Why to Not Reconcile with Erdogan? Why in the first place?

Erdogan is an enemy of Israel. Will playing up to him and making concessions to him make him less of an enemy? Obviously not. So why does the present Israeli government seem ready to accept his command/invitation that President Herzog of Israel come to Turkey to meet him? Given all that Erdogan's Turkey has done to undermine Israeli control of our capital Jerusalem and to harm Israel in world public opinion [Mavi Marmara, for example], a visit by Herzog to Ankara would be humiliating for Herzog and for Israel as a state and for Israelis. It weaken Israel in the eyes of our friends in Greece, Cyprus, and the Gulf, etc.

Seth Frantzman explains the reasons not to let Herzog go to Ankara here: 

"Turkey’s pitch regarding Israel relations is rooted in a 1950s outlook. In this analysis, Turkey believes Israel is completely isolated in the region and therefore needs it. Turkey can thus benefit from Israel’s isolation while reaping profit. In essence, in all the discussions with Ankara or claims of reconciliation, the only narrative that comes out is that Turkey profits and Israel gets nothing.

"For instance, Turkey hosts Hamas, which murders Israelis, and it has backed Hamas extremism. Turkey’s religious authorities increasingly incite against Israel, vowing to “liberate” Jerusalem. When it reconsecrated the Church of Hagia Sophia as a mosque, its leadership compared this to helping Palestinians take over Jerusalem." [read the rest]

It might be good to send an ambassador back to Ankara, whereas now Israel is  represented there by lower level diplomats. But even in that case, we need to demand expulsion of all Hamas personnel from Turkey and end to demonizing Israel in the state-controlled Turkish press/media.

And much more.

Of course, Turkey has been a protege of Western diplomacy since  1922 [Smyrna Affair]. And Washington may be behind Erdogan's efforts to pretend to make nice with Israel --as well as behind our government's failure to dismiss Erdogan's commands out of hand.

For more on his issue, read Frantzman's articles in the JPost: here.

Turkey Still Getting away with Murder -- The Next Iran?

Turkey in World War I carried out mass murder of Armenians who were numerous, even in the majority, in several areas of what is now the Turkish Republic. What is less known is that hundreds of thousands of ethnic Greeks and Assyrians --both Christian peoples-- were also slaughtered and driven from their homes during that war. After the war, when the new regime of Kemal Ataturk had taken over from the Ottoman Empire which --under the leadership of the so-called Young Turks, the Committtee for Unity and Progress -- had carried out genocide during the war, the new regime too carried out genocide and ethnic cleansing. For this service to Islam, so it was seen in Turkey at the time, Ataturk was given the title of Ghazi, glorious victor in jihad, in a holy war.* These post-war massacres and expulsions took place mainly in 1922, as from Smyrna. Before WW I, millions of non-Muslims who were not Turks lived in what was then called Asia Minor, or Anatolia or Turkey in Asia. By 1923, this large population was almost all gone. The Armenians were almost totally gone while some tens of thousands of ethnic Greeks still lived in Constantinople, known today under its Turkish name, Istanbul, and thousands of Assyrians kept on living in the southeast.

Turkey never had to pay for its crimes during WW I and the 1920s. It was believed to contain oil, petroleum, and for that reason or others, it was thought best not to bother or harass the Turks with accusations or punishments for their crimes. And when Ataturk imposed or tried to impose some secularizing reforms later in the 1920s, his position became firm in most Western public opinion. He was an admired figure in the West, including the USA. Turkey as such was admired too [a popular American song around 1950 featured the line: It's nobody's business but the Turks']. His successors in the late 1930s and in the 1940s were wise enough to keep out of WW II, although pro-German sentiment was strong. Hence, the new, supposedly secular Turkey was accepted into NATO in 1952 at the same time as Greece. Yet old habits die hard. In 1955, while both Turkey and Greece belonged to NATO, tens of thousands of ethnic Greeks were driven out of Istanbul and taken in by Greece.** Here we had a NATO member state performing ethnic cleansing on people who shared ethnicidentity with the people of another NATO member state. And NATO did nothing about it. Indeed, the Turks got away with murder both figuratively and literally.

With the rise to power of Rejep Tayyip Erdogan in late 2002, Islamist, jihadist inclinations were once again overt in the Turkish Republic. Ambitions of Ottoman imperial revival, called neo-Ottomanism, were revived and Erdogan's Turkey took a special interest in the Islamist, jihadist Hamas movement that took over the Gaza Strip in 2007. In 2010 he joined forces with Western partisans of Hamas and the Arab anti-Israel cause, including the American feminine outfit called Code Pink. They organized a so-called "Free Gaza" convoy of seven boats to supposedly bring needed goods to Gaza kept out by Israel's partial blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. This was a pretense for a  pro-Hamas undertaking. The supposedly needed goods in Gaza carried by the convoy included medications near to or past their expiration dates and assorted equipment, much of it what some Turkish businesses were willing to get rid of. The largest of the seven boats was a Turkish ferry that customarily crossed the Turkish straits.

As the convoy approached the coast of Gaza, Israel's navy warned it not to go further. Since the warning was not heeded, Israeli commandos landed from a helicopter on the ferry boat, the Mavi Marmara. But they were not prepared for the reception they got from the scores of jihadis on the craft, Turks and others. They were attacked with knives and clubs and a few guns. When more commandos got involved, the jihadis were overcome and ten Turkish jihadis were dead, one of them a dual Turkish-US citizen, Although the jihadis were violating a legitimate blockade, President Obama acted and spoke as it were Israel doing wrong. The story of the convoy and Obama's interference is a long, detailed one that will be skipped for now.

In following years, Turkey has claimed ownership of Greek territorial waters and successfully interfered in oil and gas exploration in those waters by Italian companies working with the Greeks. Likewise, Turkey has interfered in oil and gas exploration in Cypriot territorial waters, whereas it had already occupied northern Cyprus in 1974. About a month or so ago, Turkish warships chased away from Cypriot waters an Israeli scientific research ship working in cooperation with the Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus authorities.

