Turkish Forum

Tag: Arab Spring

  • WE ARE WITNESSING THE DISASTER

    WE ARE WITNESSING THE DISASTER

    JR

     

    13 October 2014
    Istanbul

    Aydinlik Daily correspondent Mustafa Birol made an interview with former US Army officer and columnist James Ryan concerning his criminal complaint towards the governments of United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Great Britain, Jordan and Romania regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute.


    Mustafa Birol:
    I talked to James Ryan, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and also a columnist in Aydinlik Daily, concerning his criminal complaint entitled “Criminal Carnage in Syria by the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War” towards 12 countries including the US and Turkey to the International Criminal Court regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute which deal with war crimes and the crime of aggression.



    — You have very recently made a criminal complaint against 11 countries including the USA and Turkey for alleged infringements of Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Your criminal complaint constitutes a detailed summary of the war crimes conducted by the countries which can be defined as the anti-Syria coalition. Can you please tell me about the process which prompted you to make the criminal complaint and also the political developments that shaped your application?

    Just living is a process, and not an easy one. The seeds for my filing this Complaint came from living in a foreign land, in my case, Turkey. Living abroad is the best way to see one’s native country as a foreign land. It’s called objectivity. I am a graduate of West Point, the United States Military Academy. It has an honor code—cadets will not lie, cheat or steal. And they are bound by honor to report themselves if they do. They face expulsion for an infraction. That moral behavior is intended to last long after graduation. A deceitful military officer is a danger to all. 

    In 2006, there was great concern that the illegality of Bush’s attack on Iraq could lead to war crimes charges being made against US military personnel. I and two other classmates began an organization called West Point Graduates Against the War ). We were appalled by the deceitful, murderous behavior of the government of the United States. The commander-in-chief of the military, George W. Bush, was a liar. And we had hundreds of fellow graduates who agreed and joined the organization. And so we come to today to the horrors in Syria and the awful truth about America and its criminal accomplices.  

    The political developments can be described by two words—greed and immorality. For oil, for power, for new markets, for post-bombing reconstruction contracts, anything and everything to do with money. America and its criminal accomplices live by the rule of the jungle, demonizing all who stand in their way, the latest target being Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria. Syria is a secular, culturally diverse, religion-tolerant country, something America should surely encourage. It is bewildering to me that America is so intent on destroying all the secular nations in this region, including its long-lasting, and apparently successful project in Turkey. Although they finally seem to have awakened from their thirty-four year sleep since the 1980 military coup.   

    — If we consider that the USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not State Party signatories to the Rome Statute, do you still have hopes that your complaint will be examined carefully and result in a fair verdict?

    Absolutely. The USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court because their crime of aggression and war crimes against sovereign Syria were planned, prepared and initiated on, in and over those nations who are State party signatories. And Jordan, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria, France, Great Britain and Romania ARE signatories. No guns, no war, and most of the guns came from Turkey via Libya and an array of European “donors.” Such generosity… to displace three million Syrians, kill hundreds of thousands and bathe the sovereign nation in blood. 

    Think of it this way—the weapons and ammunition for the mercenaries didn’t rain from the heavens.  When Ilyushin 76 Jordanian transports flying under Jordanian military call signs leave Pleso Airport in Croatia and land in Esenboğa Airport in Ankara, when Qatari air force C-17s make 36 roundtrips between Amman and Zagreb, Croatia, when Qatari and Saudi Arabian C-130s make 30 roundtrips between Zagreb and Ankara…Are they hauling baklava and simit? No, they are hauling the stuff of war crimes and aggression. The evidence is overwhelming. And the law is clear.

    Jordan has even given its territory to terrorist training camps run by the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, Great Britain and itself. This is in clear violation of Article 8(e), Crime of Aggression. What national leader gave the order to do this? Hopefully, we shall find out in court. 

    None of these countries live by the rule of international law, even those who signed the Rome Statute pledging their word to abide by its provisions. Jordan is a particularly hypocritical example. And those who did not sign? They think they are exempt. But they are not. The reason for including Jordan and the others is because they DID sign the Rome Statute. And Article 12(2)(a) and (b) are quite clear. And for this reason the four non-signatory nations should fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Their crimes are ICC statutory crimes. Therefore under Rome Statute Article 12(2)(a) the Court has jurisdiction to prosecute them because their crimes were committed on, in and over ICC member states. Jordan and its fellow signers of the Rome Statute provide the jurisdictional legal leverage to get to the principal criminals, what I call the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War, that is the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.

    One of the beautiful things about the law is its respect for and emphasis on language. One word emphasized by the International Criminal Court is “impunity,” that is, “to be free of punishment. 

    According to the Court, those perpetrators that commit grave crimes that threaten the peace and security of the world must not go unpunished. The preamble to the Rome Statute says it clearly, that the Court is “determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus contribute to the prevention of such crimes.”

    So I say, let justice begin with these eleven nations and its so-called leaders and their lamentably vicious advisors. The names are in my Complaint. Interested readers can see the entire document on my website, Brightening Glance. 

    Finally, I have utmost confidence in the International Criminal Court. It is the last, best hope for peace and, importantly, to guarantee a lasting respect for international law and its enforcement. Without that, we have nothing.

     

    — What do you think are the major strategic and financial goals of the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, the nations most responsible for the crimes committed in your criminal complaint, on the path of developing such a covert war against Syria?

    There is a nonsensical idea called Full Spectrum Dominance that the US military came up with a few years ago combined with the neo-con hallucination called the Project for the New American Century. It’s a two-headed monster that says America knows best and the world will understand, sooner or later, or else. And so this war-driven, financial machine has been grinding away at humanity, aided and abetted by the subversive help of its collaborating allies. The primary, motivating force for these disastrous policies is the sublimely arrogant and illogical idea that somehow, some way, America is “exceptional.” Obama loves to profess how much he believes in American “exceptionalism.” This is an historical extension of “winning” World War II and dropping the atomic bomb on two defenseless Japanese cities to get Russia’s attention. Thus the Cold War began. And as the world knows, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and America has lived happily since. Setting this nonsense aside, there is a tremendous similarity between the powerful American forces of that era and those of today. One of Eisenhower’s last acts as president was to warn of the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex. He was solidly ignored, except by one man, the man who succeeded him as president. Today, Eisenhower’s warning could be called the Military-Globalization Complex. These seem to be the deep-state monsters that must be obeyed at all cost. Democratic ideals are irrelevant. 

