TURKISH TIES
Editorial
Jerusalem Post, May 29, 2012
The decision this week by Istanbul’s Seventh Criminal Court to seek prison terms totaling over 18,000 years for four former IDF commanders may or may not have been timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the May 31 Mavi Marmara debacle. But many have used the occasion of the indictment—and the anniversary of the incident—to argue that the time has come to apology to the Turks.
New York University’s Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations and a regular columnist for the Jerusalem Post, made such a recommendation in an oped that appeared in the Turkish daily Hurriyet. Ben-Meir claimed that “Turkey has repeatedly reaffirmed that once Israel apologizes, Ankara will resume full diplomatic relations.” In addition, according to a Channel 10 news report, Israeli Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz supports apologizing to the Turks, thus strengthening the position held by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor.
The US has reportedly relaunched an effort to convince Israel to reconsider apologizing to Turkey, encouraged by Mofaz’s strengthening of the apologist camp in the government and by the fact that the broad government coalition cannot be toppled by Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Lieberman, a strong opponent of apologizing to Turkey. But will an apology truly improve Israel’s relations with Turkey?
Last July ahead of the release of the UN-appointed Palmer Commission’s report—which found that Israel had every legal justification for enforcing a naval blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, though the IDF was taken to task for using excessive force—a concerted effort spearheaded by the US, attempted to resolve the tension between Jerusalem and Ankara.
To pacify the Turks, the US would see to it that the Palmer report would be buried. In addition, the Turks demanded that Israel apologize for the incident and pay compensation to the families of the nine people who were killed when IDF commandos raided the Mavi Marmara. Israel also was expected to lift its blockade of Gaza. In exchange, the Turks agreed to refrain from bringing legal claims against the commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara or against the officers and political leaders who sent them, and resolve the conflict with Israel.
For its part, Israel was willing to express “regret” over the incident and provide monetary compensation. But Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Lieberman refused to issue an official apology or lift the naval blockade. As a result, the deal fell through and the Palmer report was published. In response, Ankara downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel.
At the time, this paper supported the government’s decision not to cave in to Turkish demands. Doing so would have been interpreted as a sign of weakness. Agreeing to lift the blockade would only encourage future attempts to use diplomatic pressure to influence Israeli policies. And a full apology would also be a disservice to IDF soldiers and military commanders. Finally, an Israeli apology—without any recognition on the part of the Turks that by allowing the Mavi Marmara to set sail from their shores, they were also responsible for the debacle—might be interpreted as an admission of guilt.…
It is naïve to believe that if only Israel were to apologize for the Mavi Marmara raid, relations with Turkey would return to normal. True, Israel might score a small diplomatic victory by apologizing and proving to the world that it is Turkish intransigence and radicalism—not an Israeli refusal to apologize—that are the real obstacles to normalization. But Israel also has an obligation to itself to maintain a modicum of self-respect and deterrence power.
TURKEY’S MIDDLE EAST POLICY OF SEEKING TO GOBBLE, GOBBLE UP
THE MIDDLE EAST MAKES ENEMIES OF EVERYONE
Barry Rubin
Pajamas Media, May 16, 2012
“Countries may vary, but civilization is one, and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat.”—Kemal Ataturk, 1924.
Spinning in his grave, indeed, for now his successors not only think they can revive a Turkish-ruled imperium, but have made the very mistake of turning their backs on the West, which the republic’s founder rightly saw as the downfall of that earlier incarnation of his country.…
Once upon a time there was a country named Turkey whose republic was created by Kemal Ataturk, who famously said: “Peace at home; peace abroad.” He and the Turkish people had seen their Ottoman Empire collapse after failing to modernize, engaging in chauvinistic nationalism (under the Young Turks), and entering an unnecessary war that led to 20 percent of its population dead and the country prostrate.
And so Ataturk and his colleagues saved the country based on two basic principles: at home, joining Western civilization through modernization and secularization; abroad, avoiding foreign ambitions and conflicts. Whatever their faults, they did a remarkable job. Turkey made steady progress far in excess of what happened in Iran or the Arabic-speaking world.
But then came the regime of [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s] Justice and Development Party. Pretending to be moderate and democratic, it was actually a radical Islamist party seeking to fundamentally transform Turkey. This regime was not moderate but merely patient in achieving its radical goals.