Again, Turkey, falsely seen as a democratic Western country, has been getting away with murder. But  its offenses have gotten much less attention in the American press than they deserved. The commentator Yohanan Visser argues that Turkey is the next Iran. Here is part of his article bringing the story up to date:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), for the first time ever, added Turkey to the list of security threats in the annual national security assessment.
At the same time the IDF doesn’t see a confrontation with the Turkish army in 2020.
The addition of Turkey - a country that maintains diplomatic relations with Israel and once was an ally of the Jewish state - to the list of security threats is related to the bellicose actions by Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Middle East the IDF said in the assessment.
Erdogan routinely denounces Israel for its policies toward the Palestinian Arabs and uses to compare [= often compares] the country to Nazi-Germany while also threatening Israel over a plan to build a pipeline in the Mediterranean Sea that would bring Israeli gas from the Leviathan gas field to Europe.
The Turkish leader last month signed a memorandum with Libya about the linking of their so-called economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea.
The deal that was clearly meant to prevent Israel, Greece and Cyprus from realizing their plan for the construction of the pipeline and to claim the expected gas reserves in these zones.
"Other international actors cannot conduct exploration activities in the areas marked in the Turkish-Libyan memorandum. Greek Cypriots, Egypt, Greece and Israel cannot establish a natural gas transmission line without Turkey's consent," Erdogan said after Israel signed the gas pipe deal with Greece and Cyprus.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry later summoned the Israeli ambassador in Ankara to tell him that the construction of the gas pipeline required Turkey’s approval and that there was no need for the pipe since there is already a similar pipe line from Azerbaijan to Turkey and from there to Europe. [Israel National News, 15 January 2020]

It may be needless to say, but if anyone is not aware, there is no legal substance to Turkey's claim to ownership of the maritime territory of the eastern Mediterranean or to hegemony over it. But apparently NATO is still letting Turkey, now under the Islamist tyrant Erdogan, get away with murder.

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References
For more info on the expulsions of 1922-23, see:
Ernest Hemingway, "On the Quai at Smyrna" and the epigraph to Chapter II, both in the collection In Our Time
George Horton, The Blight of Asia
Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair

** For info on the pogroms and expulsion of the ethnic Greeks from Istanbul [Constantinople] in 1955:
Called Eylul Olaylari in Turkish, these pogroms took place on 6-7 September 1955, and were staged by the government of Adnan Menderes.
Pappas Post [here]
wikipedia in English [here]
wikipedia in Hebrew [here]
Alfred de Zayas, the events according to international law [here]
Kathimerini [newspaper] [here]
youtube, still photos from the events [here]
Aykan Erdemir in Politico.eu [here]
Greek Reporter [here]
European Journal of Turkish Studies [here]
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* On Ataturk's victories as Islamic victories & on the title of Ghazi, see:
Albert Avakian, "Pouvoir et Islam en Turquie  de 1919 a` 1960," Revue d'Histoire de la deuxie`me Guerre Mondiale et des Conflits Contemporains (vol 35, no. 137; 1985), pp90-91
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Previous posts on Emet m'Tsiyon on modern Greek-Turkish events & the indulgent Western policy towards Turkey
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2011/02/more-on-us-pro-islam-pro-arab-policy.html

http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2007/10/gem-of-absurdity-from-walt-mearsheimer.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2010/06/euro-hypocrites-forget-turkish-mass.html

http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2018/01/mahmoud-abbas-tells-european-union-that.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/10/bolsheviks-for-jihad-genocide-stalins.html

Mahmoud Abbas Tells European Union that He Wants All of Israel, including west of the Green Line

“We are keen on continuing the way of negotiations,” Abbas said. “We are determined to reunite our people and our land.” [here & here emph. added]

The above is what Mahmoud Abbas told Federica Mogherini, High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of the European Union and the foreign ministers of the EU states on Monday this week [1-22-2018 & here] in Brussels.

This phrase "to reunite our people and our land" seems to be a euphemism for the Arabs' taking all of the State of Israel including the land that Israel held between 1948 and 1967. In other words, it is a masked refusal to accept Israel in any borders. Now, Abbas and the PLO as a whole and Hamas and the other Palestinian Arab terrorist and political groups believe that all of the Land of Israel belongs to them as well as to Islam. To confirm that consider the word "reunite." If something has to be reunited, that means it was once united but is no longer. They know that they already control part of "palestine" [= the Land of Israel roughly speaking]. And what they don't control must be reunited with what they already control, Abbas implies.
And reuniting "our people" means bringing the dispersed Palestinian Arabs living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere with the status of refugees, back together in one state comprising the whole land of Israel, probably to be ruled by the Fatah and other factions that run the zones of Judea-Samaria now under PA/PLO rule.

The PLO Charter by the way speaks of the whole land that they call "palestine" needing to be "liberated"  from Israel. Likewise the PLO's Declaration of a State of Palestine of November 1988. These were obviously  rejections of peace. But maybe Mogherini and her staff are too ignorant or too stupid or too insensitive to the subtle Arab use of rhetoric to understand Abbas' real meaning. If they did understand Abbas' meaning would they have encouraged him and said they support him on the Jerusalem issue? She said:

“I want to reassure President Abbas of the firm commitment of the European Union to the two-state solution with Jerusalem as the shared capital of the two states,” Mogherini said during the meeting. [here & here]                                        

Let's leave aside the stupidity and impracticality of the notion of one city as the shared capital of two states. Did Mogherini understand that Abbas had just told her that he does NOT support the two-state solution, that he and those he represents are claiming the whole country?

Speaking of refugees, it is curious that the so-called "international community" --no doubt Mogherini is part of it-- seems to forget what happened in other situations where there were refugees on an ethnic basis. How is it that precisely the Europeans forgot that many Greeks were driven out of Anatolia, Turkey of today, and almost nobody in Europe but the Greeks themselves care about Greek rights and claims to the Smyrna [now Izmir] region from which most or nearly all Greeks were driven out? The total number of Greeks driven out is estimated at more than 1,100,000 while another 600,000 to one million were slaughtered in the period of 1914 to 1922 [some researchers put the numbers higher or lower]. Greece accepted more than one million refugees in the 1922-23 period and the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen negotiated an agreement between both Greece and Turkey to accept the principle of population exchange rather than go to war. As part of this agreement, Turkey agreed to let Greece expel some 400,000 Muslims living in northeastern Greece, Thrace, and take them in on Turkish territory. This was in exchange for the 1,200,000 or 1,500,000 Greeks that Ataturk and his army had already driven out of Anatolia, what is now Turkey.

For his services in the cause of mutual ethnic cleansing, Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize. But that was not the end of Turkish-perpetrated ethnic cleansing. In 1955, while both Turkey and Greece were members of NATO, the Turkish government incited a pogrom in Istanbul, previously Constantinople (a Greek-speaking city before the Turkish conquest of 1453), that ended with the expulsion by the mob of tens of thousands of ethnically Greek Turkish citizens. The Turks got away with it. Somehow NATO let them get away with it.