    When John F. Kennedy delivered an address entitled A Strategy of Peace in 1963, he also delivered his death sentence.  “Mankind must put an end to war,” he said, “or war will put an end to mankind.” Five months later, another criminal cabal put an end to him. And to the prospects of peace, perhaps forever. And every president since then has paid attention to that criminal fact of Kennedy’s murder in full daylight in a street in Dallas, in particular, Barack Hussein Obama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

    But you asked about the major strategic financial and strategic goals of the five Cabal members. Without getting stuck in a lot more words, here’s a one-word answer—MORE!

    –You have openly stated in your complaint that the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Levand organization (ISIS), infamous with mass murders and brutal catastrophes in Iraq-Syria line, had been created by the United States and and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So, what is the aim of the operations conducted again by the same anti-Syria coalition under the guise of stopping the ISIS atrocity?

    Stopping the ISIS atrocity is a feeble attempt to stop the monster the Cabal created. And it cannot put the genie back in the bottle. We are witnessing the disaster that is US foreign policy and Turkish incompetence. And unless we face these absolute facts, nothing will improve. ISIS could have been destroyed two months ago as they charged along the roads from Syria into Iraq. I remembered the so-called Highway of Death in Iraq where the retreating, helpless Iraq army was destroyed by a relentless air attack. George Bush, the father, was so shocked by the atrocity that he called off the attack and declared victory. That same condition prevailed this summer but no one attacked. President Maleki requested air support to no avail. A great silence prevailed. Obama and his fellow felons were thinking. And so we arrive at today. A paralyzed Turkey. A confused America. And lots of people are dying. It is one of the blackest, sickest jokes in history. And the politicians that created this massive war crime, this massive crime against humanity must pay the price. Arrest. Trial. And if convicted, jail, and perhaps worse. And the International Criminal Court has the jurisdiction and the power to do this. 

    We face the following picture when we examine your criminal complaint in detail: The United States of America, of which you are also a citizen, is establishing terrorist organizations to achieve its strategic objectives. It is also establishing the logistics network of the said terrorist organizations and managing the transfer of militants, weapons and ammunition. Isn’t this fact sufficiently known by the citizens of the United States? Why can’t the people of the United States develop an effective anti-war opposition just as they have organized in the period of the invasion of Vietnam? 

    America is an expert in establishing terrorist organizations. It was their most important tool for their military coup business. SAVAK, the secret police in Iran. The Contras in Nicaragua, Augusto Pinochet, himself, in Chile. Kenan Evren, himself, in Turkey. And don’t forget the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. That’s where the South American CIA-inspired bombers perfected their assassination skills. The so-called school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. I think I hear George Orwell laughing uproariously. 

    America always has willing accomplices. My Complaint names a few. There are many more. Power seeks out power. So when Obama speaks of America’s “partners” he really means accomplices. 

    Regarding the anti-war movement in America, I ask, “What war?” No draft of American youth into military, no war. Why do you think America went to the moon? To see if it was really made of green cheese? Such was a childhood myth. Why did America send satellites into outer space? To see if there were really little green men on Mars? Next question. Aren’t cell phones and I-phones wonderful? Sure they are. They tell us almost everything…except one thing…who is targeting us…for that’s what they are, a targeting system.  All of these space-age heroic endeavors were but to develop a total targeting system. It’s part of Full Spectrum Dominance, it being the dominance of outer space. It being the domain of so-called “smart bombs.” “Smart” weapons systems eliminated the need for “boots on the ground.” “No boots needed” means American young people have no fear of being called to military service to defend the deceitful purposes of today’s America. So the deceit continues. So the hundreds of millions of parents are safe from having their children killed or maimed. Oh, there are some youngsters who volunteer for the glory of defending America from Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons. And these few are enough to maintain the illusion of boots being available to be on the ground. As far as Americans are concerned, someone else is fighting these wars. For them, America is exceptionally “exceptional.” And its all because their cell phones can tell them where they are. And its technology can kill anyone that threatens to kill them or their children. 

    — When I read your columns in different media organs in the specific dates I realized that you have faced disappointment with the foreign policy adopted by Barack Obama after being elected as the President of the USA. What had you been expecting and what did you face?

    I, and many, many others like me, viewed Obama as the great hope. A highly intelligent, educated lawyer, he spoke sense, and spoke it well. On election day I wept in joy. And I never wept for a politician before. Now I weep, almost every day, for what might have been, for what didn’t happen, and for my native country in general. 

    Everything he could have done, he did not do. In fact, he became a greater killer than Bush. And now he even sounds stupider than Bush. I am sad, very sad, for this. He spoke so glowingly of change. And change things did. Now the world is in a catastrophic state. And what is to come? No leader speaks sense. Corruption is general all over. Who will save the children of this world? The likes of religious fakes? The likes of hack, sold-out politicians? The likes of boot-licking journalists on the CIA  payroll? The likes of singers, and writer and actors that conspire with pseudo-fascist governments to sing and act the safe, party-line? Who will save the children? Smart Bombs?  

    This is what we face. This is why I filed my Criminal Complaint with the International Criminal Court. 

    The hero of the epic called LIFE will be the people blessed with the energy and brains of youth. These are the vast majority of people in the world, all of whom have put up with the nonsense of so-called democratic living for decades. They see clearly the disaster that incompetent leadership has brought. The world is on the edge. Brutality is everywhere, from the mouths of politicians to the knives in the bloody hands of ISIS.

    So who will save us? We will. There is no other way.

    I remember a story on this subject:
    A man once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The man replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon.”

    So let’s do something this afternoon.

    — The charges attributed to Turkey in the criminal complaint are the providing of chemical and war weapons as well as logistics, intelligence and financial support to several terrorist organizations fighting against the Assad administration in Syria. Can you please tell us about the role of Turkey in the broader plan?

    Are you asking me whether a country like Turkey, basically a state with a thoroughly politicized and dysfunctional legal system could be expected to abide by international law? Because that is the problem. With such a judiciary system, that allows politics to determine the law, how can one expect Turkey to do anything but participate with America in the rape of Syria as it participated in the earlier rape of Libya? And that’s why the principals should be brought to trial. Things will only worsen if they are not. 

