vrijdag 4 juni 2010
It’s Not About the Flotilla: Turkey Changed Sides Years Ago
Israel-Turkey relations have gone from alliance to the verge of war because the West pretended an Islamist government could be benign.
June 3, 2010- by Barry Rubin
The foolish think the breakdown is due to the recent Gaza flotilla; the naïve, who pass for the sophisticated experts, attribute the collapse to the December 2008-January 2009 Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Such conclusions are totally misleading. The relationship breakdown was already clear — and in private every Israeli expert dealing seriously with Turkey said so — well over two years ago: the cause was the election in Turkey of an Islamist government.
Turkey’s AK Party government has not permitted a single new military contract with Israel since it took office. The special relationship was over then.
Turkey needed Israel as an ally when a secular government in Ankara regarded Iran, Syria, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as its main threats. Once there was a government which regarded Iran and Syria as its closest allies, Israel became a perceived enemy.
When the Turkish armed forces were an important part of the regime, they saw Israel as a good source for military equipment and an ally against Islamists and radical Arab regimes. But once the army was to be suppressed, its wishes were a matter of no concern. Depriving it of foreign allies was a goal of the AK Party government.
Pajamas Media
June 3, 2010- by Barry Rubin
The foolish think the breakdown is due to the recent Gaza flotilla; the naïve, who pass for the sophisticated experts, attribute the collapse to the December 2008-January 2009 Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Such conclusions are totally misleading. The relationship breakdown was already clear — and in private every Israeli expert dealing seriously with Turkey said so — well over two years ago: the cause was the election in Turkey of an Islamist government.
Turkey’s AK Party government has not permitted a single new military contract with Israel since it took office. The special relationship was over then.
Turkey needed Israel as an ally when a secular government in Ankara regarded Iran, Syria, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as its main threats. Once there was a government which regarded Iran and Syria as its closest allies, Israel became a perceived enemy.
When the Turkish armed forces were an important part of the regime, they saw Israel as a good source for military equipment and an ally against Islamists and radical Arab regimes. But once the army was to be suppressed, its wishes were a matter of no concern. Depriving it of foreign allies was a goal of the AK Party government.
Pajamas Media
Our 1979
June 3rd, 2010 8:43 am
The Year That Was
It has been sort of a topos to evoke the specter of 1979. I’ve done it repeatedly, as have other observers.
Aside from the growing stagflation in the U.S. (I remember farming that year at the ending of an inflation-driven boom), that was the year that China invaded Vietnam. Muslims assassinated the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. Russia later invaded Afghanistan. The world seemed to have become unhinged. And there was more still.
The shah was abandoned and soon fell, amid American proclamations of support for him on Monday, and then denunciation of his dynasty by Tuesday, and yet more leaked reports on Wednesday of reaching out to Khomeini in Paris. Soon in his death throes he would jet the globe looking for a home and a doctor, as the U.S. let the phone ring when he called.
Soon Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Teheran from Paris and proclaimed an Islamic revolution. Iranian students (Ahmadinejad probably among them) stormed our embassy and took hostages. In no time Ramsey Clark was denouncing America on Iran’s behalf, and rumors abounded of Carter’s backdoor deal-making to get them home at any cost before the 1980 election. (In 1980 a humiliating and disastrous rescue mission would see imams desecrating American dead on worldwide television. I recall an odious Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhal, the hanging judge who sent thousands to the gallows, zipping open the body-bags to poke and probe the charred American corpses.)
The Sandinistas also took over Nicaragua. Radical Islamists torched the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. I could go on, but you get the picture. In all these cases, a baffled Mr. Carter sermonized a lot, blamed a lot — and in the end retired to the Rose Garden or fought rabbits from a canoe. He seemed petulant that he had come into the world in divine fashion to save us, and we flawed mortals were unwilling to be saved by him. The so-called “malaise speech” summed up his disappointment in the rest of us.
And after such a wonderful beginning…
Works and Days: Victor Davis Hansen
The Year That Was
It has been sort of a topos to evoke the specter of 1979. I’ve done it repeatedly, as have other observers.
