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ISRAEL AND TURKEY: IT'S COMPLICATED
By Christopher Hitchens
Slate Magazine
http://www.slate.com/id/2256168/
June 7 2010
The flotilla foul-up pits former friends against each other.
I hope that by now the state of Israel regrets its past collaboration
with some of the worst elements in modern Turkey. It's not so long
since American Jewish lobby groups, and reportedly even the Israeli
ambassador in Washington, were successfully lobbying Congress to vote
down the resolution condemning the genocide of the Armenians. (The
narrow passage of the resolution this year seems to have contributed
to the increasingly evident paranoia and megalomania of Turkey's
thuggish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.) And, even as Turkish
troops occupied one-third of Cyprus and expelled one-third of its
Greek population, as well as mounted illegal incursions into Iraq in
pursuit of rebel Kurds, the Israeli armed forces happily embarked on
joint exercises with them. If this era of unseemly collaboration is
over, then so much the better. Even so, there's something slightly
hypocritical about the way in which Israeli crowds have suddenly
discovered the human rights record and the regional imperial ambitions
of their former ally.
Talking of hypocrisy, though, how do you like the way that the words
activist and humanitarian have suddenly made their appearance in our
media? Activist is employed to describe a core group of Turks and
Arabs, very many of them identifiable by name as affiliates or members
or emulators of the Muslim Brotherhood. (I suppose in fairness it also
covers such figures as the credulous Irishman Denis Halliday, who used
to campaign so loudly for the lifting of sanctions on Saddam Hussein.)
And humanitarian is used to describe the materials that these worthies
are seeking to donate to Hamas. But is it really humanitarian to make
contributions to a ruling party that has a totalitarian and racist
ideology and is in regular receipt of nonhumanitarian aid from Syria
and Iran, two of the most retrograde and aggressive dictatorships in
the world?
Those who care about justice and self-government for the Palestinians
might want to be helping Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as they build up the institutions of an
embryo state on the West Bank. And those who worry about the conditions
of the Gazans might want to send convoys of aid to the many United
Nations and NGO operations in the Strip that have a proven record
of transparency and efficiency. But, from a Muslim Brotherhood or
activist perspective, where would the fun be in that? It is only Hamas,
with its thrilling violence and hysterical rhetoric, that is truly
"authentic." Incidentally, in a little-noticed statement last week,
U.N. special regional coordinator Robert Serry denounced a series
of raids and lootings mounted by Hamas supporters on the offices of
genuinely humanitarian operations in Gaza City and Rafah.
The near-incredible stupidity of the Israeli airborne descent on
the good ship Mavi Marmara, by troops well-enough equipped to shoot
when panicked but not well-enough prepared to contain or subdue a
preplanned riot, has now generated much more coverage and comment
than Erdogan's cynical recent decision to become a partner in the
nuclear maneuvers of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It has
also generated much more coverage and comment than Erdogan's long-term
design to de-secularize Turkey, a design in which his recent big-mouth
grandstanding on Gaza is a mere theatrical detail. What on earth
are self-proclaimed humanitarian activists--as they will soon enough
be called at this rate--doing in such an open alliance between one
cruel and bankrupt Iranian theocracy, one religio-nationalist Turkish
demagogue, and Hamas?
Israeli self-pity over Gaza--"You fire rockets at us! And after all
we've done for you!"--may be incredibly unappetizing. An occupation
that should never have been allowed in the first place was protracted
until it became obviously unbearable for all concerned and then
turned into a scuttle. The misery and shame of that history cannot
be effaced by mere withdrawal or healed by the delivery of aid. It
can only really be canceled by a good-faith agreement to create a
Palestinian state. But Hamas is a conscious obstacle to this objective,
as it shows by its dependence on foreign dictatorships and by the
criminal and violent methods it has used against Fatah and the PLO.
Let me give another case in point: Hamas' charter and many of its
official proclamations announce that it endorses the so-called
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a dirty anti-Semitic fabrication
produced by Christian and czarist extremists and adopted by the Nazis.
Would you, if you wanted to help Gaza and the Gazans, knowingly
augment the power of such a flat-out racist organization by helping
make it the proud and exclusive distributor of food and medicine?
Staying with this fascinating point for a moment: What if the
international community put one simple question to the Hamas
leadership? We will consider lifting the sanctions if you will renounce
a barbaric and discredited concoction of lies that identifies all
Jews everywhere as targets for murder. (The name notwithstanding,
the Protocols have nothing to say about Palestine.) And what if the
journalistic community--just once--was to ask a similar question
of the "activists"? Do you endorse the Protocols: Yes or no? We
would instantly be much closer to understanding what was meant by
humanitarian.
While we wait for this puncturing of the current balloon of
propaganda, we might as well savor the ironies. As well as being
the two most intimate allies of the United States in the region,
Turkey and Israel possess large and educated populations that want
in their way to be part of "the West." They also both suffer from
mediocre and banana-republic-type leaders, who are willing prisoners
of clerical extremists in their own second-rate regimes. Turkey cannot
be thought of as European until it stops lying about Armenia, gets
its invading troops out of Cyprus, and grants full rights to its huge
Kurdish population. Israel will never be accepted as a state for Jews,
let alone as a Jewish state, until it ceases to govern other people
against their will. The flotilla foul-up, pitting former friends
against each other, only serves to obscure these unignorable facts.
