Tag: Zionism

Former Mossad chief: For the first time, I fear for the future of Zionism

The nation of Israel is galloping blindly toward Bar Kochba’s war on the Roman Empire. The result of that conflict was 2,000 years of exile.

By Shabtai Shavit

Menachem Begin before an image of David Ben-Gurion

From the beginning of Zionism in the late 19th century, the Jewish nation in the Land of Israel has been growing stronger in terms of demography and territory, despite the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. We have succeeded in doing so because we have acted with wisdom and stratagem rather than engaging in a foolish attempt to convince our foes that we were in the right.

Today, for the first time since I began forming my own opinions, I am truly concerned about the future of the Zionist project. I am concerned about the critical mass of the threats against us on the one hand, and the government’s blindness and political and strategic paralysis on the other. Although the State of Israel is dependent upon the United States, the relationship between the two countries has reached an unprecedented low point. Europe, our biggest market, has grown tired of us and is heading toward imposing sanctions on us. For China, Israel is an attractive high-tech project, and we are selling them our national assets for the sake of profit. Russia is gradually turning against us and supporting and assisting our enemies.

Anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel have reached dimensions unknown since before World War II. Our public diplomacy and public relations have failed dismally, while those of the Palestinians have garnered many important accomplishments in the world. University campuses in the West, particularly in the U.S., are hothouses for the future leadership of their countries. We are losing the fight for support for Israel in the academic world. An increasing number of Jewish students are turning away from Israel. The global BDS movement (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel, which works for Israel’s delegitimization, has grown, and quite a few Jews are members.

In this age of asymmetrical warfare we are not using all our force, and this has a detrimental effect on our deterrent power. The debate over the price of Milky pudding snacks and its centrality in public discourse demonstrate an erosion of the solidarity that is a necessary condition for our continued existence here. Israelis’ rush to acquire a foreign passport, based as it is on the yearning for foreign citizenship, indicates that people’s feeling of security has begun to crack.

I am concerned that for the first time, I am seeing haughtiness and arrogance, together with more than a bit of the messianic thinking that rushes to turn the conflict into a holy war. If this has been, so far, a local political conflict that two small nations have been waging over a small and defined piece of territory, major forces in the religious Zionist movement are foolishly doing everything they can to turn it into the most horrific of wars, in which the entire Muslim world will stand against us.

I also see, to the same extent, detachment and lack of understanding of international processes and their significance for us. This right wing, in its blindness and stupidity, is pushing the nation of Israel into the dishonorable position of “the nation shall dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:9).

I am concerned because I see history repeating itself. The nation of Israel is galloping blindly in a time tunnel to the age of Bar Kochba and his war on the Roman Empire. The result of that conflict was several centuries of national existence in the Land of Israel followed by 2,000 years of exile.

I am concerned because as I understand matters, exile is truly frightening only to the state’s secular sector, whose world view is located on the political center and left. That is the sane and liberal sector that knows that for it, exile symbolizes the destruction of the Jewish people. The Haredi sector lives in Israel only for reasons of convenience. In terms of territory, Israel and Brooklyn are the same to them; they will continue living as Jews in exile, and wait patiently for the arrival of the Messiah.

The religious Zionist movement, by comparison, believes the Jews are “God’s chosen.” This movement, which sanctifies territory beyond any other value, is prepared to sacrifice everything, even at the price of failure and danger to the Third Commonwealth. If destruction should take place, they will explain it in terms of faith, saying that we failed because “We sinned against God.” Therefore, they will say, it is not the end of the world. We will go into exile, preserve our Judaism and wait patiently for the next opportunity.

I recall Menachem Begin, one of the fathers of the vision of Greater Israel. He fought all his life for the fulfillment of that dream. And then, when the gate opened for peace with Egypt, the greatest of our enemies, he gave up Sinai – Egyptian territory three times larger than Israel’s territory inside the Green Line – for the sake of peace. In other words, some values are more sacred than land. Peace, which is the life and soul of true democracy, is more important than land.

I am concerned that large segments of the nation of Israel have forgotten, or put aside, the original vision of Zionism: to establish a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. No borders were defined in that vision, and the current defiant policy is working against it.

