Surreptitious Ways of Striking at Jews -- An Old Story

UPDATING 1&3 & 16 July 2010 [see link added to Jerome Corsi]
& 7-11,12 &8-23-2010 at bottom

Many roads go to Rome and to Jerusalem for that matter.

One way to get to Jerusalem is to go through "non-governmental organizations" --NGOs-- ostensibly popular, independent grass roots orgs. Maybe like the Free Gaza Movement. But Free Gaza is actually astroturf, fake grass roots. It was created by Fenton Communications with Qatari money. Qatar is one of those super-rich per capita Arab emirates on the Persian Gulf. Funny thing is though that the so-called "Left" which poses as anti-capitalist, doesn't mind super-rich capitalists as long as they're Arabs. And if super-rich Arabs put up money for their pet anti-Israel projects [which both rich Arabs and Judeophobic Westerners are fond of], then that's OK.

Don't forget that "Free Gaza" [they don't want to free the folks of Gaza from Hamas to be sure] teamed up with the present authoritarian regime of Erdogan. They don't mind Erdogan's war against the Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey [involving incursions into northern Iraq], nor his continued denial of Ottoman Turkey's genocide of Armenians, nor Turkey's occupation of northern Cyprus which led to ethnic cleansing of Greeks from the occupation zone [later paralleled by ethnic cleansing of ethnic Turks from the southern part of the island, the still independent Republic of Cyprus]. We may point out here parenthetically that some occupations are viewed more favorably than others. Just as "Free Gaza" couldn't care less about northern Cyprus being occupied, few in the West cared that Germany, Austria and Japan were occupied after WW 2 --and American troops are still in Germany and Japan, while Russia annexed huge areas of Japan and part of Germany and part of Finland. On the other hand, Israel is falsely accused of "occupying" parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, assigned by the League of Nations in 1922 to the Jewish National Home. But why go on with Western hypocrisy?

A semi-official branch of the US Govt, the Woodrow Wilson Center in DC, just last week gave an award to Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who recently called the Israeli boarding and seizure of the blockade-running Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, "Our 9/11." That hyperbole was worthy of an Arab, whom Turks often look down on. It is significant that the Wilson Center is headed by Lee Hamilton, a stuffed shirt white guy who is one of Obama's mentors [see previous post at bottom]. Hamilton praised Davutoglu. He "personifies the attributes we seek to honor at the Woodrow Wilson Center," Hamilton claimed. Just incidentally, Hamilton thereby contradicted the silly words of his spokeswoman who claimed that the award was not an "endorsement" of the Turkish FM. Now we have to wonder if the Wilson Center award to the Turkish FM was the White House's way of encouraging Turkey's anti-Israel policy, including the thugs on the Mavi Marmara ship. This is because, as said, Hamilton is one of Obama's mentors and John Brennan, Obama's so-called "counterterrorism czar" [pro-terrorism czar?], has a soft spot in his heart for both Hamas and Hizbullah. Brennan has also been tied to Free Gaza by Jerome Corsi of World Net Daily [here; also here]. Obama's old friends Bill Ayres & Bernardine Dohrn are also linked to Free Gaza [see link just above]

This use of surreptitious methods, of subterfuges, against Jews is an unfortunate part of Jewish history. It was common in the Russian tsarist empire more than 100 years ago. These methods
went so far as organizing pogrom mobs to attack Jews, including a nasty group of thugs called the Tshernotentsy, the Black Hundreds. Here is the historian Solomon Grayzel:

For the six million Jews in the Russian empire, the decade and a half before World War I was a period of oppression and heroism. Russia was in the midst of its long overdue struggle for general emancipation . . . the Jews naturally aligned themselves with the forces of liberalism. The tottering czarist system and its reactionary supporters resorted to the old game of identifying the revolutionaries with the Jews and attempting to turn attention away from the existing abuses by stirring up anti-Jewish feeling. A wave of pogroms swept over Russia. The massacre in Kishineff [now Chisinau in Moldova] at Easter 1903 saw dozens killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands of homes sacked. The cry of horror which went up all over the civilized world and among the liberal elements in Russia itself did not stop the government from instigating similar pogroms in the city of Homel and elsewhere. The only police interference was with the efforts of the Jews to defend themselves. [Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews (Philadelphia: JPS 1959), pp 708-709]

Does that last sentence sound familiar? The Russian police interfered "with the efforts of the Jews to defend themselves." How about the policy of the EU, UK, UN, OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference], Turkey and others to prevent Israel from defending the Jews of Sderot and the rest of the south of Israel? How about all that sympathy for the trials and travails of a territory ruled by Nazi-like Muslim terrorists, the Hamas? The Hamas Charter calls for murdering all the Jews at Judgment Day. The noble Western states want the Hamas to have all the concrete and steel that it needs to build bigger and better underground bunkers so the Hamas leaders will have somewhere to hide the next time that they provoke Israel with hundreds of missiles.

Now are there any other parallels between then and now? Yes, Virginia, there are other parallels. Then there was the Mendel Beilis case. Beilis was a Jew accused in Kiev of murdering a non-Jewish boy [a prefiguration of Muhammad al-Durah]. The case became a blood libel with the Tsarist govt pressing for conviction of Beilis, hoping to arouse a pogrom atmosphere [see Grayzel, pp 709-710]. Fortunately, Beilis was defended by some of the best, most respected Russian attorneys. He was acquitted in a jury trial by the jury. The real murderers of the boy who had disappeared were found.

What today is comparable to the Beilis case? First, the murdered boy has a parallel in young Muhammad al-Durah. But whereas the boy in Kiev had in fact been murdered by known criminals, al-Durah was not killed at the time and place alleged by France2's Charles Enderlin at the end of September 2000, in a notorious, very short film clip released by France2 free of charge to TV broadcasters throughout the world at that time. As we can see in the parts of the film taken by the same cameraman on that same day of al-Durah but not released to TV, little al-Durah was not killed and his death does not appear in the very short film clip meant to indict and convict Israel in a new blood libel, updated for the new century. A French court in Paris ordered Enderlin to produce the full, uncut film in court. He did not bring the full film but what he did bring was enough to overrule his accusation of libel against a media critic who had argued that the al-Durah affair was a hoax [an argument partly based on the reports of senior French journalists who had seen the full film or most of what was not shown on TV back in 2000]. Hence, today we don't know whether al-Durah is dead or alive , although in the parts of the film shown in court little Muhammad is shown holding a red cloth that might seem to be blood if you see it only for a few seconds.

Any other parallels? At least one, a host of false accusations are made against Israel. Some focus on alleged Israeli crimes against the Turkish jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara [one of them being an American citizen whose parents brought him to Turkey when he was 2 years old and never visited America afterwards] who are described as "peace activists" by the trained minions of Fenton Communications. The active Judeophobes in the United States show much more "sympathy" for that Turk of American birth than for the three thousand Americans murdered by jihadist fanatics not much different from the goons on the Mavi Marmara.

Then too we have the Goldstone "Fact Finding Mission" report prepared by the staff of the UN"human rights council" which is subject to the OIC, the most powerful bloc in the UN. The "goldstone report" was meant to be a trial and conviction in the court of public opinion worldwide of Israel and the Jews. Something like the Beilis trial. Another set of false charges as in the Beilis case.