    As far as Turkey’s role in the broader plan…it was America’s naughty errand boy, doing the dirty work and making some money on the side from black market oil and the like. I think that the duplicity and corruption is, at last, obvious to the world. Turkey’s foreign policy is a disaster and fully responsible for the catastrophe in Syria. That’s the reason for the Syrian catastrophe, that and American stupidity. Turkey did not realize that the Syrian army was well-equipped, well-trained and had high morale. How irresponsible of the prime minister and the general staff! Indeed, it was the height of reckless ignorance. Now it’s zero friends and nothing but enemies for Turkey. And no way out. Due to its cheap thinking and small-minded bargaining, to say nothing about the destruction of the Turkish army, navy and air force, Turkey cannot even defend the borders that its politicians have erased. So a role in a broader plan? What plan? No role, in anything. How Turkey will recover from this domestic and international fiasco is beyond my understanding.     

    Finally, do you have any message for the pro-peace readers Aydinlik?

    Being pro-peace is not enough. But that does not mean making war. It does mean realizing that we have a lot more power than we think we do. We have vastly more collective brain power than the ignoramuses who have brought this world to its current sad condition. 

    For openers, read my Criminal Complaint to the International Criminal Court at:

    http://www.brighteningglance.org/criminal-complaint-international-criminal-court-6-october-2014.html 

    If you support it, tell the Chief Prosecutor at: 

    otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int 

    And finally a few closing words from the last pro-peace American president, John F. Kennedy: 
    “Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

    I believe that. But first we have to get the criminal politicians out of our way.

    ####

     

     

  • LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

    LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

     Satan’s Army, Gustav Doré

    So numberless were those bad angels

    Hovering on wing under the cope of hell

    John Milton, Paradise Lost

    LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

    22 August 2014

    “I suppose the pain of parting will be red and loud.”

    Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

     

    Yesterday President Obama announced that “the entire world is appalled” by the beheading of an American photojournalist. Marie Harf, a spokesperson for the US State Department stressed that nothing whatsoever will change and that the bombings will continue. “We don’t make concessions to terrorists,” she said.

    Exceptional America! Please excuse me, dear reader. I’ll be back in a few minutes——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Okay, I’m back. Thank you for your patience. I feel much worse.

    “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being,” said the president of the United States a few months ago at West Point. And for the past five minutes I have been laughing my head off at the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s “exceptional America.”

    And Ms. Harf’s words really cracked me up. Let me describe my out-of-head experience:

    I was sitting on a chair in the kitchen. Early morning, still dark. Now, all the mornings and days are dark. I think about how Obama and Clinton and Kerry and Erdoğan and Davutoğlu cooked up this outrageous crime against humanity to destroy Libya and Syria. They would use Turkey as a staging area for their proxy army, their Satanic army of well-paid mercenaries. What geniuses! Exceptional America did the same thing decades ago in Afghanistan funding Bin Laden’s mujahideen that later became al-Qaeda. Wow! How smart these dopes are! Very humorous. And they all wear expensive suits and ride in black, shiny, sad limousines. And again they drive over the terror cliff, this time with the arrogant assistance of the treacherous Turkish government. They say you can’t tell the same joke twice. But not America, not “exceptional” America. Do you remember the song lyric? But where are the clowns?/Quick, send in the clowns/ Don’t bother, they’re here. If you remember, you get the idea.

    And these clowns had their military and intelligence and diplomatic agents assemble in Adana, Turkey about three years ago. Everything was secret, except everyone with half a brain knew what was going on, except the American press and the lame, obedient Turkish media. Oh, Petraeus, the boy wonder, was involved, too. So was Fidan, the chief Turk spook. It’s funny how time flies when you are having fun, isn’t it? Ha! Ha! Ha! They had donors come too. Rich, treacherous folks like the obese Saudis and the tennis-tournament-sponsoring-but-non-tennis playing Qataris. They have money, oil money, and lots of it, and not much else, except duplicity.

    They also met in Istanbul. At fancy hotels. What better conditions to assemble Satan’s army? But you knew this, didn’t you? No? You mean the New York Times didn’t cover the story? Aydınlık newspaper broke the story in Turkey. Too bad the American correspondents missed it. Not that it really mattered. But how sad. How hilariously tragic. I am now laughing out loud at the empty remarks of Ms. Harf. Marie Harf, spokesperson! Exceptional America certainly does not make concessions to terrorists. How silly of me to think so. Instead of mere concessions, it sponsors, feeds, arms, outfits and pays outrageous salaries to them. Ha, ha, ha, I keep laughing, catching the ironic humor in Harf’s weasel words.

    Now I am positively giddy thinking about Turkey. What a funny country! How can two Turkish war criminals become America’s favorite foreign friends. So well did they destroy their own country that America suggested that they both be promoted. And they were! Wow, how funny is that? One, the destroyer of Gezi Park youth, is president, the other, the “zero-problems-with-neighbors” genius, will be prime minister. This genius who wears a perpetual smirk beneath his scruffy moustache wrote a book on foreign policy called Strategic Depth. The destruction that is Turkish foreign policy resides in a deep, deep strategic cesspool. For that, and other miscues, mishaps and misdeeds, he will lead the nation. The ever consistent Erdoğan’s first act as president-elect was to knowingly violate the Turkish constitution. Since the position of the Turkish president is supposed to be above politics—HA! HA! HA!—Erdoğan must immediately resign as prime minister and as head of his political party. He refuses to do this. Why? Because he would lose his immunity from prosecution for a few days. And in case you haven’t heard, Erdoğan has a problem in this regard. But surely the political opposition, the “bread boys,” are pressuring him. Well, ha! ha! ha! not exactly.

    Even funnier is how just about everyone in Turkey who can help America is paid off to make it happen. How else to explain this amazing comedy of errors and stupidities. I mean, bribes, big bribes. Big, CIA level unaccountable bribes. How else can one explain a media that only prints pro-government propaganda? Why else would a media fire any and all columnists who dissent? How else can one explain a political opposition that helps their opposition, the opposition that they are supposed to oppose? What a weird sentence that was…but not as weird as the political opposition leaders Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Devlet Bahçeli. These two should have a comedy act on one of the brainless Turkish TV channels. Slapstick would be appropriate—they can beat each other with loaves of bread reminding the electorate of their pathetically inept choice of a presidential candidate.