What can and ought to be done? We need to create an Archimedean lever that will stop the current deterioration and reverse today’s reality at once. I propose creating that lever by using the Arab League’s proposal from 2002, which was partly created by Saudi Arabia. The government must make a decision that the proposal will be the basis of talks with the moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The government should do three things as preparation for this announcement:

1) It should define a future negotiating strategy for itself, together with its position on each of the topics included in the Arab League’s proposal.

2) It should open a secret channel of dialogue with the United States to examine the idea, and agree in advance concerning our red lines and about the input that the U.S. will be willing to invest in such a process.

3) It should open a secret American-Israeli channel of dialogue with Saudi Arabia in order to reach agreements with it in advance on the boundaries of the topics that will be raised in the talks and coordinate expectations. Once the secret processes are completed, Israel will announce publicly that it is willing to begin talks on the basis of the Arab League’s document.

I have no doubt that the United States and Saudi Arabia, each for its own reasons, will respond positively to the Israeli initiative, and the initiative will be the lever that leads to a dramatic change in the situation. With all the criticism I have for the Oslo process, it cannot be denied that for the first time in the conflict’s history, immediately after the Oslo Accords were signed, almost every Arab country started talking with us, opened its gates to us and began engaging in unprecedented cooperative ventures in economic and other fields.

Although I am not so naïve as to think that such a process will bring the longed-for peace, I am certain that this kind of process, long and fatiguing as it will be, could yield confidence-building measures at first and, later on, security agreements that both sides in the conflict will be willing to live with. The progress of the talks will, of course, be conditional upon calm in the security sphere, which both sides will be committed to maintaining. It may happen that as things progress, both sides will agree to look into mutual compromises that will promote the idea of coexisting alongside one another. If mutual trust should develop – and the chances of that happening under American and Saudi Arabian auspices are fairly high – it will be possible to begin talks for the conflict’s full resolution as well.

An initiative of this kind requires true and courageous leadership, which is hard to identify at the moment. But if the prime minister should internalize the severity of the mass of threats against us at this time, the folly of the current policy, the fact that this policy’s creators are significant elements in the religious Zionist movement and on the far right, and its devastating results – up to the destruction of the Zionist vision – then perhaps he will find the courage and determination to carry out the proposed action.

I wrote the above statements because I feel that I owe them to my parents, who devoted their lives to the fulfillment of Zionism; to my children, my grandchildren and to the nation of Israel, which I served for decades.

Haaretz, 24.11.14

November 25, 2014
Dutch Justice Ministry employee: ISIS a Zionist conspiracy

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — A senior employee of the Dutch Justice Ministry said the jihadist group ISIS was created by Zionists seeking to give Islam a bad reputation.

Yasmina Haifi, a project leader at the ministry’s National Cyber Security Center, made the assertion Wednesday on Twitter, the De Telegraaf daily reported.

“ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. It’s part of a plan by Zionists who are deliberately trying to blacken Islam’s name,” wrote Haifi, who described herself on the social network LinkedIn as an activist for the Dutch Labor Party, or PvdA.

Haifi later removed her original message, explaining, “I realize the political sensitivity in connection with my work. That was not my intention.”

Two right-wing lawmakers, Joram van Klaveren and Louis Bontes of the VNL faction, asked the ministry how one with such views reached a prominent position in the ministry and if Haifi’s employment constituted a security risk.

A series of rallies supporting ISIS, which is considered a terrorist organization in many Western countries, were held in the Hague in July and earlier this month. Some demonstrators called for violence. The demonstrations on July 2 and 24 featured calls to kill Jews.

When anti-ISIS demonstrators tried to march through the heavily Muslim neighborhood of Schilderswijk on Aug. 10 to express their disapproval, a crowd of approximately 200 men barricaded the main street and staged an illegal counter demonstration in support of ISIS.

Some of the protesters hurled stones at police who tried to remove the obstacles. Six people were arrested

www.jta.org, August 13, 2014

August 16, 2014
Rabbi Yisroel Feldman speaking in New York City at International Al-Quds Day rally

Rabbi Yisroel Feldman speaking in New York City at International Al-Quds Day rally

August 2, 2013

With the help of AlMighty

A Saloom Aliekoom

Greetings to all those gathered here today – welcome in the name of the Almighty. We are here to join the honorable people who have come together to express their pain at the injustice of the Zionist occupation of Al Quds.

Just because the other side is stronger and they are in power now, does not mean that they are in the right. The injustice remains an injustice, and it cries out to the world. The truth will always run after the lie and call out, “You are a lie!”