We note that historian Solomon Grayzel was somewhat naive. He didn't know the "liberals" of today. Most of the most outspoken "liberals" around today are fascist rabble rousers and demagogures.
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More on the Award to the Turkish Foreign Minister Who Favored the Mavi Marmara Blockade Running Gambit
The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, 1/3 funded by the US Federal Govt, is giving Erdung's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, an award in the name of former president Wilson [here]. It is called the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award. How kind of the Wilson Center, headed by one of Obama's mentors, Lee Hamilton, a former US representative!! Hamilton was co-author of the notorious Baker-Hamilton Report which recommended that the US shaft Israel and befriend the fascist regime in Damascus. For those who still believe in "Hope & Change", the Baker-Hamilton recommendations are part of Obama's foreign policy within the generally disastrous guidelines set by Zbig Brzezinski. For those who believe that centers and institutes named after illustrious historical figures and proclaiming lofty goals and principles have policies decided by sugar plum fairies, David Boyajian shows that the Wilson Center is closely connected to various large corporations that do big business with Turkey. Davutoglu is commonly considered the architect of Erdung's turn towards a pro-Muslim, pro-jihad policy.
The Wilson Center explains the award [here]. The Center's spokeswoman claims that it is not an "endorsement" of Davutoglu's views or deeds.
Claudia Rosett considers the award the decision of a fool [here]. Maybe somebody more sinister than a mere fool, methinks.
Michael Rubin has his doubts about the award [here]
The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, 1/3 funded by the US Federal Govt, is giving Erdung's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, an award in the name of former president Wilson [here]. It is called the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award. How kind of the Wilson Center, headed by one of Obama's mentors, Lee Hamilton, a former US representative!! Hamilton was co-author of the notorious Baker-Hamilton Report which recommended that the US shaft Israel and befriend the fascist regime in Damascus. For those who still believe in "Hope & Change", the Baker-Hamilton recommendations are part of Obama's foreign policy within the generally disastrous guidelines set by Zbig Brzezinski. For those who believe that centers and institutes named after illustrious historical figures and proclaiming lofty goals and principles have policies decided by sugar plum fairies, David Boyajian shows that the Wilson Center is closely connected to various large corporations that do big business with Turkey. Davutoglu is commonly considered the architect of Erdung's turn towards a pro-Muslim, pro-jihad policy.
The Wilson Center explains the award [here]. The Center's spokeswoman claims that it is not an "endorsement" of Davutoglu's views or deeds.
Claudia Rosett considers the award the decision of a fool [here]. Maybe somebody more sinister than a mere fool, methinks.
Michael Rubin has his doubts about the award [here]
The ever sleazy and slimy Lee Hamilton proudly announced that Davutoglu "personifies the attributes we seek to honor at the Woodrow Wilson Center." So much for Hamilton's spokeswoman's claim that the award was not an "endorsement." Hamilton added that Davutoglu's "contributions have been numerous and significant." [here] Is Hamilton endorsing the Mavi Marmara pro-Hamas provocation as a "significant . . . contribution"??
Jennifer Rubin suggests that the US Govt stop funding the Wilson Center [here]

LINK ADDED 7-17-2010 Carlo Panella on Davutoglu's aggressive anti-Israel policy [qui in italiano].

UPDATING 7-3-2010 Fresno Zionism shows clear understanding of the role of Fenton Communications in the Western-Arab assault on Israel. He includes a document [here]

7-6-2010 Qatar wants credit for smearing Israel [here]
7-11-2010 US funding for Ghaddafi's son's "charitable foundation" which in turn is sending another "humano ship" to Gaza. Another curious coincidence.
Jodie Evans of Code Pink notoriety is part of the "Free Gaza movment" which does not intend to free Gazans from Hamas. Evans became notorious [or famous, if you like] for her leadership of Code Pink and its aggressive demonstrations against the war in Iraq while George Bush II was president. However, since her chosen one, Mr Barack Hussein Obama, became president and sent more troops to Afghanistan than Bush had, Jodie and Code Pink have had little or nothing to say about the war in Afghanistan, let alone vociferously protest it. Her and Code Pink's energies seem all to be focussed now on the alleged plight of Gaza, actually a much more prosperous place than Afghanistan. But Jodie and Code Pink are not against war as such, just against the wrong war. Hamas' war against the Jews seems A-OK, while the war in Afghanistan is not especially objectionable [here & here].
UPDATING 7-12-2010 Fenton Communications has supposedly decided not to renew its contract to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, a contract with the sheikha or "princess" of Qatar [here]

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UPDATING 7-16-2010 The New York Times finally got around to reporting the terrorist ties of IHH, the "charitable foundation" behind the Turkish Thug Armada, and IHH's ties to high Turkish govt officials, including PM Erdogan [here]
UPDATING 8-23-2010 Dr Aviva Efrat, a lecturer on Turkish affairs at Bar Ilan Univ: "Erdogan is suffering from very serious criticism domestically because unemployment is rising. One of the reasons for the large number of demonstrators against Israel is economic. Many of them receive payment for their participation in these demonstrations. A sizable part of them don't know what is written on the signs that they are carrying. They are an incited mob. . . . Erdgogan is a provocateur by his nature. That's the attitude towards him in his own foreign ministry. . . . He is a man who gets angry very quickly." Maqor Rishon, 7-2-2010 p 22.

Erdogan Has a Judeophobic, Nazi-like Background -- Prof. Andrew Bostom

UPDATINGS 6-17-2010 at bottom

Not much has come out about Turkish PM Erdogan's political background in Nazi-like Islamist movements. Some info has come out. Here is the most detailed report on Erdung's background that I have seen so far. Professor Andrew Bostom has published fundamental anthologies of important Muslim documents and forgotten writings by non-Muslim authorities on Muslim jihad and on Muslim Judeophobia. Prof Bostom, a professor of medicine, was shocked by the 9-11 events and undertook a profound and thorough study of Islam, its history, its principle of jihad and its Judeophobia which goes back to Muhammad, according to Muslim sources.

Here is his report on Erdogan:

"Mas Kom Ya" Erdogan and His Ur Jew-Hatred

Just over 35 years ago, in 1974, Erdogan, while serving as president of the Istanbul Youth Group of his mentor, former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party, wrote, directed, and played the leading role in a theatrical play entitled Maskomya, staged throughout Turkey during the 1970s. Mas-Kom-Ya was a compound acronym for “Masons-Communists-Yahudi”—the latter of course “Jews”—and the play focused on the evil, conspiratorial nature of these three entities whose common denominator was Judaism.

More recently, when the wildly popular, most expensive film ever made in Turkey Valley of the Wolves (released February, 2006) included a “cinematic motif” which featured an American Jewish doctor dismembering Iraqis supposedly murdered by American soldiers in order to harvest their organs for Jewish markets, Prime Minister Erdogan not only failed to condemn the film, he justified its production and popularity.




On August 28, 2007, the same day that Abdullah Gul became Turkey's President – replacing his secular predecessor, and further consolidating the ruling Islamic AK (Adalet ve Kalkınma) Party's (AKP) hold on power -- MEMRI published excerpts from a chilling interview given by Erdogan’s mentor, former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. The interview originally aired July 1, 2007, as part of Erbakan's campaign efforts in support of Islamic fundamentalist political causes before the general elections of July 22, 2007, and the AKP's resounding popular electoral victory over its closest "secularist" rival parties.

