Friday 22 March 2013

Will Netanyahu's apology bring reconciliation with Turkey?

Having good relations with Turkey has been for years recognised as being of the highest importance. Indeed when relations with Turkey began to sour some time before the Mavi Marmara episode Israel's then defence minister Barak groaned that he hoped it wasn't true as Israel had invested very heavily in its relationship with Turkey, had not a few of its secrets in the hands of Turks. The truth of the deterioration in the relationship came with the appointing of an islamist to head Turkey's intelligence services.

PM Netanyahu of Israel today apologised for Israeli forces having killed 9 terrorists on board the Mavi Marmara ship trying to break Israel's legal blockade of Gaza (according to the UN Palmer commission). It should be remembered that of 5 ships the only violence broke out on the Mavi Marmara with jihadist turks of the IHH 'charity' on board. The IHH had previously donated its 'charitable services' to Chechniya in the form of funds and fighters.

It is to Turkey's leadership that we should look when we consider whether this apology to Turkey by Israel will actually help the relationship with that country. We have to keep in mind just who Erdogan and his AKP party are, outright islamist parties that have decimated their own military in the successful attempt to reform secular islamic Turkey into a country ruled by the tenets of islam. Erdogan has done this slowly whilst professing to keep the secular character of Turkey. Turkey has however been changed from within, the educational, social and other organs of state being slowly infiltrated by the islamists.  And none more so than the armed forces. Hundreds of generals and half of Turkey's admirals are now languishing in prison. Over a hundred journalists are imprisoned along with thousands of students.

It must be remembered that the flotilla was organized by the IHH, the islamist activist group on behalf of Erdogan's AKP. The flotilla could have been stopped at any time by Turkey and the violence that the IHH activists unleashed need never have happened. The violence was however intended in order to make the break with Israel. The flotilla was a provocation designed to break the relationship between Israel and Turkey. So if Obama thinks that forcing Netanyahu to make this ludicrous apology will lead to any positive results then he is badly mistaken. But then Obama is not about improving Israel's situation. American presidents normally think in terms of how their own country's situation is affected (e.g. remember how Israel was forced by Nixon to feed two egyptian armies it had surrounded and were at Israel's mercy in 1973). And Obama is a man who has negative feelings for Israel no matter the orchestrated circus while he was in Israel. There is just too much history to the man, including his recent remarks about Israel being destroyed if it didn't improve its behaviour, to think that he has Israel's interests at heart.

We must also ask ourselves whether this apology will help improve the relationship with Erdogan. People think the souring of the relationship started at Davos with the 'Israel likes killing' remarks, but Erdogan began  his anti-semitic career very early on. When he was head of the NSP islamist youth party he wrote a play called MasKomYa about the supposed evils of jews:
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 meaning “Jews.” The play focused on the evil, conspiratorial nature of these three entities whose common denominator was Judaism.

 Netanyahu must know who he is dealing with but nevertheless was unable to resist Obama's latest arm twisting of Israel.

When thinking of Netanyahu's apology we must keep in mind the effect on its enemies of Israel yet again showing weakness, when the american president was there. Israel is seen to be no more than the US lapdog, a country that receives its orders from America.

Netanyahu has once again shown that he can not stand up to this president who has got it in for Israel. Let's hope that on the one decision that really matters, to take away Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities, Netanyahu will find the will to ignore Israel's enemy in the White House.

Shabbat shalom.

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