We are here to express our pain in regard to the Zionist occupation: we declare that it is wrong, false and unjust.

Yes, it has existed for several decades, but that still doesn’t make it right and justified. Neither does it mean that it will continue to exist forever. No, falsehood has its limits.

We must note that the Zionist occupation of Al Quds is not only a crime in the case of Al Quds. The entire Zionist occupation, their settlement in the Holy Land with the plan to take it over and expel the Palestinian people and oppress them, is a crime that cries out to the heavens. It is murder, theft and cruelty that cannot be tolerated. It is a double crime – against the Jewish Torah and against the standards of morality by which mankind lives.

If one robs another, resulting in a fight between them, and the fight continues for a long time, with the robber prevailing, and then, in order to end the fight, it is agreed that the robber will keep only part of the stolen property (as in the “Two State Solution”) this does not rectify the injustice.

The Zionist occupation of Palestine cannot be justified, even in one inch of the Holy Land.

Jews did come to live in the Holy Land over the generations, but not with the intention of ruling the land. The Jewish immigrants were welcomed by the Palestinian residents of the land with honor and respect, and the Jews lived side by side with the Palestinians and their leaders in mutual respect and peace.

The problems began when the Zionists came, with their plan to rule over the Palestinian people.

We would be more than happy to return to the old state of affairs, living peacefully together, but it must be under a Palestinian government so that the rights of every last Palestinian is not compromised in any way.

We must also make it clear that Zionism is not only a crime in terms of human morality; it is also strictly forbidden according to the Jewish faith and Torah. The very idea that the Jewish people should gather together and build themselves up in an independent country – that idea constitutes a breach of our faith. These are things that only the Almighty will do, without any human help. In the Torah and Prophets it is clearly written that there will come a time when the Almighty Himself will reveal His kingship on earth. He will change the minds of all people in the world, and all will worship Him together. He alone will gather all the Jews from around the world with great miracles, and, with the agreement of all peoples of the world, He will bring us to the Holy Land. People of all nationalities and of all races will live peacefully and serve the Creator together.

All Jews believe in this; whoever does not believe in this, excludes himself from the Jewish people. The Zionist ideal that the Jewish people should arise on their own and build their own country is thus against our faith. Such an ideal could only have been born in the minds of outspoken non-believers in Judaism. And therefore, when the Zionist plan became known, all the rabbis of the world launched a battle against it.

This ideal only became widely accepted through the Zionists’ tricks and deceptions – but true rabbis were not fooled. The Orthodox Jewish battle against Zionism will never cease; even if a day comes when the entire world makes peace with the facts as they are presently, the true Jews will not make peace with these facts.

We will always continue to proclaim that the Zionist “fact” is a lie, a deception; it is against our true faith, and it must come to an end. It must collapse on its own; the Almighty’s patience will not last forever. This falsehood cannot have the smallest connection with the truth that the Almighty will one day reveal to the world.

This is what we are looking forward to; we believe in it and we wait for it.

A Saloom Aliekoom

August 4, 2013
Turkey’s Erdoğan and the Zenith of Hypocrisy

By Steven Simpson

Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is once again engaging in his favorite political pastime – Israel-bashing.

Late last month at a U.N. convention held ironically to promote religious tolerance, Erdoğan lambasted Israel by calling Zionism “a crime against humanity.” Indeed, Erdoğan even outdid the biggest anti-Israel institution in the world – the United Nations – which in 1975 passed its infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution.

But Erdoğan’s continuous contempt for Israel shows the arrogance and hypocrisy of Turkey. For if there has ever been a country in the Middle East guilty of committing crimes against humanity, it is Turkey. Indeed, next to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, 20^th-century Turkey ranks right up there when it comes to massacres, rapes, expulsions, and rapine perpetrated against ethnic and religious minorities – namely Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds.

Before documenting Turkey’s crimes against other people, it should first be noted that today’s Turkey has for all intents and purposes become an Islamic republic in everything but name only. The so-called “Turkish-Israeli” alliance has been in tatters since Erdoğan came to power in 2003. Aside from veering Turkey on an Islamist course – and cause – the Turks (even with Obama’s “apology tour” that began in Turkey back in 2009) remain extremely anti-American. This writer back in 2010 documented Erdoğan’s democratic ascent to power, his ideology and goals, and what an Islamist Turkey means to America, Israel, and the West in general.