How is it that the Europeans, including the wonderful folk at EU headquarters in Brussels, Mogherini and her staff, have forgotten that once upon  a time, a man got a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting the principle of population exchange?
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For more info on the expulsions of 1922-23, see:
Ernest Hemingway, "On the Quai at Smyrna" and the epigraph to Chapter II, both in the collection In Our Time
George Horton, The Blight of Asia
Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair
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What does Fatah, Abbas' faction, mean by "our land"?
It seems that they mean the whole country from the river to the sea, from the Jordan to the Med.
See here.
More EU hypocrisy related to covering up for Abbas [here], for his claims on the reasons for the Shoah.
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Other relevant articles:
Fiamma Nirenstein on Abbas' speech in Ramallah on 1-14-2018 [Italiano qui -English  here]

Erdogan's Turkey Goes for Teaching "Good Jihad"

If you are one of those who dislike President Trump, however much you may dislike him, remember all of Obama's kind gestures, his love of peaceful Islam, his friendship with Erdogan, his thwarted efforts to put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt and to keep it there, and so on. And you may mellow on Trump.

Obama was notoriously close to Erdogan in the first few years of his regime, so much so that he and Erdung were called BFFs [best female friends]. Obama was apparently in cahoots with Erdung over the Mavi Marmara siege-breaking affair [2010], among other things. Now the would-be sultan of a restored Ottoman Empire is introducing "good jihad" into Turkish schools. Excerpt translated below with original:

Starting with the return to school in September, the concept of "jihad" will be taught in most schools in the country, according to the new curriculum conceived by the Islamo-conservative government and made public on July 18. It is not a matter of learning holy war but rather "the good jihad," the jihad that exalts "love of the fatherland", Ismet Yilmaz, minister of national education, hastened to clarify. "Jihad exists in our religion and it is one of the duties of the ministry of education to see to it that this concept is taught in a correct and appropriate manner," he insisted.

À partir de la rentrée scolaire, en septembre, le concept de « djihad » sera enseigné dans la plupart des écoles du pays, selon le nouveau programme conçu par le gouvernement islamo-conservateur et rendu public mardi 18 juillet. Il n’est pas question d’apprendre la guerre sainte mais plutôt « le bon djihad », celui qui exalte « l’amour de la patrie », s’est empressé de préciser Ismet Yilmaz, le ministre de l’éducation nationale. « Le djihad existe dans notre religion et il est du devoir du ministère de l’éducation de veiller à ce que ce concept soit enseigné de façon juste et appropriée », a-t-il insisté.

Marie Jego, Istanbul, for Le Monde 7-28-2017

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More on Erdogan: here & here & here & here

The role of Qatar and Washington insiders in the Mavi Marmara affair here

Quality Turkish Education? Whither? [here]

European Union Against Israel, Not against Occupation in Principle

UPDATED 4-3-2016 see at bottom

We do not agree that Israel is now occupying any territory that does not belong to Israel according to international law. But suppose it were. Suppose for the sake of argument that Israel was occupying Judea and Samaria, the heart of ancient Judea, the ancient Jewish homeland that the Jews have traditionally called the Land of Israel and that Greece and Rome called Judea ( IVDAEA, Ioudaia). The European Union claims this all the time and uses this false claim to deny the human and civil rights of Jews. The EU denies Jewish rights to inhabit any land over the 1949 Israel-Transjordan [now Jordan] armistice line. But the EU seldom complains about Turks settling in the Turkish occupation zone of northern Cyprus. We will get back to the EU and Cyprus below.

The EU does not agree to Jews doing business over the 1949 armistice line or running factories or farms there in what was the Jordanian occupation zone from 1948 to 1967 in Judea-Samaria or doing any productive activity there.

The EU also denies those rights to Jews in those parts of Jerusalem captured by Transjordan in 1948 from which Arab irregular forces and the Transjordanian Arab Legion had driven Jews out starting on 30 November 1947 up to the summer of 1948, although Jerusalem was to be an internationally governed enclave where both Jews and Arabs could reside, according to the UN General Assembly recommended partition plan. These areas were captured by Israel in the June 1967 Six Day War after 19 years of Transjordanian [now Jordanian] occupation. Now the EU gets up on a moralistic high horse of hypocritical outrage when Jews again live in those formerly Arab-occupied parts of Jerusalem, whereas there has been a Jewish majority in Jerusalem going back to 1853, if not before. But the EU says that those areas are occupied. 
This is what the EU said about a recent Israeli decision to recognize a tract of unused land without private owners near Jericho as state land, as it was recognized in the days of the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim empire to be sure, which as such was seen by the Arab Muslims in the Land of Israel as representing them: 

“Israel’s decision … is a further step that risks undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state and therefore calls into question Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution,” the EU says in a statement.

“Any decision that could enable further settlement expansion, which is illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace, will only drive the parties to the conflict even further apart,” the EU continues. 

 “The European Union remains firmly opposed to Israel’s settlement policy and actions taken in this context . . ." [here]

The claim of illegality is based, as we know, on two false claims: One, that Israel is an occupying power in Judea and Samaria and the formerly Jordanian-occupied parts of Jerusalem. Two, that people cannot voluntarily migrate to an occupied territory. This second claim is based on a false interpretation of Geneva Convention IV:49:6 (The point is that people are permitted to voluntarily migrate to such territories, even if "occupied."). See here for clarifications on these legal issues.

But the question is whether or not the EU is actually against occupation in principle or simply hostile to Jews and Israel. The question is easily answered. The EU is quite comfortable with living with occupying powers and trading with them without demanding, for example, the labeling of goods produced in the supposed occupied territory as settlement goods or products of an occupied territory.

The proof of EU hypocrisy on this issue is very close at hand. The island republic of Cyprus is very close to Israel, a few score kilometers northwest of Israel in the Mediterranean Sea. Cyprus is also a member of the EU. Yet, about 35% of the island is occupied by Turkey. The fact that northern Cyprus is occupied is recognized by just about everybody, although not by Turkey. Do these facts cause or lead to any massive EU denunciation of Turkey as an occupying power abusing the native population of the occupied territory in an illegal and/or inhuman fashion?
The question is itself laughable. The EU is happy to do business with Turkey and is now agreeing to work to bring Turkey into the Union. But the British press agency, Reuters, does not even want to call Turkey an occupying power which it is. See below how Reuters' wordsmiths get around the O word by using a long euphemism

Addressing a threat by Cyprus to block parts of the deal unless Turkey stops opposing the reunification of the divided island, the Commission paper will propose that opening five new "chapters" in Turkey's negotiations to join the EU -- another promise made in March -- would be "conditional", the official said. [here]

For Reuters, the island is not occupied but merely divided. It had once been unified and the Republic of Cyprus wanted it to be reunified. But how did it become divided? Reuters coyly hides that information.