    Just thinking of these two walking laugh-riots makes what’s left of my brain spin. In fact my head is now spinning faster and faster and faster and—whoops!— there it goes, bouncing along the floor—tak! tak! tak!— into the corner by the refrigerator. My left eye sees the wall, the other, the dark space between the floor and the front of the refrigerator. The rest of myself remains on the chair. How humorous this is. I laugh and blow dust. I sneeze and blink my eyes so rapidly that my head rolls back an inch and I can see myself out of the corner of my right eye. There I sit, headless, my arms crossed, stupidly waiting. My head by the refrigerator thinks how it must be for the hundreds that have been beheaded by the evil breed of the American scheme, the devilish Free Libya Army, changing to the diabolical Free Syrian Army, changing now to the fiends of ISID.

    I am now hysterical. Like me, even babies, mostly Christian babies, have also been beheaded. But I did it willingly through laughter. They had it done by America and Turkey, by the so-called “leaders” and by their ignoramus makers of foreign policy. How humorous was Ignoramus Clinton to revel in the barbarous disembowelment and anal rape of  MuammarKhadafy? “We came, we saw, he died…Ha! Ha! Ha!” chuckled the ignoramus American Secretary of State. Is Kerry, and his litany of lies about Syria, any less amusing? Any less of an ignoramus clown? Ha! Ha! Ha! No. He is just another monstrously “exceptional” American. And speaking of monsters…

    How does the president of the United States explain to the American taxpayers that their dollars are financing the beheading of Christian babies…and so much more? The president announced that “the entire world” is appalled by the beheading of an American journalist. But is he, Obama, appalled? If he is, how does he explain that he has assembled Satan’s Army? And why does it take a bestial slaughtering of an innocent journalist to get Obama’s attention to the horror that his policies have created? The world knows this. There are no more cover stories. He has made a devil’s bargain with the “strategic depth” incompetent ignoramuses in Turkey. This is the horrible truth. It is a horrible mistake. Now what?

    As for my own beheading through hysterical laughter? My head continues to gather dust by the refrigerator. I can still see my other part on the sitting on the chair like two sacks of onions. Can I stop laughing long enough at this darkest of all tragicomedies to pull myself together? Is it really worth the effort?

    James (Cem) Ryan

    Istanbul

    22 August 2014

     

     

  • A warning from Erdogan’s Turkey

    A warning from Erdogan’s Turkey

    Often cited as a model for Arab Spring countries, Turkey is marked by a massive divide between rich and poor as well as heavy state repression of labour unionists, journalists, students and Kurdish nationalists
     Alp Altınörs

    In the Arab world, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, the so-called “Turkish model” has become one of the main propaganda slogans of reactionary forces.

    The Nahda government in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt seem to believe that the success of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey can give them the hope of success and the popularity that they themselves are losing.

    The economic realities hidden behind this glossy image of Turkey give a different image, however. It is true that the Turkish economy experienced a certain economic growth under the government of Erdogan—GDP grew between 2002 to 2012 by annual average of 4.9 percent (with the exception of 2009, in which GDP fell by 4.8 percent). In 2012, however, the growth rate dropped to 2.2 percent.

    Plunder of imperialist finance capital

    The main force behind this growth has been foreign capital. According to the figures of the Central Bank of Turkey, Turkish imports that amounted to $36 billion in the period 1984-2001 leaped sevenfold to $281.4 billion in the period 2002-2012.

    Net capital inflow to Turkey grew at the same rate, from $65 billion in the period 1980-2002 to $484 billion in the period 2002-2012.

    These figures show the level to which the Turkish economy has been integrated into the capitalist world economy during the Erdogan governments.

    Foreign capital came to Turkey basically for two reasons: firstly because of “hot money”, the money-capital invested in state bonds, credit, and stock market shares; and secondly because of direct capital investment, which came to buy privatised state enterprises and assets. All in all, direct capital investment accounted for less than 20 percent of total capital inflows during that period.

    Central Bank data shows that between 2002 and 2012 —that is, during the Erdogan period—total revenue transfers from Turkey to foreign countries amounted to $120 billion, 78 percent of which represented interest transfers.

    That is to say, during the past 10 years, imperialist finance capital has effectively plundered the country, taking away $120 billion from the total surplus value created by the labouring masses of Turkey—$93 billion in debt service alone, although economists don’t focus on this acute form of robbery.

    Dictatorship of the top 0.5 percent

    An analysis of income distribution draws an even bleaker picture of the socio-economic situation in Turkey. Data from the recent survey of the Ministry of Family and Social Rights showed that close to 40 percent of Turkish society lives at, or below, minimum wage, set at 773 Turkish Lira per month ($1 equals approx.. TL1.79).

    In addition, 6.4 percent of Turkish families live on less than TL 430 a month, a level that brings hunger and malnutrition. On top of these two segments, 23.1 percent of Turkish families live with a monthly income in the range of TL 815-1,200, or just above minimum wage.

    Together these three segments make up to 61.6 percent Turkish society, a bit less than two thirds of the country.

    ‘Middle class’ families represent the bulk of the remaining 38.4 percent of the population. These are classified as families that earn an income that lies between TL 1,200 and 5,500. To be exact, this segment comprises about 37.3 percent of the population.

    That leaves a tiny segment of society, which represents roughly 1.2 percent of the total population of Turkish families. This segment comprises high-income families earning more than TL 5,500 per month.

    The majority of the families in this top category could be classified as “upper middle class” families, although a monthly income of TL 5,500 is much lower than the level need to classify its owner as bourgeois in Turkey. The real bourgeois in Turkey represent only a fraction of this already tiny segment.

    Data released by the Banking Regulation and Control Council (BDDK) suggests that the bourgeois class in Turkey represents a mere 0.5 percent of the population. According to BDDK data, the largest 0.5 percent of the bank accounts held in Turkish banks own 63 percent of total money deposited in all accounts.

    At the same time, 97.5 percent of all accounts have less than TL 50,000 deposited in them. Bank deposits are better measures of accumulated wealth than income, and thus we can safely say that 0.5 percent of Turkish society monopolises two thirds of the country’s wealth now.

    AKP not only increased social inequality in Turkey, it opened the doors for rich Islamists to enter this top 0.5 percent club, or the bourgeoisie of Turkey.

    Prior to AKP’s ascendance to power, the ruling generals used to deny Islamists entry into this club of super-millionaires. Now Islamist businessmen enter this stratum with ease, and obviously their entry has not changed the character of this club.

    As for the poor, the government seems now to make do with redistributing a tiny portion of the national resources among them—mind you, not as a right, but as a de facto bribe that one receives when he or she votes for AKP.