Regrettably, Israel allowed herself to once again be verbally slapped down by the vitriolic and sanctimonious Erdoğan. With Erdoğan’s latest diatribe, all Israel could weakly say was “that it was a sinister and mendacious comment.” America, fearful of losing its only Muslim NATO “ally,” also was quite quiet when it came to Erdoğan’s latest bombastic tirade.

Ironically, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was on his way to Turkey to meet with officials when Erdoğan had his latest verbal apoplectic attack against Israel. Though the mainstream media made it out that the U.S. was furious with Erdoğan, Kerry simply called the comments “objectionable.” Indeed, Erdoğan upbraided Kerry when Kerry had apologized for being late to a dinner with the Turkish prime minister after holding talks with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Mr. Kerry had commented to the prime minister that he had held lengthy discussions with Mr. Davutoglu. An irritated Erdoğan then acerbically stated to Kerry that they “must have spoken about everything so there is nothing left for us to talk about.” Kerry meekly responded “that there’s a lot to talk about.” However, it remains unknown what the two actually discussed, and if Kerry raised any objections to Erdoğan’s statements on Israel, no one has yet reported on the event.

This now leaves us with Erdoğan’s hypocrisy in lecturing Israel about supposed “war crimes” and leads us to actual war crimes perpetrated by Turkey during the 20^th century – crimes that still go on today against the Kurds. It is a record that not only has caused oceans of blood to be spilled, but still has repercussions felt to this day.

Probably the most well-known war crime that Turkey engaged in was the slaughter – if not genocide – perpetrated against the Armenians in the first two decades of the 20^th century. In fact, the Turks were already slaughtering Armenians in the late 19^th century in what has come to be known as “the Hamidian massacres.” Estimates of the slaughter range from hundreds of thousands to millions. In any event, Turkey has consistently and constantly denied that such crimes against the Armenians took place. Turkey is so sensitive to the charge of genocide that when the U.S. Congress in 2010 finally passed a resolution condemning this crime, Turkey threatened “serious consequences” to the “partnership” between America and Turkey. Ironically, Barack Obama, who had the audacity to say back in 2007 that “nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people,” sought to stop the congressional resolution on the Armenian genocide.

Continuing with Turkish war crimes, and the hypocrisy of the neo-Ottoman crypto-Sultan Erdoğan, there were the massacres and expulsions of the Greeks from their ancestral homelands. This is another Turkish crime against humanity that is little-known, and even less spoken or written about. “The Pontian Genocide” took place between the years of 1916 and 1922. Again, estimates vary in the casualty rate, but the slaughter could have been as close to 1,000,000 Greeks killed. This doesn’t even take into account the surviving 1.5 million Greeks who lived in Asia Minor (Anatolia) for millennia before being expelled by the Turks to European Greece during this era.

Finally, there are the Kurds. If there was ever an authentic Middle Eastern minority of Muslims that deserves a nation-state, it is the Kurds. While Islamist governments in Iran and Turkey (as well as the Arab world) talk about “Islamic solidarity” when it comes to the so-called “Palestinians,” there is not even a syllable of talk regarding the plight of the Kurds. The Kurds have been killed and suppressed by Arab, Persian, and Turk for centuries, all of whom see the legitimate aim of the Kurds to establish their own state as a threat to the status quo of continuous Arab, Persian, and Turkish imperialism.

While the Kurds are spread out over Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, it has been in the last country that the Kurds have basically been written out of history by the Turks. The Turkish quest to deny any semblance of a Kurdish existence has been so bizarre that Turkey even banned the Kurdish language during the years 1983-1999 and routinely referred to them as “mountain Turks.” To this day, Turkey routinely crosses the Syrian and Iraqi borders to fight against “Kurdish terrorists.”

This background on Turkish war crimes is just a brief sketch of the brutal actions that Turkey has committed over the decades (if not centuries). The next time the arrogant, bellicose, and venomous Erdoğan along with his fellow Islamists lectures Israel about “crimes against humanity,” they should look in the mirror and admit to true war crimes.