The French state-owned broadcaster France24 does the same as Reuters:
       EU president Donald Tusk warned Tuesday that hard work lay ahead to finalise the             deal, after Cyprus threatened to derail it over long-standing disagreements with               Turkey. . . . . [here]

How is that for a euphemism for Turkish occupation of part of Cyprus? Long-standing disagreements, no less!!! But further on, the same article gets a little closer to the fact of occupation without actually stating it frankly:
      The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded its          northern sector . . . [here]
France24 answers the question of how the island became divided. The Turkish troops invaded in 1974 and they are still there. But we must not call it "occupation" for that word is reserved for Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria, that the League of Nations recognized as parts of the Jewish National Home in 1922.

Far from calling for Turkey to end its occupation of northern Cyprus, the EU leadership is asking Greece and Cyprus for concessions to Turkey on account of the migrant issue. This is despite the fact that Turkey has actually encouraged the refugee flow across the dangerous waters of the Aegean Sea to Greek islands. After all, people smugglers are putting migrants onto unseaworthy craft and/or without life jackets or otherwise letting people go out to sea to die. The Turkish police do not interfere with this. Turkey is a country with thousands of political prisoners. No doubt the police could stop the people smuggling, if the government of Erdogan and Davutoglu wanted them to. The Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras made this point to EU leaders and they most likely knew of and understood the Turkish encouragement to people smugglers before Tsipras told them. The Greek defense minister had also made this point while on a trip to Israel a few weeks ago:
       Mr. Tsipras insisted that the EU must exert pressure on Ankara to put an end to the              flow of refugees and migrants to Greece [here] 

Is it not obvious to all but fools that the EU is not especially against occupation, even the occupation of part of an EU member state? Is it not clear to all that the EU is really against Israel, against Jews, against Jews having rights and safety, and respect? The EU policy towards Jews in Judea and Samaria could rightly be called apartheid and anti-Jewish racism.
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5-3-2016 Turkey does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus, despite the treaties around the founding of that state which Turkey also signed:
"Greek Cypriots will no longer require visas to visit Turkey under an EU-Turkey agreement on visa liberalization but this does not amount to Turkish recognition of Cyprus, a Turkish official said on Tuesday.
"Turkey's cabinet has approved waiving visas for EU citizens once the EU relaxes its visa requirements for Turks, according to a decision published in the Official Gazette. The move is one of the 72 criteria required by Brussels.
"The official confirmed the deal would also apply to Greek Cypriots."
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See how Turkish president Erdogan operates outside of his own country:
4- 1-2016 Report in Foreign Policy of thuggish, unacceptable behavior by Erdogan's bodyguards in Washington at the Brookings Institution which had invited Erdogan to speak [here]
7-17-2016 Steve Kramer writes on BDS and particularly discusses the EU hypocrisy in regard to boycotting Israel [here]

Ambassador Michael Oren: Obama Wants Israel to Placate Erdogan

This is an amazing revelation. It was long obvious that Obama wanted Israel to placate Erdogan. After all, it was when Obama was here in Israel (early 2013) that Netanyahu offered Erdogan his best non-apology for resisting the pro-Hamas efforts of Turkish jihadis and other jihadis on the Mavi Marmara. Nine of hese jihadis were killed when they were on their way to Gaza, declaring that their purpose was to break Israel's justified blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. Hamas, let us not forget, openly advocates genocide of the Jews in its charter (Article 7), as well as promoting the forged and plagiarized Protocols of the Elders of Zion in that charter. Obama hardly disguised his sympathies for Hamas and for Erdogan's Turkey, now becoming more and more Islamist because of him. Obama also directly intervened with Israel on behalf of the prisoners taken on the Mavi Marmara and other boats taking part in the pro-Hamas convoy that was falsely named "the Free Gaza Flotilla."

We knew all that. But now, Michael Oren, formerly Israel's ambassador to the USA, reveals that Israel's cooperation in a triangular alliance with the USA and Turkey was a paramount US interest, in Obama's eyes. However, Erdogan is a Judeophobic Islamist provocateur. Israel should not apologize to Turkey or Erdogan in any way for resisting Erdogan's provocation by sponsoring the Mavi Marmara, which enjoyed Obama's support too. This support for Erdogan is another sign of Obama's basic Judeophobia.

Here are Oren's words [JPost, 12-19-2015]:
“The reason that apology took place was that in every single meeting we had with the president of the United States, Obama, he made it clear that his first priority was the reconciliation between Israel and Turkey,” Oren said. “He viewed the Israeli-Turkish-American triangle as a-close-to-paramount American strategic interest.” [see JPost here]. 

Obama has had a pro-Islamist policy from the beginning. And we have pointed this out before. He is seven-fold more dangerous because he is the president of the USA, the most powerful country in the world. This policy can be seen in his and his flunkeys indulgence of Islamists in Turkey (erdogan), Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood, called the Ikhwan) and various and sundry Arab terrorist factions such as Fatah and Hamas (the Palestinian Arab branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood). Obama knowingly tolerated these Islamists, including the jihadists on the Mavi Marmara.

The recent agreement to placate Erdogan is undesirable and unjustified but is understandable given Obama's pressure for it. Avigdor Lieberman's criticism of the accord is basically sound. Obama shows his own hypocrisy, his own false "humanitarianism" and faux "righteousness"  by overlooking Turkey's own embargo of Armenia starting about 1992 which was put in place by the previous government of Turkey but which  Erdogan has continued, while hypocritically denouncing Israel's justified blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

More Hypocrisy of European Academic Institutions -- Proof of the New Nazism

There is a widespread hate-Israel movement that calls for boycotting Israel, not only products made on either side of the 1949 armistice line, The Green Line, but even Israeli academic institutions. Now this call to boycott got its first big impetus from the 2001 Durban "anti-racism" conference that turned out to be an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hate fest. It later came to light, mainly thanks to Edwin Black, that many of the groups, so-called NGOs, taking part in the anti-Israel hate celebration were funded by the Ford Foundation which we have discussed before.

The claim was made in defense of boycotting Israel that Israel is "occupying" parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, to wit, Judea-Samaria, roughly speaking, also called "The West Bank." The boycott movement is especially strong in Britain where several universities and a number of academics are boycotting Israel and have been for about ten years.

Yet some of the same universities and university departments that boycott Israel are happy to cooperate and collaborate with universities established in the Turkish occupation zone of northern Cyprus. They claim that international law requires them to boycott Israel in general or to specifically products and persons living in or manufactured in or --in the case of fruit and produce-- grown in Judea-Samaria.

Eugene Kontorovich shows us what is going on behind the hypocritical rhetoric:

November 17, 2014 by Eugene Kontorovich                                

A Tale of Two Green Lines

         Efforts by academic groups to impose boycotts and other kinds of punitive measures on Israeli universities have gotten considerable attention lately. However, an opposite phenomenon has escaped notice: the widespread participation by mainstream universities in programs and collaborations with institutions located in occupied territories.