Erbakan, founder of the fundamentalist Islamic Milli Gorus (National Vision; originated 1969) movement, mentored current AKP leaders President Gul, and Prime Minister Erdogan, both of whom were previously active members of Erbakan's assorted fundamentalist political parties, serving in mayoral, ministerial, and parliamentary posts. The IHH—whose violent operatives featured prominently in the Mavi Maramara Antisemitic incitement, and subsequent bloodshed—has its origins in this same Orthodox Islamic Milli Görüş movement. During Erbakan's pre-election 2007 campaign stops before throngs of tens of thousands of supporters throughout Anatolia (including cities such as Trabzon, Elazig, and Konya), as well as cosmopolitan Ankara and Istanbul, he reiterated the same virulently Antisemitic statements captured in the July 1 interview, and other interviews.

These interviews and more expansive speeches were rife with allusions to Zionists/Jews (deliberately conflated), as "bacteria," and "disease," conspiring to dominate the contemporary Islamic world (“from Morocco to Indonesia”), as they had attempted unsuccessfully during the 11th and 12th centuries when Jews purportedly “organized” the Crusades, only to be stopped by the Turk's/Erbakan's Seljuk “forefathers.” Ultimately, Erbakan claimed, modern Jews/Zionists wished to establish “a world order where money and manpower are dependent on [them].”

For over thirty years, Necmettin Erbakan a former chairman of the fundamentalist National Salvation Party, and its numerous offshoots, have represented the most significant examples of Turkish Muslim political organizations exploiting systematized anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist bigotry. Erbakan's ascension to Deputy Prime Minister in January, 1974, was marked by Pan-Islamic overtures, along with increasingly strident verbal violence against Jews, Zionism, and the State of Israel emanating from the National Salvation Party's organs, especially its daily Milli Gazete (The National Newspaper), published in Istanbul since January 12, 1973.

The modern fundamentalist Islamic movement Erbakan founded has continued to produce the most extreme strain of antisemitism extant in Turkey, and traditional Islamic motifs, i.e., frequent quotations from the Koran and Hadith, remain central to this hatred, nurtured by early Islam's basic animus towards Judaism. Milli Gazete published articles in February and April of 2005, for example, which were toxic amalgams of ahistorical drivel, and virulently antisemitic and anti-dhimmi Koranic motifs, including these protoypical comments based upon Koran 2:61/ 3:112:

In fact no amount of pages or lines would be sufficient to explain the Qur'anic chapters and our Lord Prophet's [Muhammad's] words that tell us of the betrayals of the Jews... The prophets sent to them, such as Zachariah and Isaiah, were murdered by the Jews...

The April 2005 edition of the monthly Aylik, produced by a Turkish jihadist organization which claimed responsibility for the November 15, 2003 dual synagogue bombings in Istanbul, contained 18 pages of antisemitic material. An article written by Cumali Dalkilic entitled, "Why Antisemitism?", combined traditional Koranic antisemitic motifs with Nazi antisemitism, and Holocaust denial. Another article's title repeats the commonplace, if very pejorative Turkish Muslim characterization of Jews, “Tschifit,” which translates as "filthy Jews" (a pejorative term for Jews whose usage was recorded by the European travelers Carsten Niebuhr in 1794, and Abdolonyme Ubicini in 1856, based upon their visits to Ottoman Turkey), i.e., "The Tschifits [The Filthy Jews] Castle."

Bat Ye'or published a remarkably foresighted 1973 analysis (first translated into English here) of the Islamic Antisemitism resurgent in her native Egypt, and being packaged for dissemination throughout the Muslim world. The primary, core Antisemitic motifs were Islamic, derived from Islam's foundational texts, on to which European, especially Nazi elements were grafted.

The pejorative characteristics of Jews as they are described in Muslim religious texts are applied to modern Jews. Anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism are equivalent-due to the inferior status of Jews in Islam, and because divine will dooms Jews to wandering and misery, the Jewish state appears to Muslims as an unbearable affront and a sin against Allah. Therefore it must be destroyed by Jihad. Here the Pan-Arab and anti-Western theses that consider Israel as an advanced instrument of the West in the Islamic world, come to reinforce religious anti-Judaism. The religious and political fuse in a purely Islamic context onto which are grafted foreign elements. If, on the doctrinal level, Nazi influence is secondary to the Islamic base, the technique with which the Antisemitic material has been reworked, and the political purposes being pursued, present striking similarities with Hitler's Germany. [emphasis added]

That anti-Jewish opinions have been widely spread in Arab nationalist circles since the 1930s is not in doubt. But their confirmation at [Al] Azhar [University] by the most important authorities of Islam enabled them to be definitively imposed, with the cachet of infallible authenticity, upon illiterate masses that were strongly attached to religious traditions. [emphasis added]
Erbakan's recent statements are vivid evidence of the fulminant Antisemitism his popular movement has imbued, including amongst Turkey's current ruling elites, who never criticize such pronouncements by their mentor. Indeed current Prime Minister Erdogan amplifies this bigoted, Antisemitic discourse which resonates among the masses, illustrating graphically the same phenomenon described so presciently 37 years ago by Bat Ye’or about her native Egypt: sequentially grafting on to a learned foundation of Antisemitic motifs from Islam's core texts, modern secular Western European elements, especially those associated with Nazism.

Rifat Bali, a Turkish historian, and Jew, made a passionate indictment of Turkey's tacit acceptance of Antisemitism, published soon after the November 15, 2003 Istanbul synagogue bombings. The singularly courageous Bali, decried first and foremost, Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan's and his AKP government's abject failure to publicly denounce both the Antisemitic discourse of the fundamentalist Islamic movement from which Erdogan emerged, and which he claimed later to have abandoned, and those (like Erdogan's mentor Necmettin Erbakan, for example) insistent on perpetuating such public discourse. With bitter disbelief, Bali further noted the near unanimously shared, albeit counterfactual view, of a respected Turkish columnist, published (in Milliyet November 17, 2003) within two days of the bombings, who maintained that, “...there has never been Antisemitism in Turkey in its racist or religious sense.”

The opportunity for honest discussion was squandered by every domain of Turkish society, not only politicians, but also media and intellectual elites. Moreover, a profoundly depressing example of collective Jewish dhimmitude was on ignominious display: the Chief Rabbi, as well as the secular leaders in his entourage representing the voice of Turkey's Jewish community, even the Israeli government, as Bali observes,

...all seemed determined to ignore...[rather than] to confront face to face the Antisemitism which is incorporated in the political Islamic movement...[i.e., which currently governs Turkey].Bali further admonished the Erdogan regime to live up to its professed support of equality for Jews within Turkish society: Turkey's Jews are not dhimmis in need of the tolerance and the protection of the Muslim majority. They are citizens of the Republic of Turkey.[emphasis added]


Perhaps ceasing this disgraceful and delusional behavior starts by putting an end to the hagiography of Jewish life under Ottoman rule -- including Jews living within Istanbul's ghettoes, and Ottoman Palestine – and using precise terms that describe this half-millennium of history, appropriately and accurately: jihad, surgun (forced population transfer), and chronic dhimmitude. There was nothing “humanitarian” whatsoever in the Ottomans accepting a relatively modest number of Jewish refugees from the Inquisition – far greater numbers were accepted in other parts of Europe itself. Indeed the vacuum created for these skilled Jewish refugees whom the Ottomans re-settled in their burgeoning Empire was created by the Ottoman jihad conquest of Byzantine and Venetian territories and their Jewish populations, i.e., Jews who were subjected to the Ottoman jihad, including massacre, pillage, enslavement, forced conversion, and surgun deportation.