It insisted that under its rule Turkey would be everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy. And US President Barack Obama thought this would be a great model for the Middle East. In fact, though, the Turkish regime didn’t see everyone as an equal friend. It preferred the company of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
Soon, as events developed in the region, the veneer of modesty boiled away and the aggressive ambition was revealed. And that ambition was expressed most clearly by the devious Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to parliament in late April: “We will manage the wave of change in the Middle East. Just as the ideal we have in our minds about Turkey, we have an ideal of a new Middle East. We will be the leader and the spokesperson of a new peaceful order, no matter what they say.”
Wow. Off with the “everyone’s buddy” image and out comes the raving would-be dictator over the Middle East. But the problem is that there are these people called “Arabs” who don’t want to be bossed around by a Turk, even if they both are Sunni Muslims. In addition, those Arabs have their own ambitions. So when they hear stuff like this they become even more angry and suspicious.
“No matter what they say,” intones Davutoğlu.… Since his speech was reported in a U.S. embassy message, it was available to the White House. Yet it has been Obama’s naiveté about Turkey that has even further puffed up the arrogance of such people.
Sounding like another man who wanted to become the dictator of the Middle East—Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who once said that those who didn’t like him running things could “go drink the Nile”—Davutoğlu says: “I’d like to advise those who are criticizing us: Go to Cairo. Go to Tripoli. Go to the streets of Beirut, Tunisia, Jerusalem, and ask about Turkey’s policy on Syria. They will hug you and express their appreciation for Turkey’s honorable policy.” Yes, this regime has supported the overthrow of its former close ally in Syria in order to install an Islamist regime friendly to Ankara. It has even obtained full support from Obama for creating an anti-American government in Damascus.…
The increasingly power-drunk behavior of Turkish leaders may go unnoticed by a worshipful Obama, who touts the “Turkish model,” but the Arabs have been alienated by such attitudes. Having also threatened Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, while partly antagonizing Iran—though the Ankara regime continues to break trade sanctions with Tehran, sabotage totally accepted by the pliant Obama administration—the Turkish leaders have destroyed their own foreign policy.…
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan once said that democracy was like a trolley. You ride it until you get to your destination and then get off.… Thus, Turkey, which had done so well for decades under pragmatists, has now fallen under the sway of megalomaniacal ideologues who believe that they can impose Islam on Turkey and Turkey on the region. Meanwhile, the regime is arresting scores of former high-ranking officers destroying the army that used to protect secularism. The time will come when it appoints Islamists or opportunists who act as if they were Islamists to the top commands.
And the U.S. government has…done nothing while the Islamist regime has behaved as if Israel is its worst enemy in the world and sided with radical terrorist groups that seek Israel’s extinction.… For all practical purposes the Obama administration has done zero after two years of the Turkish regime’s bashing of Israel.
OBAMA ROLLS OVER AGAIN FOR THE TURKS
Omri Ceren
Contentions, May 21, 2012
It was only in April when the US State Department was acknowledging that Israel is “one of NATO’s partners [and] has participated over the years in many, many, many NATO activities, consultations, exercises, et cetera.” The context was a surreal exchange between the AP’s Matt Lee and State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland regarding how Turkey was vetoing Israel from participating in May’s Chicago NATO summit. Lee expressed confusion at the bland acquiescence with which the Obama administration was meeting Turkey’s machinations:
QUESTION: Victoria, I’m trying to help you out here, because you’re going to get absolutely slammed.
MS. NULAND: I understand. Matt, there is no—
QUESTION: You are. If you can’t come out and say that the United States wants Israel to participate, its main ally in the Middle East, and you won’t come out and say that the administration wants the [Israelis] to participate in whatever event is going on in Chicago, that’s—that is going to be seized on.… And the Turks wouldn’t be objecting to Israel’s participation if someone hadn’t proposed that Israel participate. And if you have proposed that they participate—
MS. NULAND: Again—
QUESTION: And you’re not willing to stick up for it, I don’t understand why.
Of course, Israel ended up getting excluded from the summit. The White House and State Department have subsequently scrambled from one excuse to another, lest people settle on the obvious: that the Obama administration is allowing Turkey to drive a wedge between Israel and NATO, thereby damaging NATO’s coordination with allies in the Eastern Mediterranean, undermining America’s ability to project power into the region, eroding the U.S.-Israel alliance, and making the Israelis feel isolated and nervous right as they’re making critical decisions about going it alone on Iran.