         This may surprise those who recall that Israel’s establishment of Ariel University in the West Bank drew earnest condemnation from academics and even foreign ministries  around the world. Yet it turns out that Ariel is not the only graduate-level institution established in what much of the international community considers occupied territory. And the others have gotten a very different reception.
        Turkey has established 10 universities and many colleges in Northern Cyprus since seizing the territory in an invasion in 1974. Half of the universities are public, state-run institutions, and several are campuses of major Turkish institutions on the mainland. Some of the universities were established in just the past few years.

The United Nations Security Council, the European Court of Human Rights, and most of the international community have condemned the Turkish takeover of one third of the island of Cyprus. As of this writing, no nation other than Turkey recognizes the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” regime by which Ankara controls the territory. Turkey maintains a major settlement program, and settlers from the mainland now account for half or more of the population of the TRNC.
Yet surprisingly, universities in Northern Cyprus have won wide cooperation from institutions and academics elsewhere. Indeed, the growing effort to boycott Israeli institutions often coincides with a welcoming embrace of universities not just in the lands of occupying powers (like Turkey and Russia) but also established in the territories those countries occupy.
A telling example involves a conference this fall at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London. Professors from Ariel University were barred from mentioning their professional affiliations as a condition of participating, and instead were asked to come as independent scholars not representing Ariel—a deal that they refused. The conference organizers said they could not be seen as “recognizing” Ariel. The incident was incoherent on its own terms. One might think that Ariel is problematic and illegitimate—but there is no denying that it exists, and that it employs the scholars in question. Ironically, the conference was about Israel studies: Would scholarly papers about the Israeli presence in the West Bank that refer to Ariel U have to leave its name blank?
The exclusion of Ariel University from the SOAS conference stands in sharp contrast to the school’s policies regarding interactions with schools in other occupied territories. SOAS once provided a special undergraduate course at the European University of Lefke, one of the universities established by occupation authorities in Northern Cyprus. More recently, SOAS has had speakers from “Abkhazian state” institutions, an unrecognized de facto arm of Russia’s occupation government in part of Georgia. Similarly, SOAS has held events with speakers from Turkish universities that have branches in occupied Cyprus. All of those affiliations were openly acknowledged.
These dalliances are par for the course for European institutions. British institutions are particularly active in Northern Cyprus, because of Britain’s history with the island. The University of Warwick, for example, has an  “official overseas center” for master’s programs at Eastern Mediterranean University. The University of Wolverhampton and University of Sunderland have joint degree programs with Cyprus International University, in the occupied part of the divided city of Nicosia. The European University of Lefke has several partnerships with British institutions. While they stand out, French, Italian, and Spanish institutions also have numerous ties. And one Northern Cypriot institution even opened a program in Washington.
Those are just the direct, institutional relationships. In addition, many faculty members of universities in Northern Cyprus are invited to lecture at foreign universities or publish in foreign scholarly journals. Similarly, academics from elsewhere in Europe attend conferences in Northern Cyprus.
These relationships have taken on added meaning because the universities are a core aspect of the Turkish occupation regime on the island. Turkey has aggressively developed higher education in the territory as a magnet for both settlers and foreign money. The schools attract tens of thousands of settlers/students from the Turkish mainland, and they cater heavily to international students by offering classes in English. Indeed, education has become one of the bulwarks of the TRNC economy, according to a New York Times article this year. The universities boast an enrollment of 63,000 students in a territory with a population of only 300,000.
The Republic of Cyprus strenuously protests the operation of these universities. Cyprus claims that the universities are illegally established, often on private property belonging to Greek Cypriot refugees, and argues that any accreditation, degree recognition, or other dealings with them by the international academic community violates international law. But these calls by the legitimate government of a Western democracy to abjure dealings with the occupation academies fall on deaf ears in academe—while calls to boycott not just Ariel but all Israeli institutions find a growing number of supporters.
Another striking example of this incongruity occurred last year, when many European academics signed a letter to the European Union official Catherine Ashton supporting the European Commission’s restriction of funds to institutions across the Green Line (a common name for Israel’s 1949 armistice line with Jordan). Many of the signatories teach at universities that themselves have relationships across the other Green Line, as Cyprus’s de facto partition border is known.
The wide acceptance of relationships with mainland Turkish and even TRNC institutions suggests that academic boycotts of Israel cannot be reduced to principled opposition to occupation regimes or dutiful execution of international law.
Yet the attitude of international academics to TRNC schools is, in fact, the right one. Knowledge does not know creeds or boundaries.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Cypriot conflict, cooperation among institutions of learning should not be obstructed, just as in former centuries, even countries at war maintained academic exchanges. European institutions are right to not boycott universities in Northern Cyprus. But advocating boycotts of Israeli institutions without an awareness of the broad academic cooperation with institutions in Turkish and other occupied territories is hypocritical and dishonest.

Eugene Kontorovich is a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law.
[The Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 November 2014]
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The hypocrisy deployed by various and sundry European universities and academic centers and departments also demonstrates a profound Judeophobia at work, since Judeophobia is --among other things-- applying different standards and rules to Jews than to non-Jews. The hatred and self-righteousness displayed by Europeans indicates a genocidal inclination towards Jews and the Jewish state of Israel on the part of the Europeans and others taking part in the boycotts.

abu mazen & erdogan --classic Muslim diplomacy updated to the 21st Century

UPDATINGS see at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Everyone has heard of how Abu Mazen, head of the sinister Fatah party/terrorist group and now of the Palestinian Authority, an outgrowth of the illegitimate Oslo Accords, is appealing to the UN to recognize another Arab state to be called "palestine," whereas there are already too many Arab states cluttering the map as it is. In appealing for recognition of a state without Israel's agreement, having refused to negotiate with Israel for three years, Abu Mazen is violating the Oslo Accords signed by the PLO and Israel, as well as UN SC resolution, 242. The OsloII Accords had stipulated that neither side was to change the status of the territories in dispute by unilateral action. Yet that is what Abu Mazen [= Mahmoud Abbas] is trying to do.

Likewise, Erdogan, Islamist prime minister of Turkey, is showing contempt for international law and even the UN. Erdogan has demanded an Israeli apology for killing nine Turkish jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara who had murderously attacked Israeli naval commandos boarding the ship while enforcing the rightful blockade of the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the UN Palmer Commission found that the blockade was right and proper and that the Turkish IHH jihadist terrorist group --to which the thugs belonged-- had received help and encouragement from its own govt. Erdogan disregards all that, demanding an Israeli apology for killing the thugs plus an end to the rightful blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza, plus pecuniary compensation for the victims' [the jihadists'] families. After release of the Palmer Report, Erdogan threatened to send Turkish warships to escort "humanitarian aid" ships on the way to Gaza, this time threatening to break the blockade by direct military force.