Also one cannot get lost in comforting happy talk and ignore the chronic, grinding Antisemitism, and vestiges of dhimmitude to which the Jews in Turkey have been subjected throughout the history of modern Republican Turkey-including the large, government organized Thracian pogroms of 1934, and the blatantly discriminatory, deliberately pauperizing varlik vergisi taxation scheme and subsequent deportations of Jewish business leaders to "Turkish Siberia," during World War II (WWII). This ongoing discrimination contributed to the rapid exodus of 40% of Turkey's Jews after WWII to Israel within 2 years of its creation, followed by the steady, continuous attrition of the Turkish Jewish population – their departure accelerating again after the notorious Istanbul pogrom against Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in 1955—so that only 17,000 (or fewer) of Turkey's 77, 000 post-WWII Jews remain.

Joseph Hacker's seminal research highlights the 1523 book of the Talmudist Eliyah Kapsali (Seder Eliyah Zuta, composed in Crete), and its embellishment by the 17th century Egyptian chronicler Rabbi Yosef Sambari (in Sambari's Divrei Yosef)-rather crudely redacted narratives which became the version accepted by modern historiography of the history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire:

...the sürgün [forced population transfer] phenomenon and all its attendant [discriminatory] features features was not considered at all. If the sürgün was mentioned at all in the writings of the [Jewish] scholars of the Empire, it was held to be an insignificant, indecisive episode in the history of the Jews. The relations between Jews and Ottomans were thus felt to be both idyllic and monotonous from their very inception, no distinction being made either between kinds of Jewish populations or between one period and another throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Kapsali conceals all criticism and tries to cover up and obliterate inconvenient facts...This is also apparently the reason for his utterly ignoring the Romaniot [Byzantine] Jews and their fate at the time of the conquest of Constantinople, and of the suffering of the others exiled there after the conquest.

The 16th century dhimmi Jewish leadership's deliberate misrepresentation of the actual plight of Ottoman Jewry was described by Hacker with obvious contempt. Inexcusably, this pathological behavior persists five centuries later among contemporary Jewish leadership elites, who appear incapable of identifying, let alone adequately defending against, the resurgence of jihadist Islam in Turkey. Gifted writer Diana West's evocative language depicts the ultimate outcome if this self-destructive dhimmitude is not reversed: “in denial there is defeat.”

Tragically, the contemporary leadership of the Turkish Jewish community, Israel, and American Jewish advocacy groups never mustered the intellectual courage to overcome their own craven denial. Collectively galvanized, several years ago, they might have confronted Erdogan's AKP government over the ugly living legacy of anti-dhimmi and Antisemitic discrimination against Turkey's Jews, and demanded immediate efforts at amelioration of their plight: marginalization and legal punishment of Turkish politicians and public intellectuals whose discourse incites Jew-hatred, and potentially, anti-Jewish violence; the implementation of concrete reforms, ensuring in practice equal rights, opportunities, and public safety for Jews. And they should have demanded, further, that if all these measures were not implemented rapidly, with tangible evidence of success, Turkey's Jews would be allowed unfettered, mass emigration without any economic penalties.

Such bold, forthright action – joint “anti-dhimmitude” – could have put an end to the ongoing phenomenon of a vestigial de facto dhimmi Jewish community of Turkey (via its dhimmi leadership) holding Israel, and American Jews hostage to the whims of an oppressive Turkish government, in the throes of a transformative fundamentalist Islamic revival. But nothing of the sort was ever done.

Thus a Turkish Jew, Albert Pinto—illustrating modern Jewish dhimmitude, denial, and raw “fear for their lives” in Turkey as Muslims “take to the street in growing numbers against Israel”—reportedly stated, referring to the slain IHH jihadists aboard the Mavi Maramara,

What we are hearing in the media is not pleasant. Why did they kill those people? They were nice people who simply wished to help.

More ominously, resurgent jihadism in Turkey manifest by the ruling AKP party, and its popular leader Erdogan, now brazenly espouses Antisemitic hatred, and focuses this animus on the Jewish State of Israel.
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reference notes to Andrew Bostom's article are found here.
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UPDATINGS 6-17&20-2010
Michael Rubin on misconceptions of Turkey [as by Tom Friedman] and on Erdung's cunning, thuggish policy [here]

For all those who appreciate a macabre sense of humor, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, 1/3 funded by the US Federal Govt, is giving Erdung's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, an award in the name of former president Wilson [here]. It is called the Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award. How kind of the Wilson Center, headed by one of Obama's mentors, Lee Hamilton, a former US representative!! Hamilton was co-author of the notorious Baker-Hamilton Report which recommended that the US shaft Israel and befriend the fascist regime in Damascus. For those who still believe in "Hope & Change", the Baker-Hamilton recommendations are part of Obama's foreign policy within the generally disastrous guidelines set by Zbig Brzezinski. For those who believe that centers and institutes named after illustrious historical figures and proclaiming lofty goals and principles have policies decided by sugar plum fairies, David Boyajian shows that the Wilson Center is closely connected to various large corporations that do big business with Turkey. Davutoglu is commonly considered the architect of Erdung's turn towards a pro-Muslim, pro-jihad policy.
The Wilson Center explains the award [here]. The Center's spokeswoman claims that it is not an "endorsement" of Davutoglu's views or deeds.
Claudia Rosett considers the award the decision of a fool [here]. Maybe somebody more sinister than a mere fool, methinks.
Michael Rubin has his doubts about the award [here]
The ever sleazy and slimy Lee Hamilton proudly announced that Davutoglu "personifies the attributes we seek to honor at the Woodrow Wilson Center." So much for Hamilton's spokeswoman's claim that the award was not an "endorsement." Hamilton added that Davutoglu's "contributions have been numerous and significant." [here] Is Hamilton endorsing the Mavi Marmara pro-Hamas provocation as a "significant . . . contribution"??
Jennifer Rubin suggests that the US Govt stop funding the Wilson Center [here]

UPDATING 7-24-2010: Caroline Glick reports on Turkish alliance with Syria [here].

The Turkish "Humanitarian" Armada -- An Italian View

UPDATING 6-14 & 10-17-2010 at bottom

The peace process means peace of mind for antisemites

Fiamma Nirenstein, the deputy chairperson of the foreign affairs committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, discerns a slight improvement in the international view of Israel's action to stop the fake humanitarian Turkish armada from breaking the blockade of Gaza, now ruled by Islamic fanatics and bigots. Her piece is remarkable for her real knowledge of what was going on compared to the fashionable, simplistic Judeophobic accounts elsewhere in the world's "news" media.


The Left Is Now Rethinking: Enough Mud on Israel

Il Giornale 9 June 2‏010

After the accusations poured on Israel, now comes the mea culpa of the international press and observers. Even Bernard-Henri Levy condemns the disinformation. Reuters is accused: blood and knives removed from the photos

* * * * * * *

Israel is a major subject for discussion in today’s world. It is the apple of discord, the preferred pretext for attacking the West, the best weapon for legitimizing the old striped totalitarian Soviet peace flag. It is the worm that gnaws at the soul of Leftist Jews who adore their narcissistic-diasporic legitimization that exempts them from the hardly elegant experience of being a people, indeed, a nation. Above all, it is the issue that enables the antisemites to express themselves under cover and enables the automatic UN majority to be strong. It is also the best of the red capes to wave in front of the Islamist bull, as Ahmadinejad did in Istanbul, when he promised to wipe out Israel, and as Bashar Assad did in Syria and Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, did, who is building an Islamist career for his country by threatening Israel.