Aside from the growing stagflation in the U.S. (I remember farming that year at the ending of an inflation-driven boom), that was the year that China invaded Vietnam. Muslims assassinated the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. Russia later invaded Afghanistan. The world seemed to have become unhinged. And there was more still.
The shah was abandoned and soon fell, amid American proclamations of support for him on Monday, and then denunciation of his dynasty by Tuesday, and yet more leaked reports on Wednesday of reaching out to Khomeini in Paris. Soon in his death throes he would jet the globe looking for a home and a doctor, as the U.S. let the phone ring when he called.
Soon Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Teheran from Paris and proclaimed an Islamic revolution. Iranian students (Ahmadinejad probably among them) stormed our embassy and took hostages. In no time Ramsey Clark was denouncing America on Iran’s behalf, and rumors abounded of Carter’s backdoor deal-making to get them home at any cost before the 1980 election. (In 1980 a humiliating and disastrous rescue mission would see imams desecrating American dead on worldwide television. I recall an odious Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhal, the hanging judge who sent thousands to the gallows, zipping open the body-bags to poke and probe the charred American corpses.)
The Sandinistas also took over Nicaragua. Radical Islamists torched the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. I could go on, but you get the picture. In all these cases, a baffled Mr. Carter sermonized a lot, blamed a lot — and in the end retired to the Rose Garden or fought rabbits from a canoe. He seemed petulant that he had come into the world in divine fashion to save us, and we flawed mortals were unwilling to be saved by him. The so-called “malaise speech” summed up his disappointment in the rest of us.
And after such a wonderful beginning…
Works and Days: Victor Davis Hansen
Veroveringsimmigratie
INGEZONDEN - 03 JUNI 2010
Naar aanleiding van een toespraak die ik gisteren hield, schrijft Bart Brinckman in De Standaard dat ik “de zaal verraste de zaal met een discours waarin [ik] de islam een ‘theologie van de immigratie’ toedichtte. De islamieten komen niet naar Europa om economische redenen, ze doen aan ‘veroveringsimmigratie’.” Het is verbazend hoe weinig mensen – zelfs journalisten – weten over de Islam. Anders zou Brinckman de woorden “verraste” en “toedichtte” niet gebruiken.
Ik dicht de Islam geen immigratietheologie toe; die theologie staat centraal in de Islam. De islamitische jaartelling begint niet, zoals men zou verwachten, met de geboorte van Mohammed in 570, noch met het ogenblik waarop de engel Gabriel hem voor de eerste keer een tekst uit de Koran openbaarde (straks, op 10 augustus 2010, exact 1.400 jaar geleden), maar op 9 september 622.
Wat is er zo speciaal aan die datum? Het is de datum waarop Mohammed en zijn volgelingen immigreren van Mekka naar de overwegend joodse oase Yathrib. Mohammed leidde in Mekka een weinig succesvolle religieuze sekte. De Mekkanen namen zijn religie niet ernstig, en nadat hij op een dag het Mekkaanse heiligdom, de Kaaba, was binnengestormd met de woorden “Ik breng u slachting”, vonden ze hem zelfs gevaarlijk. Mohammeds oom, Aboe Talib, en Mohammeds echtgenote Khadija (toen nog zijn enige vrouw) waren vooraanstaande leden van de Mekkaanse handelaarklasse. Zij zorgden ervoor dat Mohammed en zijn volgelingen bescherming genoten. Toen in 621-622 echter kort na elkaar zowel Aboe Talib als Khadija overleden, besloot Mohammed elders zijn heil te zoeken.
Hij vertrok naar Yatrib. Die immigratie of intocht in Yatrib wordt in het Arabisch al-Hijra genoemd. De dag van de Hijra, 9 september 622, is het begin van de islamitische jaartelling. In Yathrib werden Mohammed en zijn volgelingen welkom geheten. Yathrib was een tolerante, multiculturalistische samenleving, waar joodse, christelijke en heidense stammen rond de oase leefden. De profeet uit Mekka en zijn schare volgelingen werden door de Yathribers Muhajirun genoemd, het Arabische woord voor “immigranten.”
Mohammed had echter een eigen agenda. Hij wilde de macht in de oase overnemen.
The Brussels Journal
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