But Erdogan does not stop with Israel. He threatened Cyprus not to carry out explorations for oil and natural gas in its own exclusive maritime economic zone, justifying these threats by self-invented international law. Supposedly if Cyprus drilled for oil and gas, that would violate the rights [Note that term "rights" again used to justify threats of war!] of Turkish Cypriots in the Turkish occupation zone of northern Cyprus. So Turkey's dubiously legal occupation zone in northern Cyprus [covering about 35-40% of the island] becomes a pretext used to justify threats made on Cypriot drilling off the southern coast of the island!!

But the best comes last!! Turkey is now threatening the EU --those wonderful, world-scale peacemongers-- that if they allow fellow EU member, Cyprus, to assume the rotating EU presidency for three months in its turn, then Turkey will freeze relations [or maybe break relations --it's not clear] with the EU. This was reported by Anatolian News, the Turkish state news agency. He also issued another condition: that peace negotiations over Cyprus must be concluded by July 2012, when Cyprus is supposed to rise to the presidency. Otherwise Erdogan will freeze relations [see Il Giornale qui]. What this implies is that negotiations must be concluded to Erdogan's satisfaction. He must be satisfied with the resulting agreement --or else!! We don't know whether or not the corrupt EU, caught up in its own Judeophobia, as well as in the cobweb of a Eurabia of its own making, will withstand this ultimatum.

What we do see is how Erdogan's methods parallel Abu Mazen's. Abbas is the one who stopped negotiating with Israel. That occurred three years ago when the corrupt and pliable Olmert was prime minister. Yet Abu Mazen now blames Israel for the lack of negotiations, while he demands Israeli capitulation to his terms and conditions before negotiations even begin, whereas settlements, for instance, were supposed to be a final status issue left for final status negotiations, not for unilateral declaration of a state [which is indeed tantamount to a declaration of war]. Likewise, Erdogan basically demands that the EU force capitulation to his demands on the part of Cyprus, otherwise. . .

Abu Mazen now has Britain, France, and the EU's foreign affairs commissioner, the veddy Bwitish Catherine Ashton [Baroness Ashton no less!!] urging Israel to accept a "compromise" not contained in previous agreements, and promising the PLO/PA other goodies if he plays the good boy at the UN and doesn't ask for more than they are ready to give him at this time [maybe in six months. . . ]. Just this morning, 20 September 2011, the international media announced that Abu Mazen was ready to negotiate at any time with Netanyahu, thus responding to Netanyahu's previous proposal to meet with Abu Mazen in New York around the UN session and start negotiating there. However, Saeb Erikat, Abbas' spokesman and designated chief of negotiations for the PLO/PA, made it clear that Israel would have to accept at least two pre-conditions before Mahmud Abbas would meet him, 1) immediately freeze all settlement activity; 2) accept the so-called "67 borders" [= 1949-1967 armistice lines] as borders. Of course, it was agreed by the PLO/PA on several occasions that these two issues would be left for negotiations.

Note that the arbitrary, bullying style of Erdogan matches that of Mahmud Abbas who also violates signed agreements at will, makes extravagant demands for /observance of/adhesion to/ already concluded accords and/or chisels away at existing agreements in order to improve his position, and threatens war on suitable occasions, backs down if the prey/enemy becomes aroused, etc. [Erdogan backed down slightly on some of his threats]. This kind of behavior thus is not restricted to Turkey's Erdogan or to the PLO/PA's Abu Mazen. Rather it seems like a widespread pattern of Muslim diplomatic behavior. This is because many recent Arab and Muslim non-Arab leaders, like saddam hussein, Nasser, hafiz assad, arafat, erdogan, A-jad, Qadafi, Ibn Saud, share the notable traits of Rodomonte, an Arab character in the Italian epic poem, Orlando Furioso, and later in the operas Orlando Furioso [Vivaldi] & Orlando Paladino [Haydn]. He is full of braggadoccio [often called after him, rodomontade], he makes threats [think of Saddam hussein's "the sea will run red with American blood," --the "mother of all battles,"], he obeys no law --so it seems--, is totally arrogant, lawless, unrestrained, contemptuous of others, etc. He is described as a hyperbolic character, his deeds and actions and undertakings are hyperbolic. Erdogan fits or wants to fit into that mold.

Rodomonte: figlio di Alieno e re di Sargel nell’Algeria. . . . Rodomonte possiede doti fisiche sovrumane, è un personaggio iperbolico, e iperbolici sono i suoi gesti, le sue azioni, le sue imprese.

Again, these tactics are not Erdogan's or Abu Mazen's. They are Standard Operating Procedure for Muslim strong men. They demand concessions before negotiations. They demand what they had agreed not to demand. They cry "injustice", "aggression" and threaten, they set loose a shower of lies of all sorts, lies about history --current, medieval & modern-- lies affirming atrocities, including the most bizarre [that Israel gave aphrodisiac substances to Arab young women & teen age girls, etc]. They have to be bribed to get them to do what they had already agreed to do. Abu Mazen uses these same tactics with his approach to the UN and the associated demands. He violates the Oslo accords, refuses to negotiate and accuses Israel of refusing to negotiate. And many MSM organs, such as CNN [by its kevin flowers] and France24 go along with this crap [by allowing Mustafa Barghouti offer his smorgasbord of lies]. But this is SOP. Negotiating with Muslims/especially Arabs is always an exasperating exercise.

As the blogger J E Dyer points out, Erdogan's "objective is to make what Cyprus was going to do anyway -- and what is none of his business -- the subject of negotiation, because that gives Turkey an officially acknowledged veto. Think of it as leveraging himself into an imperial situation, by acquiring an ever-larger region over which he holds an acknowledged veto on one thing or another."
This is a pattern of diplomacy that I've noticed on the part not only of Erdogan and Abu Mazen, but of Iran and Pakistan and Indonesia, all Muslim states, although Hitler used some of these methods in the 1930s, before WW2 began. He too threatened war but promised peace if only -- if only he were given suitable bribes in the form of territory -- The Saarland, Sudetenland, Danzig, Memel, etc.
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Other Views on PLO/PA UDI:
Previous post by Eliyahu m'Tsiyon [here& here&here]
Gov Rick Perry in the JPost [here]
Alan Baker & Dan Diker [here]
Rick Richman [here]
Evelyn Gordon [here]
Michael Rubin [here]
A summary in French reminding us of how the PLO/PA is violating prior agreements and commitments, & how EU member states will be violating an EU commitment if they vote for PLO/PA UDI. This is quoted from an open letter to the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, from the Marseille chapter of the pro-Israel group, Association France-Israel --General Koenig. French original follows the English translation:
"All the resolutions by international bodies (UN resolution 242 and those that reiterate its terms) and the treaties made between the parties in the framework of the Oslo accords refer the settlement of differences and the working out of solutions to negotiations between the parties. Moreover, the European Union --that includes France-- is a co-signatory and guarantor of the 1995 Interim Accords, called Oslo 2, which reaffirm the principle of negotiation between the parties and forbid unilateral initiatives like the one that the Palestinian officials in Ramallah now want to promote.