But excess is deforming and the huge amount of mud poured on Israel lately has disgusted even Bernard-Henri Levy, one of the most active critics of Israeli policy (He and others authored the leftist so-called JCall document against the Israeli government and criticized Israel immediately after the flotilla event). Precisely in HaAretz, a pacifist, hypercritical paper, he condemned the disinformation and criminalization deployed against Israel, while retaining his reservations about the “stupidity” of the operation and of the Netanyahu government.

The world is rethinking, and maybe that is also because the slow realization of reality is weakening the pressure, Israel is showing courage on the issue of a [international investigating] commission. Jerusalem has many good reasons for rejecting an international commission that, according to the UN Council for Human Rights (Italy voted No), is supposed to investigate the behavior of the Jewish State during the unfortunate boarding and takeover of the ship Marmara. The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner considers it a good idea and in order to reinforce the meaning of the commission he requests that Turkey take part in it. That is strange, given the certainly non-neutral role of Turkey in that event and given that Erdogan stokes the fire and threatens, together with Ahmadinejad, to go to the coast of Gaza with his own ships, even personally.

In general, Israel’s experience with investigating commissions, with UN institutions moreover, has been disastrous. An outstanding illustration was the commission directed by Judge Goldstone which used only sources sympathetic to the Palestinians to draw up a devastating report about the Gaza War. In fact, it forbade Israel to defend itself and quoted only activist-witnesses that call armed units and human shields for Hamas “civilians.” Israel, that can judge itself very severely by itself, as demonstrated by the Winograd Commission that was pitiless on the Lebanon War of 2006 and caused the dismissal of many civilians and military men, is planning therefore at the moment two independent investigating commissions, even if Netanyahu is still awaiting American approval for the second: The first, military one, will be guided by General Giora Eiland, a calm personality, admired for being cultured; the second is to be made up of local jurists, expert on international and maritime law and of two international jurists, one an American, as observers. It will not be their duty to interrogate the soldiers, whom Bibi is careful not to let be directly accused. The commission should examine the conditions of the encounter on the ship Marmara, the legality of the naval blockade, the question of “proportion” in the encounter.

In reality, with the passage of the hours, as many international observers, the press, the TV, Bernard-Henri Levy and companions make their mea culpas, the circumstances of the event on the Marmara have become ever clearer. Criticisms have been made by many of the military modality of the attack, but that the “pacifist” ship was transporting armed thugs belonging to an organization that had supplied weapons to Hamas, to the Islamic Jihad and even to al-Qa`ida and that it was sprinkled with persons who wanted to win paradise through becoming shahids, is certain.

What has not been well clarified, however, is the role of Turkey, that launched the fleet although warned of the danger that that entailed; that knew who the men of the IHH were, and that allowed them to embark anyhow in conspicuous numbers from a different port without checking them, that now rides the event in the most blatant way, using Istanbul as a launch platform for bellicose operations. Turkey acts enthusiastically in every domain: It was reprimanded by Angela Merkel by her defining herself as prime minister for the Turks who live in Germany; it raised eyebrows when it sought de facto to save Iran from the sanctions by offering to enrich Iran’s uranium itself; when a radar station within Turkey collapsed unexpectedly while NATO is supposed to have needed information on Georgia, obtained by radar.

Standing out is the fact that Abu Mazen went personally to Erdogan to explain to him that what he is doing gives Hamas an advantage over its worst enemy, Fatah. A fire like the one that Turkey is threatening to kindle to Israel’s detriment can spread even to the detriment of the arsonists.

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It may well be that world public opinion is turning away from the lies of Erdogan and of his Western comrades in the "Free Gaza movement." After all, there has been too much real information that emerged before and after the boarding of the Mavi Marmara about the thuggish character of the IHH operatives on the boat who attacked Israeli commandos who came down one by one from a helicopter, thereby facilitating the endeavor of the Turkish thugs to seize and beat and stab them. That was an Israeli mistake of intelligence evaluation and of command. But the thuggish character of the "peacemongers" was obvious for all to see in many videos and audio recordings and still photos. So even many of the usual anti-Israel hypocrites had to step back and reconsider what went on.

What is disappointing in the article above is that Israel's govt and prime minister seem to be giving in to a hypocritical demand by certain Western govts and the UN, etc., that an "international invesigating commission" be set up to investigate only Israel and not Turkey, an investigation that would supposedly be "transparent" and "impartial" and any other suitable adjective that the reader may care to add . Meanwhile, Erdogan and Ahmadinejad's open incitement to war and threats of war against Israel are not openly or directly condemned by the West, including the USA. Israel should take its case to the so-called International Court of Justice at the Hague where of course, Israel will get no justice because of the inherently political structure of the ICJ and the UN as a whole, but it would be helpful to raise the issue, to make the accusations anyhow, to accuse, in my opinion. The UN "human rights council," which is dominated by tyrannies and, in particular, the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC] (its chairman a Turk named Ihsanoglu), should not be allowed to be the party making accusations and demanding investigations. The role of the Islamist Turkish govt of Erdogan in instigating and executing this affair should be exposed to the whole world.
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UPDATING 6-14-2010
Eve Garrard, a writer, points out some of the widespread hypocrisy deployed against Israel, especially on account of the Turkish armada incident [here].
Leon de Winter, Dutch novelist, perceives the international Left's hypocrisy over the Turkish armada [here]
UPDATING 10-17-2010 The important Italian daily, Il Giornale [which Fiamma Nirenstein writes for] of 1 June 2010 judged that "Israel did right to shoot" at violent jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara [here]. "With the excuse of pacifism, a fleet of ships wanted to violate the sovereignty of the Jewish state and bring aid to Hamas." The novelist Amos Oz disagreed with the Israeli government decision to stop the "aid convoy." But he adds, "I don't know them, these pacifists. Many of them cannot be defined as such. They are Islamic militants sympathizing with Hamas. They have ties with terrorist organizations. I believe that they were looking for a provocation. This is a fact. Among them, to be sure, were pacifists in good faith. . ." Here's a problem. Can pacifists in "good faith" sympathize with Hamas? Were they so ignorant as not to know what Hamas stands for? That their convoy was making publicity for Hamas? Were they 100%, sincere and consistent pacifists?

Armenian Spokesman Tells Us that Erdogan is a Hypocrite, then flips to the Arab Side

An Armenian spokesman tells us that Erdogan of Turkey is a hypocrite. That's an important acknowledgment. Then he tries to get back on the Arabs' good side by telling Erdogan what to do if he really wanted to support the "palestinians" and hurt Israel [shut down the Israeli embassy in Ankara, call back the Turkish ambassador to Israel, etc]. These measures have partly come to pass and the rest may come in the future.

In the past week the world witnessed an amazing performance by a government leader that even the most accomplished Hollywood actor could not match!

Turkey’s Prime Minister deserves an Oscar for presenting himself as a great humanitarian and protector of Palestinians. The people of Gaza are certainly oppressed and deprived, but Erdogan is not their knight in shining armor! One cannot champion human rights with unclean hands!
This is the height of hypocrisy!