Indeed, Israel – and America, for that matter – would do history a great justice if they reminded Turkey in the strongest language possible, of the Turks’ bloody crimes against their own minorities, instead of sitting back and allowing Turkey to pontificate about Israel’s nonexistent “crimes against humanity.” Continued silence will only strengthen bullies and thugs like Erdoğan, lend credence to his outlandish slander, and allow Turkey to continue to rewrite history in its own image.

Steven Simpson has a B.A. in political science with an emphasis on Middle Eastern studies, as well as a Master’s Degree in library science. Aside from contributing to the American Thinker, he has contributed in the past to such publications as the Canada Free Press, P.J. Media, Front Page Magazine, and the Gatestone Institute. He can be reached at [email protected].

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/turkeys_erdogan_and_the_zenith_of_hypocrisy.html#ixzz2OG3ldSHs

March 22, 2013
Talking Turkey About Zionism

by Philip Giraldi

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in trouble again with Washington and Tel Aviv because he dared to equate Zionism with fascism and anti-Semitism as an ideology or political movement that has brought oppression. Erdogan was speaking at a United Nations sponsored Alliance of Civilizations conference in Vienna dealing with instilling tolerance. He spoke in Turkish, but his words as translated into English were, “It is necessary that we must consider – just like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism – Islamophobia is a crime against humanity.” Erdogan was immediately pounced upon by the usual suspects and new American Secretary of State John Kerry was also quick to pull the trigger by saying, “We not only disagree with it. We found it objectionable.” He also stated that the comments did not help the Israel-Palestine peace process. That there is no peace process due to Israel’s unwillingness to countenance an actual Palestinian state with genuine sovereignty is apparently irrelevant, but then again it has been irrelevant to American policymakers ever since 1967, when the Israelis first occupied the remaining land that they had not already taken in the aftermath of the 1947 partition of Palestine.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke afterwards with Kerry and disagreed, observing that in 2010 Israel had attacked a Turkish flagged vessel in international waters and killed nine Turkish citizens who were seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. He noted that “If Israel wants to hear positive statements from Turkey it needs to reconsider its attitude both towards us and towards the West Bank.”

Erdogan and Davutoglu were referring to how political Zionism has denied fundamental human rights to the Palestinians that it displaced by force starting at the time of partition and continuing to the present. Neither contested the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland, but were simply pointing out that Zionism as it has been practiced has caused considerable human suffering, just as fascism and anti-Semitism have done in other places and at other times. Historically speaking, some Zionists believed that Jews should return to Biblical Israel by purchasing land and would learn to live alongside their Arab neighbors while others argued, that the Arabs would have to be removed. In the event, the latter view has prevailed. One would think that the egregious and well documented Israeli human rights violations inflicted on the Palestinians would be obvious to everyone, even in Washington, and that there might even be some cautiously expressed understanding of what lay behind the Turkish Prime Minister’s remarks. But that was perhaps inevitably not the case and a goodly part of the U.S. media and chattering class quickly expressed their outrage.

Erdogan has long been one of the preferred targets of neocon rage. The Turkish prime minister dared confront Israel’s President Shimon Peres at an international meeting in Davos in January 2009. Referring to the slaughter of Gazan civilians earlier that month, Erdogan told Peres “…you know well how to kill.” The sharp exchange exemplified Israel’s richly deserved public relations problem. The coverage of the Erdogan-Peres exchange was carefully managed in the U.S. media, but somewhat more unrestrained in Europe and the Middle East. In the one hour discussion of Gaza that was moderated by David Ignatius of The Washington Post, a far from impartial participant, Peres was allowed twenty-five minutes to speak in defense of the Israeli attack. Erdogan was given twelve minutes. During the debate, Peres pointed accusingly at Erdogan and raising his voice. When Erdogan sought time to respond, Ignatius granted him a minute and then cut him off claiming it was time to go to dinner. Erdogan complained about the treatment and left Davos, vowing never to return. Back in Turkey, he received a hero’s welcome.

Over at Commentary magazine, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin led the charge against Erdogan’s most recent comments, writing that, “…when they argue for the criminalization of Islamophobia, Erdogan and his fellow traveler seek to ban…criticism of the more radical outliers of radical Islamism.” It is interesting that Rubin is able to interpret what Erdogan was thinking, but he then adds a clincher: under Erdogan, “the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 per cent,” suggesting somehow that the Turkish government is responsible. And there is more. Rubin asserts that Erdogan doesn’t like press freedom with Turkey ranking 154 among nations, just behind Mexico (it might be noted that Israel ranks 112, after Panama, while the United States is 32).

