by Philip Giraldi, March 07, 2013
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke afterwards with Kerry and disagreed, observing that in 2010 Israel had attacked a Turkish flagged vessel in international waters and killed nine Turkish citizens who were seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. He noted that “If Israel wants to hear positive statements from Turkey it needs to reconsider its attitude both towards us and towards the West Bank.”
Erdogan and Davutoglu were referring to how political Zionism has denied fundamental human rights to the Palestinians that it displaced by force starting at the time of partition and continuing to the present. Neither contested the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland, but were simply pointing out that Zionism as it has been practiced has caused considerable human suffering, just as fascism and anti-Semitism have done in other places and at other times. Historically speaking, some Zionists believed that Jews should return to Biblical Israel by purchasing land and would learn to live alongside their Arab neighbors while others argued, that the Arabs would have to be removed. In the event, the latter view has prevailed. One would think that the egregious and well documented Israeli human rights violations inflicted on the Palestinians would be obvious to everyone, even in Washington, and that there might even be some cautiously expressed understanding of what lay behind the Turkish Prime Minister’s remarks. But that was perhaps inevitably not the case and a goodly part of the U.S. media and chattering class quickly expressed their outrage.
Erdogan has long been one of the preferred targets of neocon rage. The Turkish prime minister dared confront Israel’s President Shimon Peres at an international meeting in Davos in January 2009. Referring to the slaughter of Gazan civilians earlier that month, Erdogan told Peres ”…you know well how to kill.” The sharp exchange exemplified Israel’s richly deserved public relations problem. The coverage of the Erdogan-Peres exchange was carefully managed in the U.S. media, but somewhat more unrestrained in Europe and the Middle East. In the one hour discussion of Gaza that was moderated by David Ignatius of The Washington Post, a far from impartial participant, Peres was allowed twenty-five minutes to speak in defense of the Israeli attack. Erdogan was given twelve minutes. During the debate, Peres pointed accusingly at Erdogan and raising his voice. When Erdogan sought time to respond, Ignatius granted him a minute and then cut him off claiming it was time to go to dinner. Erdogan complained about the treatment and left Davos, vowing never to return. Back in Turkey, he received a hero’s welcome.
Over at Commentary magazine, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin led the charge against Erdogan’s most recent comments, writing that “…when they argue for the criminalization of Islamophobia, Erdogan and his fellow traveler seek to ban…criticism of the more radical outliers of radical Islamism.” It is interesting that Rubin is able to interpret what Erdogan was thinking, but he then adds a clincher: under Erdogan “the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 per cent,” suggesting somehow that the Turkish government is responsible. And there is more. Rubin asserts that Erdogan doesn’t like press freedom with Turkey ranking 154 among nations, just behind Mexico (it might be noted that Israel ranks 112, after Panama, while the United States is 32).
Joining the attack, David Goldman, a former leftist and Lyndon LaRouche cultist who has now turned conservative, wrote that “Lunatics have run better countries that Turkey in living memory” before going off on a tangent to tell how people in Anatolia believe in black magic. He also added that Erdogan has a “bizarre edge” since he believes that Turks living in Europe should not assimilate, that they should retain their culture and Turkish identity. Rod Dreher in a piece entitled “Turkey under Islamist Rule” then piled on the scrum by quoting Goldman and Rubin at length before adding that “Turkey is one of the region’s worst violators of religious freedom…Turkey is a great country, but it is not part of the west, and absent a tremendous change, mustn’t be allowed to be.”
Even assuming that all the assertions made by Goldman, Rubin and Dreher are true, what do the media, murder statistics, Islamophobia, witchcraft, the European Union, and religious freedom have to do with whether Erdogan was right or wrong about Zionism? Nothing, and the essentially ad hominem arguments themselves reveal along the way considerable ignorance about contemporary Turkey and the Turkish people, a condition that has never caused a single neoconservative to falter one bit. The fact is that it is Zionism that has created the intellectual and political framework for the continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people. Rubin argues that “to be anti-Zionist…is to believe that Israel should cease to exist.” Well, that is a convenient way to put it, but it is just not so. Israel exists and thanks to U.S. aid is the regional military hegemon. Turkey and most other majority Islamic countries recognize that reality and have understood it for years. Turkey also has a good record towards its Jewish minority. The Ottomans took in Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and the community has prospered since that time. Ankara in was in fact a close friend to Israel prior to the killing of its citizens and there have been reports that behind the scenes the two countries continue to cooperate.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, believed that Islam had held his country back so he insisted on a state in which religion had no part, even adopting the Latin alphabet to replace the Quranic Arabic script that Turkish had hitherto employed. That view persists and Kemalist well-educated Turks, of which I know many, tend not to be religious or are even hostile to religion. They include most journalists, academics, businessmen, and army officers. They are capable of considerable pushback in the Turkish political system, note for example the headscarf in schools controversy, to include active and quite effective opposition political parties. The contention that Turkey is somehow “Islamist” ruled promoted by Dreher and others is misleading at a minimum. The fact is, most Turks are nominally Muslim and most rural Turks have always been devout. Now, for the first time since the 1930s Anatolian peasants as well as other Turks from a more secular background are able to express freely their religiosity, which might be assumed by Rubin, Goldman, and Dreher to be a change for the better if it were any religion but Islam. Most observers who actually know anything about Turkey and are not engaging in taking cheap shots regard Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) as both moderate and considerably less corrupt than its predecessors.