- How could Turkey blockade Armenia for 17 years and credibly call on Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza? [see here]

But the writer's primary hatred is reserved for Israel, not for Turkey. Maybe "Christkillers" are still "Christkillers" even in the 21st century. But if the writer wants to keep the world "Left" from putting a halo on Erdung's head --and through him on Turkish history, making Turkish history nearly sacred-- then he will have to focus more on Erdung's faults, on the IHH, and on Turkey's other historical offenses, expelling Anatolian Greeks in 1922, massacres of Kurds today, the 1955 Constantinople pogrom, the 1974 invasion of Cyprus, including "ethnic cleansing" of the north of the island, offenses against Jews during the Ottoman conquest. Of course, some Jews see Turkey as rather liberal and tolerant of Jews when the Christian West was blatantly intolerant towards Jews. Let him deal with that too.

How could Turkey claim to be champion of the Palestinian cause and leader of the Islamic world, while being Israel’s closest military ally in the Middle East for over a half century, and allowing Israeli jets to carry out practice bombing runs in Turkish airspace against Arab countries and Iran?

- How could Syria, Iraq and Iran trust Turkey, when it jeopardizes their national security by permitting Israeli listening posts along the border to collect intelligence on their countries.

. . . . .

How could Turkish leaders claim that Israel is a "terrorist state," while continuing to maintain a military alliance and multi-billion dollar trade with the Jewish state? Turkey pretended to side with Arab states, all the while conspiring with Israel to damage their national security!

Israel and the United States share responsibility for Turkey’s hypocritical behavior -- they joined in supporting, defending and covering up numerous Turkish violations of human rights, denial of the Armenian Genocide, and suppression and ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish minority. In the past 60 years, the United States and other NATO members gave billions of dollars in foreign aid and military assistance to Turkey, vainly expecting to win its loyalty. This was a massive waste of U.S. resources, as Turkey did not even allow American troops to go across its border at the start of the Iraq war!

Turkey cleverly exploited Israel’s ill-advised attack on the Gaza aid flotilla, and sought to fill the vacuum created by the irresponsible inaction of Arab states. Erdogan is just as guilty as Israel’s leaders for causing the killing and wounding of the aid activists. He tacitly encouraged them to set sail to Gaza, knowing full well that there would be a bloody confrontation which would boost his own standing at home and abroad. Turkey’s junior brother, Azerbaijan, also gets a medal for hypocrisy as it issued a timid condemnation of Israel, so it could continue to buy arms and sell oil to that country. So much for Turkish-Azeri solidarity!

Of course, over the years, the Israeli government has acted just as hypocritically as Turkey’s leaders. While countering any and all manifestations of Holocaust revisionism, Israeli officials have shown no reluctance in supporting Turkey’s denials of the Armenian Genocide. But now that Erdogan has raised his voice against Israel to a fever pitch, Israelis have jumped at the opportunity of using the possibility of recognizing the Armenian Genocide as a weapon against
Turkey. Armenians must reject such dishonesty. The Israeli government was not sincere when it denied the Armenian Genocide, and it is not sincere now in supporting its recognition! It is shameful to play cheap political games with an issue as horrendous and devastating as genocide. Israel and others should recognize the Armenian Genocide for only one reason: It is the absolute truth!

So far, Turkey has been all talk and no action on the Palestinian issue. Erdogan has not gone beyond giving fiery speeches against Israel. If he is honest about defending the Palestinians, he might consider:

1. Canceling all military contacts and contracts with Israel;
2. Abrogating all public and secret military and strategic agreements with Israel, including intelligence-sharing; and
3. Closing down the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv and Israel’s Embassy in Ankara. [The author is Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier, see here]

This Armenian author goes so far as to recommend to the Turks what to do in order to really hurt Israel and show loyalty to the "palestinian" cause. Patience, creep, it is all coming.

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Here is another article on Turkey's role in regard to Armenian genocide recognition and to the recent provocation by the break the blockade pro-terrorist auxiliary Turkish armada [here]. This one is by a rabbi and displayed on an Armenian site.

Passengers and leaders of the Turkish Armada Tell that They Sought "Martyrdom"

UPDATING 6-7 & 7-16-2010

Here are two videos from the Arab TV media. Speaking to their fellow Muslims, Arab and Turkish friends and practitioners of terrorism tell the truth. Those who died were hoping to die, for the sake of Allah, in the path of jihad, and all that.

Several interviews in the Arab and Iranian press tell the true aims and practices of the jihadis on the ship Mavi Marmara. These jihadis were both Turks and Arabs, the Turks having been organized by the IHH, a terrorist aid body that was connected to the 2000 attempt to bomb the LAX [LA airport]. One of the interviews has two voices speaking at the same time. The interviewee was speaking Turkish which was translated into an Arabic voiceover. See interviews [video here].

The second video is of Bulent Yildirim, head of the IHH Islamic fake "charity." He tells the enthusiastically admiring mob in Gaza that he brings greetings from Saladin & Sultan Abdul Hamid. Abdul Hamid was the sultan who organized slaughter of Armenians in the late 19th century. Then he tells the mob, imbued with enthusiasm like Germans at one of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies, that there are 70 million Abdul-Hamid's in Turkey. That is just about the whole population of Turkey. Armenian spokesmen have been strangely quiet over the past two weeks as Turkish prime minister Erdogan picked up brownie points from the "left" and "humanitarian" and "human rights" crowds. If Erdung is indeed bestowed with the halo that the humano fakers are trying to place on his head, then Armenian claims for justice vis-a-vis the Turks will be forgotten and/or considered petty or trivial. The Armenians will be seen as nags at best. Their demands for recognition of the Armenian genocide will be routinely dismissed. After all, the Turks wear a halo. They support the "palestinians," seen in much of the West as a collective Jesus figure, while Israel, the collective Jew, is still blamed for the crucifixion. Hence, the Turks are now the Christian good guys, the Crusaders for the faith against the "Christkillers," the Jews. How many in the West will care about the Armenians in that situation?? Or about the Greeks for that matter, given that Greeks too have a list of historical grievances against the Turks?? See Yildirim's rabble rousing speech here [video].

For more on the Phoney Humano Flotilla see our several previous posts preceding this one.
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UPDATING 6-7-2010 It's funny that Arab & Turkish jihadis can be frank and say where they stand, at least when speaking Arabic & Turkish. However, Western "news" agencies embellish their words and the photos that show them in their bloodthirsty mode, carrying knives and ranting and chanting for bloodshed. Little Green Footballs discovered that Reuters was working hard to cover up for the IHH jihadis. See here.
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UPDATING 7-16-2010 The New York Times finally tells of the terrorist ties of the IHH, the Turkish group behind the Turkish Thug Armada, and of its ties to high Turkish officials [here]

Arab Peacemonger Is a Warmonger -- Will CNN Admit It?

UPDATING 6-7-2010


At the beginning of the week, while the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ferry boat run by the Turkish jihadi foundation IHH [here (pdf) & here & here] was sailing toward Gaza to create a provocation, an incident meant to make Israel look bad in world public opinion, CNN's Rosemary Church interviewed a well spoken humano faker named Osama Kashoo [here] As befits a spokesman for a fake "humanitarian" expedition, Kashoo told CNN viewers that he loved all mankind; he loved peace and all people and all things. See the interview here.