Administration officials first condescendingly insisted that critics had a “misconception” about how NATO worked. There just wasn’t enough time and space to invite members from “all those partnerships and alliance[s].” Then it turned out that there was room for members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The Initiative, though undoubtedly valuable, is unlikely to be as critical to NATO’s core focus on the Mediterranean than the Mediterranean Dialogue of which Israel is a part.
So then the standard for attendance shifted. The new bar was participation in the NATO missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.… But that still didn’t work. Summit participant Jordan is a formal ISAF partner but provides exactly nothing worth listing to the mission. Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Qatar are also in Chicago, even though none are in ISAF or KFOR.… [Furthermore], it was only a month ago when ex-Israel Air Force chief Ido Nechushtan was awarded a U.S. Air Force decoration for the contributions the IAF has made to America’s war-fighting capabilities in Afghanistan.…
The White House’s overarching narrative is that Turkey never vetoed Israel’s invitation to the Chicago summit because Israel was never invited to the Chicago summit. That’s hard to believe but—if it’s true—it’s a cause for deep concern. Invitations were sent out to over 30 non-NATO members, including those with no connections to NATO, but no one remembered to invite the American ally and NATO partner that controls the Middle East’s most powerful military?…
NATO is not run by idiots, and all signs indicate that Israel was going to participate in Chicago. Then the Turks apparently rolled over the White House and excluded the Jewish State. One wonders, also, how much resistance they encountered.
A GREAT TIME FOR A FRESH LOOK AT THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Jonathan Kay
National Post, May 29, 2012
[Last] week, a Turkish court approved a criminal indictment against four former Israeli military commanders for their alleged role in the deaths of nine Turkish activists who were trying to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas-run Gaza in 2010. The indictment calls for between 8,000 and 18,000 life sentences for each of the Israeli men.
That’s a lot of life sentences—especially given last year’s UN report concluding that, while Israel had used excessive force against the knife- and club-wielding Turkish jihadis, the blockade itself was perfectly legal.
As an arithmetic experiment, imagine if the Israeli military had done something truly monstrous—comparable, for instance, to what the Ottoman Turks did to the Armenians during World War I and the years that followed. How many life sentences do you hand out to the killers of over a million innocent people? (Extrapolating from the flotilla indictments above, the figure I come up with is over a billion.)
Alas, those WWI-era Ottoman killers have long since given up this earthly vale of tears. Many died in their beds—unlike the Armenian men and women who perished from exposure or starvation, clutching their children’s bodies, during their forced marches through the Anatolian hinterlands.
As it happens, a new book on this historical episode—The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, by Clark University professor Taner Akçam—landed in my mailbox a few months back. According to the publishers, Princeton University Press, Akçam is the first scholar of Turkish origin to publicly acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.…
The first theme that jumps out from The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity is the obsessive zeal with which the Turks of the early 20th-century sorted the Anatolian population by religion and ethnicity. Christians—Greek and Armenian alike—were singled out for special scrutiny. But even non-Turk Muslims were seen as suspect. Millions of Kurds, for instance, were ethnically cleansed from certain regions in a bid to weaken their political claims—a legacy of persecution that continues to this day.…
The overarching demographic goal of the Ottoman Turks prior to WWI was what Akçam calls “the 5% to 10% rule”: Officials sought to cleanse each region of the country such that resettled non-Turk groups would constitute not more than one-in-20 or one-in-10 within the larger population. One way to meet this mathematical threshold was through massive, long-range population transfers. Another strategy, implemented as World War I unfolded, was outright extermination: Cadavers didn’t count toward the 5-to-10 quota.…
Almost a century later, Turkish officials still “say things like this” when confronted with evidence of the Armenian Genocide. The country’s formal position is that the Armenians endured a mere “relocation” exercise during a period when they were suspected of comprising a pro-Russian fifth-column threat. Five years ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan asked his government officials to use the phrase “1915 Events” to describe the Armenian Genocide—which is kind of like referring to the Jewish Holocaust as “that thing that happened in the early 1940s.…”
If Turkey presumes to lecture Israel or anyone else on these subjects, it could start with a frank admission of the horrors that Turks themselves perpetrated against Armenians and other minorities. Even then, the Turkish case against Israel would have little merit. But at least, it wouldn’t stink of hypocrisy.