Ataturk also sought to create from the remains of the polyglot and multi-cultural Ottoman Empire a Turkish national identity. That meant that laws were passed defining Turkishness, laws that have generated periodic conflicts with Kurdish, Alevi, and Christian minorities and have led to the suppression of separate cultures and, more particularly, languages. This has produced the Kurdish problem, involving Turkey’s largest minority, which has bedeviled the country for nearly thirty years. Erdogan’s liberalization of laws to permit more Kurdish autonomy have clashed with the problem of the nation’s Turkish identify and run up against cultural and legal barriers, particularly at local levels. The Kurdish problem, which is a national security issue due to the activity of the terrorist group PKK, has also created the press freedom infringements identified by Rubin. Most journalists who have been punished by the government are Kurds who have fallen afoul of the Turkishness and counter-terrorism laws, which suggests a much more complicated dynamic than Rubin would admit to. Kurdish issues aside, the Turkish media is vibrant and not afraid to criticize the government.
Goldman’s assertion about Erdogan’s desire to have ethnic Turks retain their identity is completely off base. The Prime Minister was responding to a German lawrequiring Turkish children born in Germany to select either German or Turkish nationality by the time they reach age 23. Erdogan was, not surprisingly, urging them to retain their Turkish identity. And as for Dreher’s meaningless assertion that Turkey is not part of the west or “mustn’t be allowed to be,” much depends on how one defines the west these days. Is it cultural, religious, ethnic, racial, geographic or none of the above? If it is values how does one accept a Christian Greece that is awash in institutional and personal corruption versus a Muslim Turkey that scores much better on those issues? And what about the various kleptocracies operating in the Balkans? Dreher suggests that Islam means that Turkey must be kept out of the European Union club, a not uncommon viewpoint but one that is essentially bogus if one examines the successful assimilation of Muslims in our own United States, for example. It is also curious that Dreher and the others do not seem to have ever objected to the oppression of Christians and Muslims alike in Israel, where religion based property seizures and official unwillingness to provide building permits, not unlike incidents occurring in Turkey, happen frequently. Christian clergy are also regularly spat upon by Israeli Jews, suggesting an even higher level of animosity on a personal level which does not seem to bother Rubin, Goldman, and Dreher.
I confess that I am defending Turkey partly because I have lived there, speak Turkish, and like the country and its people. It is also a major strategic ally of the United States, which is not true of Israel. Yes, there are many things that could be improved in Turkey but the same could be said in spades about our own country. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that Turkey is becoming more democratic while the United States is becoming less so. But when Prime Minister Erdogan says something that is manifestly true that some find offensive it perhaps would not be churlish to suggest that the critics stick to the actual comments for their rebuttals. I suppose the redirection of the argument is due to the fact that it is very difficult to defend Zionism as it has been practiced in Israel but it would be nice for a change if folks like Rubin, Goldman, and Dreher would somehow figure out that the rest of the world does not necessarily accept the various fictions that have been concocted to justify Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
Philip Giraldi (born c. 1946[1]) is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a columnist and television commentator who is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a group that advocates for more even handed policies by the U.S. government in the Middle East. He gained a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the University of Chicago and a MA and a Ph.D from the University of London in European History.[1
BS says:
Calling Bull Shit on this article:
As stated: “Neither contested the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland”
- Great. This is the definition of Zionism. Plain and simple. Any issue outside of this is just issues with Israeli policy, not the concept of Zionism….
“…but were simply pointing out that Zionism as it has been practiced has caused considerable human suffering, just as fascism and anti-Semitism have done in other places and at other times.”