Joining the attack, David Goldman, a former leftist and Lyndon LaRouche cultist who has now turned conservative, wrote that, “Lunatics have run better countries that Turkey in living memory” before going off on a tangent to tell how people in Anatolia believe in black magic. He also added that Erdogan has a “bizarre edge” since he believes that Turks living in Europe should not assimilate, that they should retain their culture and Turkish identity. Rod Dreher in a piece entitled “Turkey under Islamist Rule” then piled on the scrum by quoting Goldman and Rubin at length before adding that “Turkey is one of the region’s worst violators of religious freedom…Turkey is a great country, but it is not part of the west, and absent a tremendous change, mustn’t be allowed to be.”

Even assuming that all the assertions made by Goldman, Rubin and Dreher are true, what do the media, murder statistics, Islamophobia, witchcraft, the European Union, and religious freedom have to do with whether Erdogan was right or wrong about Zionism? Nothing, and the essentially ad hominem arguments themselves reveal along the way considerable ignorance about contemporary Turkey and the Turkish people, a condition that has never caused a single neoconservative to falter one bit. The fact is that it is Zionism that has created the intellectual and political framework for the continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people. Rubin argues that, “to be anti-Zionist…is to believe that Israel should cease to exist.” Well, that is a convenient way to put it, but it is just not so. Israel exists and thanks to U.S. aid is the regional military hegemon. Turkey and most other majority Islamic countries recognize that reality and have understood it for years. Turkey also has a good record towards its Jewish minority. The Ottomans took in Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and the community has prospered since that time. Ankara in was in fact a close friend to Israel prior to the killing of its citizens and there have been reports that behind the scenes the two countries continue to cooperate.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, believed that Islam had held his country back so he insisted on a state in which religion had no part, even adopting the Latin alphabet to replace the Quranic Arabic script that Turkish had hitherto employed. That view persists and Kemalist well-educated Turks, of which I know many, tend not to be religious or are even hostile to religion. They include most journalists, academics, businessmen, and army officers. They are capable of considerable pushback in the Turkish political system, note for example the headscarf in schools controversy, to include active and quite effective opposition political parties. The contention that Turkey is somehow “Islamist” ruled promoted by Dreher and others is misleading at a minimum. The fact is, most Turks are nominally Muslim and most rural Turks have always been devout. Now, for the first time since the 1930s Anatolian peasants as well as other Turks from a more secular background are able to express freely their religiosity, which might be assumed by Rubin, Goldman, and Dreher to be a change for the better if it were any religion but Islam. Most observers who actually know anything about Turkey and are not engaging in taking cheap shots regard Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) as both moderate and considerably less corrupt than its predecessors.

Ataturk also sought to create from the remains of the polyglot and multi-cultural Ottoman Empire a Turkish national identity. That meant that laws were passed defining Turkishness, laws that have generated periodic conflicts with Kurdish, Alevi, and Christian minorities and have led to the suppression of separate cultures and, more particularly, languages. This has produced the Kurdish problem, involving Turkey’s largest minority, which has bedeviled the country for nearly thirty years. Erdogan’s liberalization of laws to permit more Kurdish autonomy have clashed with the problem of the nation’s Turkish identify and run up against cultural and legal barriers, particularly at local levels. The Kurdish problem, which is a national security issue due to the activity of the terrorist group PKK, has also created the press freedom infringements identified by Rubin. Most journalists who have been punished by the government are Kurds who have fallen afoul of the Turkishness and counter-terrorism laws, which suggests a much more complicated dynamic than Rubin would admit to. Kurdish issues aside, the Turkish media is vibrant and not afraid to criticize the government.