    Unemployment

    In 2001, the official unemployment rate hovered around 10.3 percent. This was the year of the big economic crisis in Turkey. Since then—that is, during the 12 years of AKP rule—unemployment never fell below 9.5 percent, a level that it now maintains.

    Official unemployment rates are notoriously unreliable, however. Labour unions, for example, estimate unemployment at 15 percent, while youth unemployment is estimated at 23 percent, as it is growing at much higher rate than average unemployment in society.

    The point to emphasise here is that while Turkey managed to maintain an economic growth rate of roughly 5 percent a year during the past decade, this failed to push unemployment down in any reasonable way. Regardless of which unemployment statistics you take, Turkey is still hovering around the unemployment rate of the crisis year of 2001.

    Growth has, in other words, been coupled with little social benefit, and the reason behind this goes back to its immensely exploitative nature, as a worker needs to do the work of three to keep his or her job.

    The deterioration in labour rights in Turkey helped defend this exploitation. Factory workers are forced to stay away from labour unions, paving the way for “subcontracting” to become the dominant form of work relations.

    In a workforce of about 10 million workers, only 0.7 million are members of a labour union. The size of the workers’ segment that has the right to make collective contracts is even smaller. During AKP’s rule, the subcontracted part of the workforce (called ‘taşeron’ workers in Turkish) grew in fact from 387,000 to 1.6 million workers.

    Erdogan’s government supported this transformation and tried to boost it more than once. It amended, for example, the labour law to legalise many forms of “lean” and “flexible” work. Taşeron workers are practically prohibited from unionising, and this situation erodes the very basis of social opposition.

    Turkish farmers are faring even worse; their production costs reach nearly the same level as their income and many of them have quit farming, leaving the villages to join the vast unemployed population of the cities.

    The repression behind the growth

    AKP government utilises harsh repression to maintain this high level of inequity and exploitation.

    Turkish prisons contain nearly 10,000 political prisoners. They come from different backgrounds—socialist, Kurdish, Islamist, and ultra-nationalist. Many of them were sentenced to prison under anti-terror laws.

    The very diversity of these prisoners exposes the political role of these laws and the repression that they seek to deploy. One third of the people imprisoned worldwide on the basis of “anti-terror laws” are in Turkey, showing how relatively easy it is to convict people for terrorism under AKP rule.

    Freedom of speech has also suffered from AKP’s repression. According to the Platform for Solidarity with Imprisoned Journalists, 70 journalists are imprisoned in Turkey today. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) thus declared Turkey a “world leader” in imprisoning journalists. The government, on the other hand, refuses to admit that these journalists were imprisoned for their oppositional journalism, and insists on classify them according to the laws that were used to convict them, as “terrorists.”

    Most of the convicted journalists belong to either the left or the Kurdish national press. Mainstream media columnists and TV broadcasters managed to avoid this fate, at least until now. Nevertheless, they are not immune to government intimidation. They lose their jobs whenever they cross the line in criticising the government.

    Ece Temelkuran’s case is one of the most notorious examples of this policy of media intimidation. Judging that Temelkuran crossed the line, Erdogan pressured “Milliyet,” one of Turkey’s main newspapers, to fire Temelkuran despite her fame and presence in the international press.

    Temelkuran’s fate does not represent an isolated case. Many big media writers who oppose AKP’s government lost their jobs, as the party continues to “clean” the public sphere from any progressive criticism of the government.

    AKP also repressed the right to strike and unionise, as mentioned before. In the past ten years, the government banned numerous labour strikes and waged a systematic war against many organised labour sectors.

    Last year, for example, the government tried to pass a law prohibiting strikes in the air transport sector. Although the resistance of the air transport workers succeeded in impeding their general plan, Turkish Airlines still managed to get the government support necessary to fire 300 of its workers.

    The air transport sector is but one of the many sectors that came under AKP attack. Public employees, including schools and hospitals’ workers, are denied the right to strike, for example. The police also raided the offices of the unions of public employees many times. Today there are 125 members of the Confederation of Public Sector Employees (KESK) in prison on charges of, again, “terrorism.” It is not hard to see how Turkey managed to score one of the highest rates of convicted “terrorists” in the world.

    Naturally, a government that goes that far doesn’t spare student activism from its repression. About 850 student activists are currently in prison for protesting in favour of free education or against fascist repression and the oppression of the Kurdish people.

    Many of them have been condemned to heavy prison sentences, ranging from six years to life sentences. In indicting them, the state put forward “evidence” of them committing “criminal activities” like participating in demos, shouting slogans, or even reading the Communist Manifesto.

    The AKP government has been the prime oppressor of the Kurdish people too. Although AKP has recently signaled their intention to change their policies towards the Kurdish people—as they pushed for dialogue with Abdullah Öcalan, who is held prisoner on Imrali Island—that doesn’t mean that they have left aside their Kurdish oppression policy.

    Education in Kurdish language is still prohibited; among political prisoners, 8,000 belong to the Kurdish movement; 1,500 young people from both sides died during the fierce war between the Kurdish popular guerilla and the army (a war that was directed by the AKP government).

    The massacre of Uludere-Roboski village in 2011 was one of the worst atrocities of this bloody process. F-16 warplanes bombed a group of civilian Kurdish peasants who were engaging in border trade. This bombing left 34 peasants dead, mostly young people. Naturally, this triggered huge protests throughout the country. But while the government was clearly responsible, as it ordered the bombing, no one has been held accountable for this crime to so far.

    The Sultanate transformation

    Atrocious as it is, this level of repression and authoritarianism doesn’t seem to suffice AKP’s desire to monopolise power in the country. Erdogan has recently put forward a proposal meant to tighten his grip on all forms of state power, by proposing to change the constitution to transform the Turkish political system into a presidential system.

    His proposal transfers most state powers to the president, rendering him nearly a sultan. It also gives the president the right to dissolve the parliament, elect half of the Supreme Court members, and veto laws approved by the parliament—in addition to government powers, of course.

    His proposal is, in short, but an attempt to institutionalise a fascist police state, to be led by the AKP government. It is timely, coming as the balance of power in the country tips away during AKP’s rule from the military into the hands of the police. AKP has gradually come to rely more and more on its control over the police.

    It’s been a long way since the AKP government struggled against the semi-military rule over the state machine. During their early beginnings, the AKP used to uphold the slogan “civilian supremacy.” They got the support of many liberal sectors who opposed military rule with this slogan.