However, other video films were made on the ship showing the very peaceful, loving Mr Kashoo. In one of these films he appears chanting the triumphalist Islamic jihadist battlecry, Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud, Jaysh Muhammad sa ya`ud. This chant celebrates an early jihad battle victory led by Muhammad himself in which the defeated Jews of the Khaybar oasis were massacred, enslaved, humiliated and dispossessed of their lands, their moveable property and their dignity. Their wives were taken as concubines by the Arab-Muslims, including by Muhammad himself. Here it is again with translation:

Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud, Jaysh Muhammad sa ya`ud

[Remember] Khaybar Khaybar O Jews, Muhammad's army will return for sure.

Our peaceful, loving innocuous peacenik, Osama Kashoo, sits among a group of other jihadis chanting away, chanting a war cry, a chant of humiliation of Jews. See here. My suggestion is that you watch the two videos, trying to catch a glimpse of Kashoo on the right side of the group of chanters. Here is a still of Mr Kashoo sitting with his friends and chanting, raising his fist in a quintessentially peaceful gesture.


Below is another shot of our two-faced warmonger.


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UPDATING June 7, 2010 Thugs of IHH stand over wounded bodies of captured Israeli soldiers. Some of the Turkish thugs carry knives which have been thoughtfully cropped out of the photos by Reuters which took it upon itself to preserve the sacred narrative of innocuous "peace activists" murdered by Israeli commandos without provocation. Thanx to LGF for noting the deliberate alterations or embellishments of two --not one-- photos from the Mavi Marmara [here].

Food Is Abundant in Gaza, Danish Reporter Writes

A Danish reporter, Steffen Jensen, went to Gaza and found an abundance of food, although not everyone can afford the more luxurious items like meats. See the abundance in the Gaza market by clicking on the link to Jensen's blog [here], which has several photos. This article was translated but you don't need to know Danish to understand the photos.
Many people in Gaza are unemployed. Maybe it would help if they were allowed to immigrate, perhaps to Brazil which is largely unsettled and wants to develop its back country and the Amazon jungle. Many Arabs have gone there and prospered. People in Gaza who are registered refugees get free food from the UNRWA. This food aid has been coming in all along, even during the war in 2008-2009. Then Israel used to stop fighting for a few hours every day so that food could be brought and distributed.

The situation in Gaza:
The problem is more a shortage of work than a shortage of food

Judging from the media, the situation in Gaza is desperate, everything is about to collapse, and the community is on the brink or at the level of a third world country.

Israel’s closure of the border to the Gaza Strip has continued for three years, ever since the Palestinian coalition government collapsed, and Hamas, during the subsequent civil war, sent Fatah packing. The Palestinian society's immediate downfall has been prophesied numerous times in the media. People have nothing to eat, we sometimes know. The UN must from time to time to stop food distribution, either because their stocks are running low, or because they cannot get diesel for their trucks, and therefore cannot carry food in. And so on.

Yesterday I drove into the Gaza Strip. I don't do this as often as before, when it involved a quick entry by car in the morning and a quick exit by late afternoon. No it is such a slow procedure, that when I finally get down here, I end up staying for almost a week. The Israelis often also close the Gaza Strip to all foreign journalists, so that no one can get in or out (once in) for several days or weeks. That’s why there can be a long period between my visits.

This time, I had expected to see real suffering, because with all the fuss in recent days about bringing tons of humanitarian relief in - so much that people actually sacrificed their lives for it - there certainly had to really be a deep, desperate situation in the Gaza Strip. No food. Long lines in front of UN food stocks. Hungry children with food bowls.
But this was not the picture that greeted me.

When I drove through Gaza city yesterday morning, I was immediately surprised that there are almost as many traffic jams as there always have been. Isn’t there a shortage of fuel? Apparently not. No one is saving it. Gasoline is not even rationed.

Many shops were closed yesterday; Hamas has declared a general strike in protest against Israel's brutal and deadly attack on the Turkish flotilla with pro-Palestinian activists on board. It was thus difficult to estimate how many products were on the shelves. Therefore I went over to the Shati refugee camp, also known as Beach Camp. Here is one of Gaza's many vegetable markets that sell much more than just fruits and vegetables.

I will not say whether in better times there was a larger product range than yesterday, but there was certainly no shortage of vegetables, fruits or any other ordinary, basic foods. Tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, watermelons, potatoes - mountains of these items in the many stalls.

I must admit I was a little surprised. Because when I call down here to my Palestinian friends, they tell me about all the problems and deficiencies, so I expected that the crisis would be little more obvious.

And the first woman we interviewed in the market confirms this strange, contradictory, negative mindset:

"We have nothing," she said. "We need everything! Food, drinks ... everything! "

It didn’t disturb her in the least that she stood between the mountains of vegetables, fruit, eggs, poultry and fish, while she spun this doomsday scenario.

Another woman, Ifka Abu Nahal, who originally comes from a rural district, is more in contact with reality. She says that the crucial problem is the overconsumption of water, which is leading to the sinking of the groundwater table. This means that the saltwater of the Mediterranean is forced in, thus polluting the groundwater, which is already too saline. This makes it unpleasant to drink, and will eventually destroy the agricultural soil.
She also says that the poor economy is the greatest problem.

“There is a great deal of unemployment. There’s no work to be got in the Gaza Strip. This means that many people do not have an income, but are instead forced to live on handouts from their relatives. So they can’t afford to buy the goods that are actually available. They can stand there and look at the meat, but are not able to buy it, “she explains.
One thing that will really surprise many people is that only the vegetables here are grown in the Gaza Strip. With the exception of watermelons, all the fruit comes from nowhere else but from . . . Israel!

Yousuf al-Assad Yazgy owns a fruit and vegetable outlet here in the market. All his fruit is imported from Israel.

"Not all fruit and all vegetables come from Israel. Ours do. They come from Israel. But in the Gaza Strip there is not very much fruit cultivated - mostly tomatoes, potatoes and vegetables. So here with me are the vegetables and watermelons from Gaza. All the fruit comes across the border from Israel," he explains, but also says that there can be long periods when the border is closed, during which, therefore, fruit does not come in.

Another supply route is the smuggling tunnels down in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, under the border to Egypt. A very large part of the goods in the retail establishments here in Gaza come from Egypt and are smuggled in.

On the way out of the Shati camp we stop at a small grocery store. Not any fancy, expensive business. Just a small, humble local store. The proprietor Sun Mohammed Abu Nada says they would not be able to do business if it were not for contraband goods from Egypt.

He takes us on a brief tour of the shelves and shows everything that comes from Egypt. It turns out to be much more than half of the goods: 75-80 per cent, I would estimate. Several other products - including long-life UHT milk - come from Israel, but are also smuggled through tunnels from Egypt.

[photo of food in grocery store -- click on link here - Eliyahu]

This detour via the Sinai desert and the smugglers’ tunnels naturally does not make the goods any cheaper, a fact which does not escape the notice of Muhammed Abu Nada.

The products are more expensive, he says. Many people cannot afford to buy them, or only to buy certain things sometimes. But all the while even such a small, poor-looking grocery store on the outskirts of a refugee camp still has so many relatively expensive smuggled goods on the shelves, it shows, nevertheless, that at least many of the customers must be able to afford to buy them. Otherwise, the merchant of course could not even afford to invest in unsold inventory.

I have not written this story to maintain that there are no problems in the Gaza Strip, because that would be untrue. There are problems. Many problems indeed. But it is not lack of food that primarily concerns people down here. The biggest problem is the lack of jobs and a sustainable domestic economy.