"It is up to you to work to ensure the fidelity of the European Union to its own signature."

Toutes les résolutions des instances internationales (la résolution 242 de l'ONU et celles qui reprennent les termes) et les traités passés entre les parties dans le cadre des accords d'Oslo renvoient le règlement des différends et l'élaboration de solutions à des négociations entre les parties. De plus, l'Union européenne, - elle implique la France -, est co-signataire et garante de l'application des Accords intérimaires de 1995, dits "Oslo 2", qui réaffirment ce principe de négociation entre les parties et prohibent les initiatives unilatérales comme celle que les responsables palestiniens de Ramallah veulent aujourd'hui promouvoir.

Il vous appartient d'œuvrer pour assurer la fidélité de l'Union européenne à sa propre signature.

The Iranian ambassador to Egypt says that Abu Mamzer's UDI gambit at the UN is a step toward destroying Israel [here][thanx Isreallycool].
9-27-2011 Erdogan's bodyguards attack UN guards [here] -- and a wonderful time was had by all.

Obama Promotes Islamist Turkey to Israel -- What about Israel's Honor?

UPDATING 8-3&11&18-&9-5-2011 at bottom

The Obama administration is now pushing Israel to make up with Turkey by apologizing for killing 9 Turkish thugs/jihadists on the Mavi Marmara in 2010. They don't ask Erdogan to apologize to Israel for trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, an act of war on Turkey's part although executed through an ostensibly non-official body, the terrorist IHH. Apologizing to Erdung will only encourage him to continue his life of crime, Islamist crime. And what about Obama's commitment to the US's NATO ally, Greece, which is threatened by Erdung's renewed Turkish imperial drive? Or, speaking about blockades, what about the Turkish blockade of Armenia that has been going on since 1993?

Carolyn Glick and the Jerusalem Post editorial staff realize the dangers in the Obama approach.

1) Jerusalem Post editorial 7-26-2011
The US is keenly pursuing reconciliation between Turkey and Israel. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convinced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to postpone until the end of August the release of the UN’s Palmer Commission report on the Mavi Marmara. The delay would facilitate negotiations between Jerusalem and Ankara aimed at returning to semi-normalcy in relations and allow for the burying of the Palmer Commission report, which reportedly upholds the legality of Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, but takes the IDF to task for using disproportionate force.

The Obama administration is convinced that resolution of the Mavi Marmara fiasco is the key to maintaining the Israel-Turkey-US strategic triangle, so essential in American eyes to a stable Middle East.

The US, therefore, wants Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to back a formula that includes an apology for “operational mishaps” that resulted in the loss of nine Turkish lives in the Israel Navy commando raid last year, and payment of compensation through a fund to be set up by the Turkish governmen. - - -[Excerpt from JPost editorial 7-26-2011; Read rest here]- - -

Note that the Obama administration is not asking the Turks to apologize to Israel, although Israel was the victim of an act of war on Turkey's part --breaking a legal and justified blockade of the Gaza Strip, now controlled by the Nazi-like Hamas. To be sure, Turkey's act of war was executed through an ostensibly non-official body, the terrorist IHH, but was nonetheless a Turkish govt act in view of the strong ties between the govt and the IHH [see here & here].

Secretary of State Clinton's claim that an Israeli apology was needed for the sake of "stability" is hardly convincing given that the US under Obama has caused much instability in the Middle East and has seldom shown any sign that it appreciates stability as such. Recall that Obama and his gang helped bring down Mubarak in Egypt, although Mubarak's fall has unleashed much still ongoing instability with the danger that the Muslim Brotherhood might come to power there.




2) Carolyn Glick does her usual good job, providing information and analysis.

No Prizes for Erdogan

July 27, 2011, 3:10 PM

Comments (4)

Shortly after Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Recip Erdogan came to power in 2002, he began undermining Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. Erdogan officially ended the alliance last May when he sent the IHH, an al Qaeda-aligned, Turkish NGO affiliated with his Islamist AKP Party to lead the pro-Hamas flotilla to Gaza.

Aboard the Mavi Marmara, IHH members violently attacked IDF naval commandos who boarded the ship in order to prevent it from breaking Israel's lawful maritime blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza coast. In the life and death battle that ensued, nine of the IHH assailants were killed.

By attempting to break Israel's lawful blockade, passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara and the rest of the ships in the flotilla were engaged in illicit acts of war against the Jewish state and providing illicit aid and comfort to an illegal terrorist organization. In supporting and arguably organizing the flotilla, including the Mavi Marmara, Erdogan himself was waging an unlawful war against Israel.

Erdogan reacted to the Mavi Marmara incident with enraged indignation. He demanded that Israel apologize for its commandos' actions and pay compensation to the families of the dead. He also demanded an international inquiry into Israel's actions.

Answering his call, the UN set up a commission to investigate last year's flotilla episode. The report has been ready since May. But its publication has been repeatedly delayed. According to media accounts of its findings, the UN commission agrees that Israel's blockade of Gaza is legal. It also claims that the naval commandos used disproportionate force in fending off the Mavi Marmara passengers' assault against them.

In a bid to salvage Turkey's ties to Israel and so increase waning Congressional support for Turkey, the Obama administration has been mediating talks between Israel and Turkey for the past few months. According to news reports, the administration is now pressuring Israel to agree to Erdogan's demand for an apology and to pay compensation to the families of those killed onboard the Mavi Marmara. The U.S. is also demanding that Turkey agree not to press damages or war crimes claims against Israeli personnel in international or other courts.

Given President Obama's expressed admiration and support for Erdogan, it makes sense that he is pushing this position. But the question remains, why is Turkey insisting that Israel apologize and pay damages for the IDF's lawful actions on the Mavi Marmara? What is he trying to achieve? And what would be the consequences if Israel were to bow to U.S. pressure and apologize?

There are two explanations for Erdogan's behavior. First, there is the issue of honor, which plays such a prominent role in Islamic society. He views the Mavi Marmara incident in the context of honor politics. And he demands an apology from Israel in order to increase his honor and diminish Israel's.