- Amazing hypocrisy coming from the PM of a nation that has moved from secularism to state Sharia law. A nation that is responsible for the genocide of 1.5m Armenians. A nation that is bordering Syria, which has slaughtered 90K of the population, with 250k wounded. You don’t here a G-d damn peep on this slaughter from these Muslim. You can barely find mention of it in the MSM. Clean up your own backyard. Islamo-fascists. The Palestinians (not to mention Israeli Arabs) live a higher standard of living then any Arab in the Arab World (minus the oil jokers and the wealth they were lucky enough to be born upon).
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
10 
4
7th March 2013 at 7:04 am
Stucky says:
Even before clicking on the article ……. how did I know this was going to be posted by Zara?
Iz I smart or wat?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
9 
0
7th March 2013 at 11:05 am
Stucky says:
OK. I read the article. I shall now offer my commentary.
Prime Minister Estrogen is a pussy.
That is all.
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
7th March 2013 at 11:12 am
TPC says:
I’ve stopped reading Z’s articles for now, too many in a row, and all about the same topic.
/yawn
Hot debate. What do you think?
7 
5
7th March 2013 at 11:14 am
AWD says:
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
0
7th March 2013 at 11:17 am
Stucky says:
The Prime Minister was responding to a German lawrequiring Turkish children born in Germany to select either German or Turkish nationality by the time they reach age 23. Erdogan was, not surprisingly, URGING THEM TO RETAIN THEIR TURKISH IDENTITY” ——— from the article
And THAT’S exactly why Germans DESPISE the Turks in their country.
Press 1 for German.
Press 2 for Turkish.
Fuck that shit.
Reinheitsgebot. (look it up)
Like or Dislike:
3 
1
7th March 2013 at 11:21 am
TPC says:
I dub this meme, Disdainful StuckenNazi
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
7th March 2013 at 11:23 am
teacher says:
Ignorance. Turkey does not have sharia law. Israel is also a nation bordering Syria who murdered 90k of its people. So this is your argument? And to say that palestinians have a higher standard of living tells me that you are possibly one of the hired online-media pr fixers. Just like the ones waiting to apply makeup on wiki articles. Hey guys, bad press here. Strart commenting lest people see how we oppress people.
Hot debate. What do you think?
5 
6
7th March 2013 at 11:27 am
Zarathustra says:
teacher, the more you expose them to their ignorance, the more firmly they cling to it.
Hot debate. What do you think?
3 
6
7th March 2013 at 12:26 pm
Stucky says:
Zara
Sure. Blame others when they don’t buy into your schtick (that’s Yiddish for ‘bullshit’)
Your failure to convince is more on you, not your audience.
Hot debate. What do you think?
6 
2
7th March 2013 at 12:33 pm
Stucky says:
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/35837524.jpg
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 12:42 pm
Stucky says:
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
5 
0
7th March 2013 at 12:43 pm
daddysteve says:
I’m confident that only one person around here knows what they’re talking about. That would be Philip Giraldi.
Like or Dislike:
2 
1
7th March 2013 at 1:02 pm
Zarathustra says:
daddysteve, I’m a big fan of Pepe Escobar too. He just hasn’t written (or been interviewed) on the subject recently.
Like or Dislike:
2 
2
7th March 2013 at 1:19 pm
OF says:
Fick dich
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
7th March 2013 at 2:21 pm
beast rudolfo says:
my Brothers killed pepe escobar. . .wait, my bad it was pablo. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Pablo_%28film%29
at least z posted this with the politics tag instead of the economy tag. maybe he’ll finally get his message across.
how about some truth z -
http://www.israelchosenortheenemy.com/prologue.php
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 2:22 pm
Zarathustra says:
beast rudolfo, yeah those heretics otherwise known as christian zionists love the jews so much that they can’t wait for them all to burn in hell when Jesus returns.
Like or Dislike:
2 
2
7th March 2013 at 2:27 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Why oh why does ANYBODY bother reading and responding to articles posted by Z? I mean really?
Hot debate. What do you think?
6 
4
7th March 2013 at 2:35 pm
Stucky says:
fyi
OF’s “Fick dich” is German for “fuck you”.
A proper response is; “Du Scheisskopf missgeburte Arshloch. Fick dich selber.” …. (You shithead aborted asshole, go fuck yourself.)
Thus endeth today;s German lesson.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
7th March 2013 at 2:37 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
@OF – Yeah, I caught that after I posted it.
Oh well. Maybe I’ll just stick with it, and always use poorly spelled German when I use the meme.
More than likely the misspellings will annoy Stuck more than anything else I could come up with.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
7th March 2013 at 2:37 pm
Stucky says:
Zara
Your attempts to dopple me — the Greatest Doppler Of All Time — is an utter failure, much like your Zionist posts.