There is a shortage of construction materials, cement, and everything in the construction and public works area. However, this shortage has given rise to a whole new industry. Poor Palestinians dig through the many lots and ruins of houses and factory buildings destroyed in the war. Here they find all sorts of things that can be reused. Even many of the stones and much of the concrete can be used.

But there is a shortage of real work and actual Palestinian development, which their brothers on the West Bank are currently experiencing with help from the West, and which could do much to improve the situation in the Gaza Strip. And this economic development must come from within. There will never again be a situation where almost 150,000 workers from the Gaza Strip can travel into Israel every day, and bring money back to help the local economy (something that Israel was actually once criticized for). That was stopped by the wave of terrorism and suicide bombers in the 1990s and the beginning of the decade after 2000.

But in order to start this kind of economic development with the help of the West, Israeli cooperation is needed. And that means that the Hamas government must soften its total and inflexible rejection of negotiations with Israel, not to mention recognition of that country’s right to exist. There is a perception, even though there is still a very long way to go, that among certain circles in Hamas, there are tendencies to show greater flexibility.

In order to cultivate this tendency among the Islamists, it is probably also necessary for us in the West to soften our total rejection of the idea of having contacts with Hamas. Even though our own Danish diplomats in the region, like other EU diplomats, do not want to have contacts with Hamas, a dialog is necessary.

If no calming of the situation whatsoever starts, there is a risk that the even more militant and fanatic jihadist groups, which already are growing in the Gaza Strip, will begin to pressure Hamas from the side, and force that organization to eliminate any possibilities for political compromises, and instead protect its Islamist credentials.

Update 8:00 p.m. (Gaza time)

The Israeli army announced here this evening, that it has loaded the emergency assistance to Gaza from the six Turkish activist ships onto 20 trucks, in order to drive it into the Gaza Strip. The cargo consists, among other things, of “various types of medicine (past their expiration date), clothing, carpets, hospital equipment and toys.”

Apparently, the Israelis have not been willing to accept that building and construction materials, including cement which was also on board, be sent along.

However, the Israelis can save themselves the trouble. Hamas has announced that they will not accept any emergency assistance from the ships, and have blocked Israel’s attempt to deliver the emergency help.
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UPDATING 7-15-2010 A Hamas spokesmen tells Obama that Gaza does not need his mayonnaise; Gaza already has enough food [here & qui in Italian]

Euro Hypocrites Forget Turkish Mass Murder of Armenians -- Israelis Remember - Photos of a Tel Aviv Demonstration

UPDATING 6-7-2010 see at bottom

Western & Islamic Hypocrites forget the Turkish crime of the Armenian genocide. Israelis remembered at a Tel Aviv demonstration on Monday night, May 31, 2010 [photos below].

It seems that Judeophobia/Israelophobia is a magic glue that brings Christian and Muslim, Greek and Turk, Arab and Irish together [& here]. It is also a narcotic that makes Western "liberals" and "humanitarians" forget all of Turkey's past and present injustices -- because Turkey is now on the right side against the "Christkillers" and for the poor, innocent, innocuous, persecuted, collective Jesus, the "palestinians", merely the sub-group of Arabs living in the Land of Israel. Indeed, in the midst of Greece's economic difficulties, the prime minister found time to criticize Israel while Greek "humanitarians" sailed with Turkish Islamists to besmirch Israel and bring succor to "crucified" Arabs. While doing so, these Greeks forget the Smyrna Affair of 1922 when Ataturk's Turkish army literally drove the Anatolian Greeks into the sea at the port of Smyrna, massacring the Armenian remnant in Smyrna at the same time. The Greek embrace of their old enemies in a common struggle, a crusade-cum-crescentade against the Jews shows the power of the Judeophobic narcotic in the benighted 21st century.

Euro progressives are eager to open the sea route to Gaza so that very large, more advanced weapons can be brought in to use against the "Christkillers." Prime Minister Brian Cowen of the Republic of Eire wants ships from his far off misty isle to land in Gaza without any Israeli inspection of what their contents may be. As the French used to say when they were wiser: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. In Hebrew, אין חדש תחת השמש [There is nothing new under the sun]. Old wine in new bottles. But the new progressive, Western humano, liberal Judeophobia can be resisted.

Meanwhile, look at these beautiful demonstrators in Tel Aviv Monday night.





















Photos from the Muqata blog [here]. Photos taken by M Brener. - - - - - - - - - - -
Our previous posts on the fake "humanitarian" flotilla [here & here]
Robert Pollock in the Wall Street Journal describes the sick thinking of Erdogan [here]. Erdo is much more dangerous than Washington would like to imagine.
A Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in southeastern Turkey by his own driver [here]. This follows a series of murders of Christian religious personalities since Erdogan came to power in 2002. Erdogan has highly exacerbated the climate of hate already existing in Turkey for non-Muslims.

UPDATING June 7, 2010 Gilles William Goldnadel, leader of the Association France-Israel, answers Le Figaro magazine [4 juin 2010]:
LeF: . . . Israel has lost its principal ally in the region, Turkey.

GWF: Things were only getting worse with the Islamist Turkey of Erdogan. He succeeded in his coup d'etat against the Turkish army and is in the process of changing that country. I would have liked Netanyahu to say before the Israeli parliament [in his speech of Wednesday, 6-2-2010] that he does not accept any lessons in humanity from a state that denies the Armenian genocide, that bombards the Kurds, and that occupies the northern part of Cyprus, a member of the European Union.

. . . Israël a perdu son principal allié dans la région, la Turquie.

Avec la Turquie islamiste d'Erdogan, les choses n'ont fait qu'empirer. Il a réussi son coup d'Etat contre l'armée turque et il est en train de changer ce pays. J'aurais aimé que Netanyahou dise devant le Parlement israélien qu'il n'accepte aucune leçon d'humanité de la part d'un Etat qui nie le génocide arménien, qui bombarde les Kurdes et qui occupe la partie nord de Chypre, un membre de l'Union européenne

Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers

UPDATING 6-7 & 7-16-2010

Here is a link to a Youtube video showing thugs on the Mavi Marmara throwing objects at a small Israeli navy boat that came alongside the Marmara, actually a fairly large ferryboat that rides higher in the water than the Israeli navy boat carrying naval commandos [here]. The film also shows thugs strutting about the ferry with metal bars to be used as clubs.

Here below is a video showing peaceful demonstrators attacking Israeli troops coming down from a helicopter to enforce a rightful blockade of Hamas-ruled, Nazi ruled Gaza.



Here above are some of the weapons on board the Mavi Marmara, long and short knives [non-kitchen tools], axes, long hammers, long steel tools, molotov cocktails, pebbles collected in bottles, metal bars and wooden clubs, what seem to be firecrackers or some heavier small explosive, slingshots, and other tools [here].

Below is a film of soldiers coming down onto the ship from helicopters and being attacked.


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UPDATING June 7, 2010 Thugs of IHH stand over wounded bodies of captured Israeli soldiers. Some of the Turkish thugs carry knives which have been thoughtfully cropped out of the photos by Reuters which took it upon itself to preserve the sacred narrative of innocuous "peace activists" murdered by Israeli commandos without provocation. Thanx to LGF for noting the deliberate alterations or embellishments of two --not one-- photos from the Mavi Marmara [here].
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New York Times finally reports on the terrorist ties of IHH, the Turkish body behind the Turkish Thug Armada and its ties with high Turkish govt officials [here]