Goldman’s assertion about Erdogan’s desire to have ethnic Turks retain their identity is completely off base. The Prime Minister was responding to a German law requiring Turkish children born in Germany to select either German or Turkish nationality by the time they reach age 23. Erdogan was, not surprisingly, urging them to retain their Turkish identity. And as for Dreher’s meaningless assertion that Turkey is not part of the west or “mustn’t be allowed to be,” much depends on how one defines the west these days. Is it cultural, religious, ethnic, racial, geographic or none of the above? If it is values how does one accept a Christian Greece that is awash in institutional and personal corruption versus a Muslim Turkey that scores much better on those issues? And what about the various kleptocracies operating in the Balkans? Dreher suggests that Islam means that Turkey must be kept out of the European Union club, a not uncommon viewpoint but one that is essentially bogus if one examines the successful assimilation of Muslims in our own United States, for example. It is also curious that Dreher and the others do not seem to have ever objected to the oppression of Christians and Muslims alike in Israel, where religion based property seizures and official unwillingness to provide building permits, not unlike incidents occurring in Turkey, happen frequently. Christian clergy are also regularly spat upon by Israeli Jews, suggesting an even higher level of animosity on a personal level which does not seem to bother Rubin, Goldman, and Dreher.

I confess that I am defending Turkey partly because I have lived there, speak Turkish, and like the country and its people. It is also a major strategic ally of the United States, which is not true of Israel. Yes, there are many things that could be improved in Turkey but the same could be said in spades about our own country. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that Turkey is becoming more democratic while the United States is becoming less so. But when Prime Minister Erdogan says something that is manifestly true that some find offensive it perhaps would not be churlish to suggest that the critics stick to the actual comments for their rebuttals. I suppose the redirection of the argument is due to the fact that it is very difficult to defend Zionism as it has been practiced in Israel but it would be nice for a change if folks like Rubin, Goldman, and Dreher would somehow figure out that the rest of the world does not necessarily accept the various fictions that have been concocted to justify Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

March 9, 2013
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan under fire for Zionism remarks

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Photo: AP

By Robert Tait, Jerusalem4:05PM GMT 01 Mar 2013

The comment, made at a United Nations conference to promote religious tolerance, earned a rebuke from Israel, the United Nations and the US, overshadowing a visit by John Kerry, the secretary of state, in Ankara for talks with Mr Erdogan on Syria.

Speaking to the global forum of the Alliance of Civilisations in Vienna on Wednesday, Mr Erdogan said: “As is the case for Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it is inevitable that Islamophobia be considered a crime against humanity.”

Mr Kerry said he found the remarks “objectionable”.

“We not only disagree with it, but we find it objectionable,” he said, during a joint press conference with Ahmet Davutoglu, his Turkish counterpart. “I raised the speech with the foreign minister and I will raise it with the prime minister.”

A senior US official travelling with Mr Kerry’s party condemned the remark as “offensive” and said Turkish officials would be left in no doubt about Washington’s annoyance.

“This was particularly offensive, frankly, to call Zionism a crime against humanity … It does have a corrosive effect (on relations),” the official said. “I am sure the secretary will be very clear about how dismayed we were to hear it.”

“The Turkey-Israel relationship is frozen. We want to see a normalisation … not just for the sake of the two countries but for

the sake of the region and, frankly, for the symbolism,”

The Obama administration has sought to maintain close ties with Turkey — a majority Muslim country that is also a NATO ally — despite its deteriorating relationship with Israel partly because of its potential ability to be a broker in the civil war in Syria.

Mr Erdogan’s remark had earlier been denounced by the White House and by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who called it “a dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world”.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, who was present during Mr Erdogan’s speech and heard it on simultaneous translation, said it breached the spirit of the Alliance of Civilisations, which was formed in 2005 — with Turkey as a co-sponsor – to promote east-west understanding and combat extremism.

“The Secretary-General believes it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership,” a statement from his office said.

“If the comment about Zionism was interpreted correctly, then it was not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based.”

Mr Ban had earlier come under attack from UN Watch, a Geneva-based group proclaiming affiliations to the US Jewish community, for failing to criticise Mr Erdogan’s speech immediately after it was made.

Pro-Zionist groups frequently complain that the UN is biased against Israel — pointing to a 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.

The resolution was revoked in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Relations between Israel and Turkey — once close allies — have been strained since 2010, when nine Turkish activists were killed after Israeli commandoes stormed a flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip. Mr Netanyahu has resisted Turkish pressure to apologise and pay compensation.

Ties between the two nations were recently said to be undergoing a quiet revival, encouraged by the US, amid reports that Israel had resumed selling armament equipment to Turkey.

Mr Erdogan, a former Islamist, has sharply criticised Israel in the past, although he has refrained from attacks on Zionism. In 2009 he stormed out of a debate with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, after telling him “you Israelis know how to kill”.

via Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan under fire for Zionism remarks – Telegraph.

March 2, 2013