Seriously, don’t you have any NEW topics?
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
7th March 2013 at 2:43 pm
Zarathustra says:
Stucky, I have never doppled anyone here, ever.
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
7th March 2013 at 2:45 pm
Zarathustra says:
I’m too busy hating jews to ever bother trying to dopple someone.
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
7th March 2013 at 2:53 pm
Zarathustra says:
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Why oh why does ANYBODY bother reading and responding to articles posted by Z? I mean really?
I’m going to take this as a compliment since on the few occasions you have opined on foreign affairs, your views have been manifestly Neocon.
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
7th March 2013 at 2:55 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
@Z: Examples, please? Good attempt at an adhominem attack BTW. That all you got?
Calling me a neocon because I merely comment on foreign affairs is like calling Admin a Keynesian because he discusses financial matters.
Don’t you have something better to do? Gawwwh, this anti-Israel, anti-Jew schtick really gets old. It is a conflict that goes back thousands of years and will continue for another thousand until one side definitively obliterates the other.
Why do you give two shits about it when our country is on the brink of financial collapse? Let me just say this: In the event of a major calamity in the US, Israel will be right here with some help while the Palestinians will dance, once again, in their (filthy, body strewn) streets.
Hot debate. What do you think?
7 
3
7th March 2013 at 3:03 pm
Llpoh says:
Seems my work finally has born fruit. Z has been exposed in all his Jew-hating glory. I am now going to take Hope’s good advice.
Like or Dislike:
5 
1
7th March 2013 at 3:11 pm
beast rudolfo says:
with respect, z – while you spew your anti zionism, my goal is merely to search for the Truth. my profession does not allow me to expose too much of what i do. i have studied and traveled the world and its’ religions & recently it has kept leading me back to the same point. i see error in your position an desire to expose it. it does not matter what you, i or anybody else thinks – God, Universe, or whatever, will not be mocked. time will reveal the Truth. when you experience it you will be changed. deny it at your own peril. it’s sad you hate a particular group of people. mankind has struggled to find a home always at someone else’s expense. with a Divine deed it is pretty hard to argue.
the sad truth is sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKc2JNTQe7E
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:14 pm
bb says:
Mr z. What are ….who are… Palestinians … Where di
d they come from.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:16 pm
bb says:
Mr z. I don’t think you are a devil but you are becoming one
Like or Dislike:
1 
1
7th March 2013 at 3:23 pm
Zarathustra says:
HZK, ” Let me just say this: In the event of a major calamity in the US, Israel will be right here with some help..”
You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVdAOmUduEQ
Like or Dislike:
3 
4
7th March 2013 at 3:26 pm
Stucky says:
Zara — my apologies, then.
ThePessimisticChemist — you dirty rotten bastard. Have I ever doppled you? No. But, that will change as I must restore Natural Order here. I will get even at the time and place of my choosing. You have been warned.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:29 pm
beast rudolfo says:
i do not trust rt. i know quite a bit about russia. they are dedicated to the destruction of my country and will sow seeds of distrust with pleasure. btw an ‘israeli’ may also be of arab blood, not necessarily a jew.
with that, das vidanya (i don’t have a cyrillic keyboard). llpoh & h@zk are correct.
b.r.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:37 pm
Stucky says:
I’m having my own shitfest on the “Bonnie & Clyde” thread with that fascist dickhead, sangell.
I’m just wondering how long until everybody hates everybody here, at least once.
I haven’t gotten into it with HZK. howard has gotten a free pass. I wonder if I can get them all hot and bothered. I’ll think of something.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:38 pm
Stucky says:
beast rudolfo
You don’t need a fuckin “cyrillic keyboard”. Krist almighty. Obviously you’re not a “beast” when it comes to using Google.
до свидания
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:43 pm
beast rudolfo says:
with respect stucky, that only proves i’m a (mindless)beast.
b.r.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:52 pm
Stucky says:
Note to Self: Attempts to lure beast rudolfo into a shitfest will take more careful planning.
carry on.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
7th March 2013 at 3:57 pm
beast rudolfo says:
will do.
b.r.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 4:05 pm
Zarathustra says:
The wisdom of HZK, Part two.
HZK, “Let me just say this: In the event of a major calamity in the US, Israel will be right here with some help.”