    But as soon as they managed to get a hold on state power, they used this power not to democratise the state, but to install a repressive regime of their own. The semi-military fascist regime that was led by the secular generals was eventually transformed into a civilian fascist regime led by the “moderate” Islamists.

    Our people’s struggle for freedom and democracy thus continues, and the more the AKP-led, imperialist, economic exploitation proceeds, the more repression it requires, the more the people of Turkey resist their rule. Our determined resistance will pave the way to a popular rejection of their rule, one day.

  • How Revolutions Work: Turkey, America, and the Arab World

    How Revolutions Work: Turkey, America, and the Arab World

    By Barry Rubin

    A fascinating article on Islamism in Turkey also reflects on the situation in Arabic-speaking countries has been written by Soner Cagaptay, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Turkish research program. I’m a fan of his analysis so nothing in the following article should be taken as criticism but rather as an exploration of his article’s themes.

    There’s also a very interesting parallel here with domestic events in the United States. But first, Cagaptay’s theme us as follows:

    –There are strong limits on how far Islamism can go in Turkey.

    –The Arabic-speaking states are very different from Turkey in lacking a strong secularist (or at least anti-Islamist) sector that is deeply embedded in the country’s culture and history.

    I think he is right on both points but let’s look more into the details.

    First, on Turkey itself. Cagaptay’s article was prompted by a personal experience in Istanbul. In a café he saw a group of Salafists, who had just finished  prayers in a near-by mosque, interact politely with a waitress who had tattoos and wore a short-sleeved shirt. He writes that in both words and body language one could see there were no real “tensions between the two opposing visions of Turkey brought into close encounter for me to witness.”

    He continues that while “Turkey’s two halves…may not blend, neither will [either one] disappear. Turkey’s Islamization is a fact, but so is secular and Westernized Turkey.” After a decade of Islamist rule—I should note here that few Western experts, journalists, or political leaders acknowledge or understand that the regime ruling Turkey is Islamist in a real sense—there has been, “a rising tide of Islamization in Turkey.” He mentions a recent law that mandates teaching Islam in public schools and a shift in Turkey’s professed identity from European to being Muslim and Middle Eastern.

    But, Cagaptay adds, there are limits in a country “so thoroughly westernized that even the AKP and its Islamist elites cannot escape trappings of their Western mold.” As examples he cites the role of women and Turkey’s membership in NATO.  He explains that “Turkey’s Islamization is meeting its match” because, for example, there was a consensus that Turkey deploy NATO Patriot missiles on its territory to defend itself from a possibly attack by Syria. “The Turks have lived with NATO too long to think outside of its box.”

    Now there is no question that in the broader sense Cagaptay is correct. Turkey is not going to be another Saudi Arabia or Iran. And yet beside that glass is half-full argument is a shocking glass is half-empty counterpart. As Cagaptay notes, Islamist or semi-Islamist parties received 65 percent of the vote in the 2011 elections. That means, he continues:

    “35 percent of the population, totaling twenty-five million people, did not vote for the [Islamist regime]. These voters stand for secularism, and they will never buy into the religious movement in Turkey. This block will constitute the domestic limitation of Turkey’s Islamization. After ten years in power, and likely to run the country for another term with a humming economy boosting its support, the AKP is making Turkey in its own image. But the new Turkey will have a uniquely distinct flavor: a bit Islamist, a bit secularist, a bit conservative, and a bit Western.”

    Absolutely true. And yet who would have believed twenty years ago that about two-thirds of the people would vote for Islamist candidates, even after a decade of Islamist rule. Will that 35 percent ever be able to get the Islamists out of power and reverse the process? And what about the process itself? Revolutions, even quiet ones, keep on going. Will 35 percent of the nine-year-olds now likely to get Islamic teaching (which may well amount to Islamist indoctrination) vote for secular parties when they grow up?

    And doesn’t much of Turkish foreign policy on regional issues under the AKP look like Iran or Egypt today? The attitude toward Israel, Iran (despite competition in Syria), the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hizballah are all in line with an assessment of it as a radical Islamist policy.

    And how real is the current regime’s commitment to democracy? Not that much deeper than that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Prime Minister Erdogan’s latest remarks have stirred a controversy in Turkey but haven’t even been reported in the West. In a speech in Konya, Erdogan said:  “Separation of powers is hindering service to the people. We have to do something about it.” In other words, having now laid the foundation for beginning the Islamizing of the courts, he’s now going to go after parliament.

    And what about the patronage enjoyed by Islamist leaders? For example, I’m told that men working for the government know now that they are more likely to be promoted if their wives wear “Islamic clothing.” Companies know they are more likely to get government contracts if they toe the line. Once Islamists are permanently in power—even if they have to face elections—the transformation of the country continues.

    When Islamists–like Communists, fascists, or Arab nationalists, reach a certain level of power their behavior becomes more authoritarian. Let me tell an anecdote. A friend of mine who fits the profile of a left-secularist Turk has energetically argued with me in conversation that the current Turkish regime is not really threatening to transform the country. But he told me that the nanny for his children, though secular, must wear “Islamic clothing” when she goes to work because otherwise she might be physically assaulted in her neighborhood. I have heard journalists talk in private about how scared they are to offend the regime, though some still do speak their conscience in very loud voices.

    Thus, the fact that there will still be a lot of secular people in Turkey doesn’t mean things will remain static. And having about one-third of the population on your side is cold comfort indeed in a democratic state when those people’s votes don’t really count in writing laws, choosing judges, and determining school curricula.

    This is where an interesting comparison to the United States comes in. Within Turkey, most of the mass media and almost all of the universities are still in the hands of secular forces. By way of comparison, in the United States those two institutions are overwhelmingly in the hands of the left. This institutional control has gradually led to a remarkable change in popular attitudes that may end up enshrining the left in power for a long time to come. Other views will certainly not disappear in America. But, again, how important is that when the power to set law and customs resides in the hands of one side?

    So, yes, Turkey will remain in large part a secular country but that will not determine public or foreign policy. As for NATO, the Turkish regime is accepting NATO support in order to promote an Islamist regime in Syria. Let’s also remember that the revolutionaries in Libya accepted NATO backing and those in Syria would quickly do so if it were available. Both of these groups include large Islamist elements.

