Israel of “perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction. Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents.” Mr. Erdogan described Israel’s attack on Gaza as “savagery” and a “crime against humanity.”

    Israel formally described this language as “unacceptable” and certain Israeli media outlets have raised the stakes. The Jerusalem Post editorialized that given Turkey’s record of killing tens of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq, “we’re not convinced that Turkey has earned the right to lecture Israelis about human rights.” Israel’s deputy foreign minister was even more pointed: “Erdogan says that genocide is taking place in Gaza. We [Israel] will then recognize the Armenian-related events as genocide.” Suddenly, genocide turns into a geopolitical pawn.

    It isn’t easy to choose a winner in the cynicism stakes here. Here’s what one Turkish columnist, Barcin Yinanc, shrewdly wrote: “When April comes, I can imagine the [Turkish] government instructing its Ambassador to Israel to mobilize the Israeli government to stop the Armenian initiatives in the U.S. Congress. I can hear some Israelis telling the Turkish Ambassador to go talk to Hamas to lobby the Congress.”

    I’m guessing some readers work on the naïve assumption that an event is deemed genocidal based on the facts of the case. Silly you. In the real world, you call it genocide if it bolsters your interests. If it doesn’t, it’s not. It’s actually the same story as with preventing genocide.

    What happens now? Candidate Obama twice pledged that he would recognize the Armenian claim of genocide. But so had candidate George W. Bush eight years earlier, until he was elected and faced the Turkish/Jewish lobby. Armenian-Americans and their backers are already pressing Mr. Obama to fulfill his pledge. With the Turkish-Israeli alliance deeply strained, the position of the leading Jewish organizations is very much in question this time. Whatever the outcome, be sure that politics, not genocide, will be the decisive factor.

    Gerald Caplan, author of The Betrayal of Africa, writes frequently on issues related to genocide.

  • Israel-Turkey diplomatic spat worsens, despite end of Gaza fighting

    Israel-Turkey diplomatic spat worsens, despite end of Gaza fighting

     

     By Barak Ravid

     

    HAARETZ.COM


    The crisis in relations between Israel and Turkey, which began when the Gaza operation began three weeks ago, is getting worse. A political source in Jerusalem said that the head of the political-security bureau at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, refused to meet with Ahmet Davutoglu, the senior foreign policy adviser to Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while the two were in Cairo last week.

    Last Thursday, Amos Gilad visited Cairo for talks with Egypt’s Omar Suleiman on a cease-fire agreement. At the time, Davutoglu, who had served as a mediator in Israel’s talks with Syria in Istanbul, was in touch with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal, who is based on Damascus.

     

     

    At the start of the Gaza operation, Erdogan instructed Davutoglu to serve as a conduit between Hamas and the West and also try to involve Turkey in the cease-fire negotiations. Egypt expressed its reservations at Turkey’s involvement and refused even to allow Davutoglu to sit in on talks with senior Hamas officials in Cairo.

    But it turns out that not only Egypt refused to have exchanges with Davutoglu. So did Israel. A political source in Jerusalem said that on Thursday, when Gilad was in Cairo, the Turkish ambassador to Egypt called his Israeli counterpart, Shalom Cohen. The Turkish ambassador asked for a meeting between Davutoglu and Gilad to deliver a message from Hamas. The political source said the Turks “asked for even a five-minute meeting” and that the ambassador called back several times.

    The Turkish request was relayed to Gilad by the Israeli ambassador, but he refused to meet with Davutoglu. The Israeli political source said the reason for the refusal was the deterioration in relations between Jerusalem and Ankara, stemming from the unprecedented verbal attacks by Erdogan on Israel.

    The source added that another reason was the unwillingness to allow the Turks to intervene in the cease-fire talks and the wish to rely solely on the Egyptian channel.

    Erdogan’s attacks on Israel in recent weeks have been particularly fierce, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert specifically targeted for what the Turkish leader called “lying to him and acting behind his back.”

    The words of the leader of the AKP, Turkey’s ruling Islamist party, were a source of anger among Turkey’s military, where there is concern that the rift would undermine the strategic ties with Israel.

  • Gaza op strains financial ties with Turkey

    Gaza op strains financial ties with Turkey

    https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3659765,00.html

    Tensions between Jerusalem, Ankara translate into slump in outgoing tourism industry, strenuous industrial relations

    Danny Sadeh

    Published: 01.22.09, 08:10 / Israel Money

    P{margin:0;} UL{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;margin-right: 16; padding-right:0;} OL{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;margin-right: 32; padding-right:0;} H3.pHeader {margin-bottom:3px;COLOR: #192862;font-size: 16px;font-weight: bold;margin-top:0px;} P.pHeader {margin-bottom:3px;COLOR: #192862;font-size: 16px;font-weight: bold;} The recent tension between Jerusalem and Ankara, brought about by the Israeli offensive in Gaza, is beginning to take a financial toll on what was once a prolific relationship.

    Various travel agencies have reported a 70% drop in the number of vacation packages sold to Turkish destinations. Once one of the Israeli tourist favorite vacations spots, Antalya has now been “left for dead”; although some in the industry prefer to see the situation is a passing winter trend.

    Risky Business
    Fear: Turkey may pull deals with Israel  / Arie Egozi
    Defense establishment says Ankara’s growing vex with Israel’s Gaza offensive may result in canceling ongoing contracts, suspending future negotiations
    Full story

    Tourism industry official said Wednesday that the Israeli tourism to Turkey is likely to hit a slump in the immediate run, but in the long run it is more than likely to pick up. “It things remain quiet, the Israelis will go back to Turkey, it’s a very attractive destination.”

    A Foreign Ministry official gave a more caution projection: “The tourism industry is hard to predict, especially now, at winter time. We don’t know what the spring and summer may bring. Turkish tourism official who have contacted us over the last few day practically begged for the Israelis not to shun Turkey, especially Antalya. They said they did not deserve to be boycotted because of their prime minister’s statements.”

    Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently stated that Israel should be barred for the UN over its Gaza campaign. His remarks sparked rage in the Israeli public; even promoting some Israeli members of Facebook to form a “Ban Turkey” group. More than 1,500 people have joined it so far; and a dozen similar groups have sprouted both in Facebook and in other social networks.

    ‘War tainted relations’

    Israel’s industrial ties with Turkey spanned $3.4 billion in 2008 – a 23% increase from 2007 – with exports to Ankara coming to $1.6 billion and imports to $1.8 billion.

    Israel’s major export to Turkey is chemicals, followed by metals, machinery and electrical equipment; making Turkey Israel’s eight biggest commercial partner.

    Ari Malmud, CEO of Hogla-Kimberly’s Turkish operation told Yedioth Ahronoth that “the company’s customer service department has been getting calls inquiring whether we were a Jewish company or an Israeli firm.”

    Another importer of Turkish consumer goods said that “it seems like the Muslim merchants in Turkey are trying to make things difficult and they’re severing ties with their local Jewish contacts.

    “Everyone is laying low for a while. I hope that at the end of the day, finances can prevail over politics.”

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    Doron Avrahami, Israel’s commercial attaché in Turkey said that “since the ceasefire only recently took effect, it is still too early to assess whether any permanent damage has been done to the commercial relationship between the two countries.

    “We do hope everything will get back to normal, but the Gaza offensive has left a ‘bad taste’ here.”

    Navit Zomer, Udi Ezion, Itamar Eichner, Arie Egozi and Itay Smuskowitz contributed to this report