Yes indeed. The US is mired in a seemingly unsolvable sovereign debt problem. Sequestration cuts are imminent However our always loyal and greatest ally in the world, Israel, has once again come to the rescue:
Israel To Be Exempt From Foreign Aid Cuts
Written by MJ Rosenberg
There is only one foreign aid program that is not on the chopping block — not Obama’s, and not House Republicans or Senate Democrats. And it happens to be the largest single foreign assistance program of them all: $3.5 billion in aid to Israel…
… there is hardly another program in the entire U.S. budget that is deemed off-limits for budget cutters. Not aid to pregnant women and children here at home, not assistance to the unemployed, not clean air and water programs, not Social Security and Medicare, not cancer research… Everything is up for cuts either by the cut-and-slash super committee or through “sequestration”…
it does not matter who or what does the cutting: Aid to Israel is always exempt. And that is because preserving that particular aid package is AIPAC’s top priority. Anyone suggesting cutting aid to Israel by even a dollar will be punished by AIPAC-directed donors.”
councilforthenationalinterestest.org/news
Like or Dislike:
3 
2
7th March 2013 at 4:10 pm
Stucky says:
Zara
If the USofA were to keep that $3.5 billion, we would just blow it. Then, when we REALLY needed it to defend ourselves against our mortal enemy Al Queda—- you do know Al Queda is developing a fleet of hyper-sonic bombers each carrying 20 nukes ,,, right? — well, we’d be fucked.
So, we’ve been giving da Joos $3.5 billion for like 30 years … that’s like $91.5 billion buckeroos …. or a month’s worth of debt …. BUT, as good Joos are wont to do, they invested it and it has grown to $16 trillion dollars, …vich, ve haf access to, trust us, oy ve.
So, you do owe HZK an apology.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 4:28 pm
Stucky says:
“In the event of a major calamity in the US, Israel will be right here with some help …” —HZK
Seriously. WTF?????
But, I am, if nothing else, willing to learn. Can you provide examples? Cuz when I google “israeli aid to the usa” I get bupkus.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 4:35 pm
Stucky says:
oops. dammit.
Yes, I did see the ONE site linked below that looked promising. But when you go there all you see is a bunch of shit they are doing with OUR money that we might benefit from …. and, goddammit where I come from that’s not aid!!!
https://sites.google.com/site/mtevansco/Home/israel-aid-to-the-usa
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 4:39 pm
Eddie says:
Israel builds a lot of drones. Maybe they could loan us some if we don’t have enough to run surveillance on every living American.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
7th March 2013 at 5:16 pm
Zarathustra says:
I prefer Russian drones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPJMk2fgJU
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
7th March 2013 at 6:08 pm
Eddie says:
Fuckin’ hilarious.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 7:05 pm
Ron says:
You guys live in the past. Most know that hating illegal alien mexicans is whats popular nowadays.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 9:17 pm
bb says:
Mr z one more time ..who are the Palestinians and where did they come from.take your head out of your ass and answer the question. Who first used the term palestinians .think about it m
Like or Dislike:
1 
2
7th March 2013 at 10:04 pm
Zarathustra says:
bb,
“Genetic analysis suggests that a majority of the Muslims of Palestine, inclusive of Arab citizens of Israel, are descendants of Christians, Jews and other earlier inhabitants of the southern Levant whose core may reach back to prehistoric times. A study of high-resolution haplotypes demonstrated that a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Israeli Jews (70%) and of Palestinian Muslim Arabs (82%) belonged to the same chromosome pool.[27] Since the time of the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, religious conversions have resulted in Palestinians being predominantly Sunni Muslim by religious affiliation, though there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority of various Christian denominations, as well as Druze and a small Samaritan community. Though Palestinian Jews made up part of the population of Palestine prior to the creation of the State of Israel, few identify as “Palestinian” today. Acculturation, independent from conversion to Islam, resulted in Palestinians being linguistically and culturally Arab.[15] ”
Satisfied now?
Like or Dislike:
3 
1
7th March 2013 at 10:10 pm
chen says:
Ron says:
“You guys live in the past. Most know that hating illegal alien mexicans is whats popular nowadays.”
americanos will charge at anything that looks like a red flag. it’s called bad guy of the week.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 11:09 am
Stucky says:
“In the event of a major calamity in the US, Israel will be right here with some help …” —HZK
“Can you provide examples?” —– Me
Looks like HZK is pulling the chicken-shit post-and-run routine.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 11:11 am
bb says:
Mr.z. .. good job
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
7th March 2013 at 11:36 am
Cynical30 says:
@ HZK:
I’m pretty sure that there are a total of zero Israeli troops in Afghan, Iraq and all of the other proxy wars we are fighting around their block. So you think they are going to come over here to help us with anything? We need to either annex them as a state or get them off the dole.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
7th March 2013 at 5:34 pm