    As for Cagaptay’s second argument, he writes:

    “Countries such as Egypt lack Turkey’s institutional westernization experience and constitutionally-mandated secular heritage, and are therefore more susceptible to thorough Islamization. In Turkey, Islamization will be tempered by the unique heritage of institutional and structural westernization. This has ushered in a blend of Western ways and Islamist politics — a first anywhere in the world.”

    True. But this makes me think of two Arab countries with a somewhat similar profile, Tunisia and Lebanon. Both countries are ruled by Islamists, the former by the Muslim Brotherhood, the latter largely by Hizballah. They might also be seen as blends. Even in Egypt, the secularists will not disappear. Yet they, too, are likely to be powerless. In Egypt’s presidential election, only 52 percent voted for the Muslim Brotherhood in the second round. Even in the first round the Islamist candidates got around two-thirds, the same as in Turkey’s election.

    The point is that if a radical movement seizes control of the state, even by elections, and can hold it for a very long time, it can fundamentally transform policies and foreign policy. If they stay in power long enough they might even change the country’s political culture. If a minority of secularists remain but, for example, are also intimidated by threats and encouraged to conform by the offer of government benefits, it’s still a revolution.

    Turkey will remain Turkey; Egypt, Egypt; Lebanon, Lebanon; and so on. But they will nevertheless be very different for their own people, pose tremendous challenges for Western interests, and basically change the nature of the Middle East.

    Incidentally, Erdogan recently unleashed his police on the students of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara where I once spent a very enjoyable semester teaching. No previous government in Turkey could have gotten away with such a violent action against students not threatening any violence. See here, here and here

    And for the best article about the struggle for power between Islamists and moderates in Tunisia, see this superb article by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman here. He concludes:

    “Tunisia’s political and economic prospects, and with it the secular-Islamist partnership which had guided Tunisia for nearly a year, appeared increasingly fragile. To be sure, the underlying rationale that had resulted in the partnership still existed. The fact that Tunisia’s primary Islamist movement was relatively “soft”, in comparison to sister movements elsewhere, had rendered it more amenable to cooperating with secular forces. Tunisia’s fragmented secular camp, while certainly militant in its desire to protect the Bourguiba-modernist legacy and suspicious of the Islamists, was similarly desirous of avoiding a ruinous confrontation with the Islamists which would destabilize the country beyond repair. Tunisia’s neighbors, in this case Egypt and Libya, continued to provide examples of what to avoid. But the public sphere appeared increasingly polarized, and the way forward in the process of institution-building appeared murky, which did not bode well for the future. Tunisia had made important strides in its democratization experiment but, as with all such cases, there was no guarantee that it would culminate in a functioning, institutionalized democracy. Olivier Roy’s argument that Arabs can become democrats without becoming secularists or liberals, and that, indeed, the new context of Arab society is mandating exactly such a circumstance, may well apply in Tunisia. But it will hardly be a democracy that the country’s secular-Left camp will find easy to digest, let alone be enthralled with, thus ensuring that Tunisia’s political life will be messy and contentious for years to come.

  • Turkey’s Distinctive Brew

    Turkey’s Distinctive Brew

    Soner Cagaptay

    Also available in العربية

    The Atlantic

    December 11, 2012

    Don’t look to Ankara to be a model for the new Islamist governments of the Arab Spring.

    It is 5 a.m. in Istanbul, and I am looking for coffee. Having arrived in Istanbul’s old city the night before and seriously jetlagged, I decided to walk into the Eyup quarter, which hosts Istanbul’s most sacred mosque, Eyup Sultan. I hoped the revered shrine, which attracts early morning worshippers, would have an open coffee shop nearby, and I was right. As prayers ended, I watched Eyup’s worshipers flow from the mosque, sipping a bland cup of instant coffee, unaware I was about to be treated to an experience of cultural flavor unique to Turkey.

    A large group of Salafists, with their trademark trimmed beards and kaftans, walked out of the mosque, heading to my coffee shop. What happened next is a lesson in Turkey’s distinctive direction compared to its Muslim neighbors: The Salafist men ordered coffee and Turkish bagels (simit) from the barista, a young woman sporting a tattoo and sleeveless shirt. Neither the exchange between the barista and the Salafists, laden with polite honorifics and formal Turkish speech, nor their body language, suggested tensions between the two opposing visions of Turkey brought into close encounter for me to witness.

    As this encounter so succinctly encapsulates, Turkey’s two halves are like oil and water; though they may not blend, neither will disappear. Turkey’s Islamization is a fact, but so is secular and Westernized Turkey. But the historical roots and current manifestations of this synthesis indicate that it is a model that will be difficult to replicate elsewhere in the region, as Islamist governments rise to power after the Arab Spring.

    Starting with the late 18th century, Turkey went through two centuries of societal and structural Westernization under the Ottoman sultans, a unique experience among Muslim societies to this day. The Ottomans considered their state a European one, and borrowed European institutions, setting up women’s colleges and building secular schools and courts, to catch up with the continent. Enter young Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who imbibed the secular mindset in such Ottoman schools. The sultans’ rule was followed by eight decades of constitutional secularism installed by Ataturk during the 20th century. This campaign, unique among Muslim-majority Middle East societies, mandated strict separation of religion, government, and education.

    Since coming to power in 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, rooted in Islamism, has challenged these premises, and the firewall between religion, politics, and education has collapsed. The result has been a rising tide of Islamization in Turkey. Take for example, a recent law that mandates the teaching of religion in public schools for nine-year-old children. What is more, Turkey now has a different identity. It considers itself Middle Eastern, rather than European, and views other Muslim countries as brother nations. This is a far cry from Ataturk’s vision that viewed Turkey as a European country, only accidentally placed in the Middle East.

    Turkey’s Islamization is old news. But what is new — as demonstrated by my encounter at the coffee shop — is that such Islamization is taking place within the constraints of pre-existing and institutionalized Westernization, a feature unique to Turkey among its Muslim neighbors in the Middle East. The country is so thoroughly westernized that even the AKP and its Islamist elites cannot escape trappings of their Western mold. From the role of women in society, to the country’s membership in the NATO alliance, Turkey’s western legacy is an insurmountable fact. Perhaps most importantly, it is Turkey’s embrace of liberal economics that has driven the AKP to the top in the first place.