Most of Israel's objections to Erdogan's demand to date have centered around this issue. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon have cited this as the primary reason for refusing to apologize.

But while unpleasant, honor is probably not Erdogan's main rationale for pursing his demand for an Israeli apology. Since he was reelected to serve a third term as prime minister last month Erdogan has been openly seeking to establish a neo-Ottoman Turkish hegemonic position in the Arab world.

To this end he has been actively interfering in the popular revolt against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. The IHH has been hosting Syrian opposition leaders in Turkey. Erdogan's clear aim is to replace Iran as Syria's overlord in a post-Assad Syria.

Erdogan has also been actively engaging Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak in February. Erdogan plans a high profile visit to Egypt in the near future. And he plans to end his visit to Egypt by crossing the Egyptian border with Gaza. There he will become the highest-level foreign leader to visit Gaza since the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood Hamas took over in 2007.

As far as Erdogan is concerned, if he gets the U.S. to force Israel to apologize, it will be a massive public relations coup in his bid to convince the Arabs to accept his leadership. After all, Israel would be apologizing for having had the temerity to oppose the aggression of IHH terrorists engaged in an act of war against Israel. An Israeli apology would serve as proof that his double game of remaining a NATO member and carrying out aggression against Israel is the winning formula. If Israel apologizes for defending itself against Turkish aggression, Erdogan will have succeeded where the Arabs have failed.

Obviously, on the merits, Israel has no reason to apologize. And Turkish promises not to file lawsuits and war crimes complaints against Israel will have no legal weight. The Turkish pledge will not bind the relatives of the dead. And an Israeli apology and compensation will provide them with a prima facie claim that Israel admits culpability.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and senior IDF officers reportedly argue in favor of an apology, claiming the strategic alliance with Turkey is so important that Israel must be willing to swallow its pride in order to rebuild it.

This argument has apparently won over Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor. It has also caused Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to temper his honor-based rejection of the Turkish demand.

The problem with this argument is that it fails to take address Erdogan's second, and more strategically significant motivation of using Israeli humiliation to strengthen his image as a pan-Islamic leader.

That motivation gives lie to the notion that Erdogan has any interest in reinstating Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. The man who is cultivating Hamas in the PA, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, is not going to permit the Israeli Air Force to renew its training flights over Turkish airspace.

Erdogan is not going to share intelligence with Israel on Iran. He will not cooperate with Mossad agents along Turkey's border with Iran or Syria.

Instead he will use his ability to humiliate Israel and curb its military operations to demonstrate to the Muslim Brotherhood that it should accept Turkey's role as regional hegemon and operate under its wings.

Moreover, Israel can fully expect that under Erdogan, Turkey will share any intelligence information Israel provides with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that any intelligence information Turkey transfers to Israel to be of limited value.

The UN announced on Sunday that it was delaying the publication of its report on the Mavi Marmara for another month. The expectation is that Israel will bow to Turkish and U.S. pressure and apologize and so obviate the need for the report to ever see the light of day.

Given the true stakes involved, Israel must stick to its guns and say no apology, no compensation, and no political prize for Erdogan.

Originally published in The Jewish Press.

Posted on July 27, 2011 at 3:10 PM
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/07/no-prizes-for-erdogan.php?pf=yes

Hilary and her State Dept apparently have a deep psychological need to protect Turkey's reputation even when it has committed the most heinous crimes. A few years ago Hilary tried to get Turkey and Armenia to make up by glossing over the Armenian genocide issue. In the case of the Turkish Armada and the Mavi Marmara affair, Hilary is shoving the guilt, the onus onto Israel when it is really Turkey that is guilty. [here & here]
8-3-2011 Fiamma Nirenstein, deputy chairperson of the Italian parliament's foreign affairs committee, reports that Erdogan now demands an apology from the Armenian president, Serzh Sarksyan, who recently responded to a question about recovery of Armenia's lost territories now incorporated in Turkey --including Mount Ararat-- that: "The future is only in the hands of the youth." [qui][& in English here]. Let's see if Obama & Hilary join in with Erdogan in demanding that the Armenian president apologize.
8-8-2011 Moshe Ya`alon calls Turkish demand for an apology for the Mavi Marmara incident [provoked by Turkey] "rude" [here]
Herb Keinon in Jerusalem Post reports on divisions among top ministers in the security cabinet over whether Israel should somehow apologize to Turkey for killing nine Turkish thugs on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010 [here]. The usually foolish Dan Meridor claims that with "wisdom" on both sides, good relations can return [But if the Turks don't want to return to good relations?]. Minister Ya`alon, Avigdor Lieberman, Eli Yishai, and Benny Begin oppose any apology to Turkey. Ehud Barak unbecomingly accepts the State Dept/Obama position. Netanyahu & Steinitz have not committed themselves.
8-9-2011 Israelo-American peacemonger joins in the chorus of simpletons advocating an "apology" to Turkey for Turkey's brutality [here]. One Barry Leff of "Rabbis" for "Human Rights" [human rights for some humans, not for others] demonstrates his own ignorance and that of his group whose dishonest and foolish antics in the past have led to other Jews being killed. Is Leff aware that Turkey has been blockading Armenia for at least 18 years? Is he aware of the Turkish conquest of northern Cyprus in 1974? and the 100,000s of refugees thus created? Why doesn't he propose that Turkey apologize to Armenia and Cyprus? Would not that be the right, the moral thing for him to do?
8-11-2011 The Jerusalem Post reports that Obama made a special call to PM Netanyahu to pester him about an apology to Turkey [here]. Bibi, just say No!!!
Pressure from Turks resident in Germany has led Stuttgart University to "capitulate[d] to pressure from resident Turkish Muslims and cancel[ed] an event entitled, "Persecution, Expulsion and Annihilation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire'" [here & here]. The Western university continues to decline.
Israel Matzav on Erdogan's demand for an apology from Armenia [here]
8-14-2011 Oded Eran wants Israel to offer to make some sort of apology to Turkey, not because it's justified in any way but to keep Obama happy [here]. That is precisely a good reason not to make any apology. The more Israel gives in to Obama the worse he treats Israel.
8-18-2011 Tony Badran sees Obama as allowing Erdogan to lead his policy on Syria [here]
8-22-2011 Ely Karmon examines the issue in the JPost [here]. He stresses the strangely exaggerated involvement of Obama and Hilary in pressuring Israel to apologize to Turkey.
9-5-2011 Caroline Glick sees Erdogan's scapegoating of Israel as useful for his neo-Ottoman policy of expanding Turkey's influence in the Islamic world [here]