    Regardless of how Islamicized Turkey becomes, it will be impossible to take women out of the public space. Women’s participation in public life, so deeply engrained in secularist Turkey, is also a trademark of the new Turkey. Consider Turkey’s first lady Hayrunnisa Gul, the wife of President Abdullah Gul. The Turkish first lady has a very public presence, runs her own policy initiatives, and her website appears to be a mirror image of the White House website set up for Michelle Obama.

    When it comes to the country’s foreign policy orientation, Turkey’s Islamization is meeting its match as well. To be sure, the new Turkey does not consider itself a de facto member of the Western world, but neither does it consider itself antithetical to the West, as it did until a few years ago. This point was underlined during Turkey’s recent debate on deploying NATO Patriot missiles on Turkish territory against Syria. This happened without significant domestic opposition: The Turks have lived with NATO too long to think outside of its box.

    This is where Turkey’s structural Westernization — its institutional connections to the West and its adoptions of Western ways — makes a difference compared to other Muslim-majority societies in the region. It is hard to imagine that NATO presence would be so welcome in other Muslim majority countries. Even the most diehard Islamists in Turkey had reason to support the NATO alliance because it is what protected Turkey against “godless” communism.

    As a Muslim country that takes NATO seriously, the new Turkey’s foreign policy falls somewhere between Ataturk’s Turkey and the AKP’s vision. Regional instability has made Turkey’s access to NATO a valuable asset, hence Ankara’s pivot towards Washington and away from the lofty notion of Muslim solidarity. This has been most significantly demonstrated by Turkey’s 2010 decision to join NATO’s missile defense project that aims to protect alliance members against missiles coming from Iran, hardly an expression of solidarity with a Muslim nation. The civil war in Syria has accelerated Ankara’s run for cover under NATO’s embrace: when Damascus shot down a Turkish place in June, Turkey swiftly asked the Western alliance to come to its assistance. Further unrest in the Middle East and competition against Iran in Iraq and Syria will only increase Ankara’s pivot towards the United States and NATO.

    All this suggests that Turkey’s Islamization is bound by the country’s deep-rooted and institutional traditions of Westernization, as well as continued regional instability. Accordingly, Turkey and its Muslim neighbors in the Middle East may be heading in different directions. Countries such as Egypt lack Turkey’s institutional westernization experience and constitutionally-mandated secular heritage, and are therefore more susceptible to thorough Islamization. In Turkey, Islamization will be tempered by the unique heritage of institutional and structural westernization. This has ushered in a blend of Western ways and Islamist politics — a first anywhere in the world.

    Sheer numbers require this culture of co-existence, if not tolerance, to take root. In the most recent 2011 elections, the AKP received nearly 50 percent of the vote. Excluding the 15 percent of the voters that supported other Islamist and conservative parties, 35 percent of the population, totaling twenty-five million people, did not vote for the AKP. These voters stand for secularism, and they will never buy into the religious movement in Turkey. This block will constitute the domestic limitation of Turkey’s Islamization. After ten years in power, and likely to run the country for another term with a humming economy boosting its support, the AKP is making Turkey in its own image. But the new Turkey will have a uniquely distinct flavor: a bit Islamist, a bit secularist, a bit conservative, and a bit Western.

    Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute.

  • Britain ready to back Palestinian statehood at UN

    Britain ready to back Palestinian statehood at UN

    Mahmoud Abbas pledge not to pursue Israel for war crimes and resumption of peace talks are UK conditions

    Ian Black, Middle East editor

    Palestinians hold posters
    Palestinians hold posters of President Mahmoud Abbas during a rally supporting the UN bid for observer state status, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Photograph: APAimages/Rex Features

    Britain is prepared to back a key vote recognising Palestinian statehood at the United Nations if Mahmoud Abbas pledges not to pursue Israel for war crimes and to resume peace talks.

    Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has called for Britain’s backing in part because of its historic responsibility for Palestine. The government has previously refused, citing strong US and Israeli objections and fears of long-term damage to prospects for negotiations.

    On Monday night, the government signalled it would change tack and vote yes if the Palestinians modified their application, which is to be debated by the UN general assembly in New York later this week. As a “non-member state”, Palestine would have the same status as the Vatican.

    Whitehall officials said the Palestinians were now being asked to refrain from applying for membership of the international criminal court or the international court of justice, which could both be used to pursue war crimes charges or other legal claims against Israel.

    Abbas is also being asked to commit to an immediate resumption of peace talks “without preconditions” with Israel. The third condition is that the general assembly’s resolution does not require the UN security council to follow suit.

    The US and Israel have both hinted at possible retaliation if the vote goes ahead. Congress could block payments to the Palestinian Authority and Israel might freeze tax revenues it transfers under the 1993 Oslo agreement or, worse, withdraw from the agreement altogether. It could also annex West Bank settlements. Britain’s position is that it wants to reduce the risk that such threats might be implemented and bolster Palestinian moderates.

    France has already signalled that it will vote yes on Thursday, and the long-awaited vote is certain to pass as 132 UN members have recognised the state of Palestine. Decisions by Germany, Spain and Britain are still pending and Palestinians would clearly prefer a united EU position as counterweight to the US.

    Willian Hague, the foreign secretary, discussed the issue on Monday with Abbas and the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, offiicals said.

    Palestinian sources said Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, raised the issue with Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters last week, shortly before a ceasefire was agreed in the Gaza Strip, as had Tony Blair, the Quartet envoy.

    Abbas has been widely seen to have been sidelined by his rivals in the Islamist movement Hamas, as well by his failure to win any concessions from Israel. Abbas, whose remit does not extend beyond the West Bank, hopes a strong yes vote will persuade Israel to return to talks after more than two years.

    Officals in Ramallah have opposed surrendering on the ICC issue so it can be used as a bargaining chip in future, but views are thought to be divided. Abbas said at the weekend: “We are going to the UN fully confident in our steps. We will have our rights because you are with us.”

    Leila Shaid, Palestine’s representative to the EU, said: “After everything that has happened in the Arab spring, Britain can’t pretend it is in favour of democracy in Libya, Syria and Egypt but accept the Palestinians continuing to live under occupation. As the former colonial power, Britain has a historic responsibility to Palestine. Britain is a very important country in the Middle East, it has extensive trade relations, and David Cameron should know he risks a popular backlash from Arab public opinion if he does not support us.”

    Palestinians have rejected the claim that they are acting unilaterally, calling the UN path “the ultimate expression of multilateralism”. Israel’s apparent opposition to unilateralism has not stopped it acting without agreement to build and expand settlements, they say.

    guardian.co.uk,