From: A. Papazian
By Christopher Hitchens
Slate Magazine
http://www.slate.com/id/2256168/
June 7 2010
The flotilla foul-up pits former friends against each other.
I hope that by now the state of Israel regrets its past collaboration
with some of the worst elements in modern Turkey. It's not so long
since American Jewish lobby groups, and reportedly even the Israeli
ambassador in Washington, were successfully lobbying Congress to vote
down the resolution condemning the genocide of the Armenians. (The
narrow passage of the resolution this year seems to have contributed
to the increasingly evident paranoia and megalomania of Turkey's
thuggish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.) And, even as Turkish
troops occupied one-third of Cyprus and expelled one-third of its
Greek population, as well as mounted illegal incursions into Iraq in
pursuit of rebel Kurds, the Israeli armed forces happily embarked on
joint exercises with them. If this era of unseemly collaboration is
over, then so much the better. Even so, there's something slightly
hypocritical about the way in which Israeli crowds have suddenly
discovered the human rights record and the regional imperial ambitions
of their former ally.
Talking of hypocrisy, though, how do you like the way that the words
activist and humanitarian have suddenly made their appearance in our
media? Activist is employed to describe a core group of Turks and
Arabs, very many of them identifiable by name as affiliates or members
or emulators of the Muslim Brotherhood. (I suppose in fairness it also
covers such figures as the credulous Irishman Denis Halliday, who used
to campaign so loudly for the lifting of sanctions on Saddam Hussein.)
And humanitarian is used to describe the materials that these worthies
are seeking to donate to Hamas. But is it really humanitarian to make
contributions to a ruling party that has a totalitarian and racist
ideology and is in regular receipt of nonhumanitarian aid from Syria
and Iran, two of the most retrograde and aggressive dictatorships in
the world?
Those who care about justice and self-government for the Palestinians
might want to be helping Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as they build up the institutions of an
embryo state on the West Bank. And those who worry about the conditions
of the Gazans might want to send convoys of aid to the many United
Nations and NGO operations in the Strip that have a proven record
of transparency and efficiency. But, from a Muslim Brotherhood or
activist perspective, where would the fun be in that? It is only Hamas,
with its thrilling violence and hysterical rhetoric, that is truly
"authentic." Incidentally, in a little-noticed statement last week,
U.N. special regional coordinator Robert Serry denounced a series
of raids and lootings mounted by Hamas supporters on the offices of
genuinely humanitarian operations in Gaza City and Rafah.
The near-incredible stupidity of the Israeli airborne descent on
the good ship Mavi Marmara, by troops well-enough equipped to shoot
when panicked but not well-enough prepared to contain or subdue a
preplanned riot, has now generated much more coverage and comment
than Erdogan's cynical recent decision to become a partner in the
nuclear maneuvers of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It has
also generated much more coverage and comment than Erdogan's long-term
design to de-secularize Turkey, a design in which his recent big-mouth
grandstanding on Gaza is a mere theatrical detail. What on earth
are self-proclaimed humanitarian activists--as they will soon enough
be called at this rate--doing in such an open alliance between one
cruel and bankrupt Iranian theocracy, one religio-nationalist Turkish
demagogue, and Hamas?
Israeli self-pity over Gaza--"You fire rockets at us! And after all
we've done for you!"--may be incredibly unappetizing. An occupation
that should never have been allowed in the first place was protracted
until it became obviously unbearable for all concerned and then
turned into a scuttle. The misery and shame of that history cannot
be effaced by mere withdrawal or healed by the delivery of aid. It
can only really be canceled by a good-faith agreement to create a
Palestinian state. But Hamas is a conscious obstacle to this objective,
as it shows by its dependence on foreign dictatorships and by the
criminal and violent methods it has used against Fatah and the PLO.
Let me give another case in point: Hamas' charter and many of its
official proclamations announce that it endorses the so-called
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a dirty anti-Semitic fabrication
produced by Christian and czarist extremists and adopted by the Nazis.
Would you, if you wanted to help Gaza and the Gazans, knowingly
augment the power of such a flat-out racist organization by helping
make it the proud and exclusive distributor of food and medicine?
Staying with this fascinating point for a moment: What if the
international community put one simple question to the Hamas
leadership? We will consider lifting the sanctions if you will renounce
a barbaric and discredited concoction of lies that identifies all
Jews everywhere as targets for murder. (The name notwithstanding,
the Protocols have nothing to say about Palestine.) And what if the
journalistic community--just once--was to ask a similar question
of the "activists"? Do you endorse the Protocols: Yes or no? We
would instantly be much closer to understanding what was meant by
humanitarian.
While we wait for this puncturing of the current balloon of
propaganda, we might as well savor the ironies. As well as being
the two most intimate allies of the United States in the region,
Turkey and Israel possess large and educated populations that want
in their way to be part of "the West." They also both suffer from
mediocre and banana-republic-type leaders, who are willing prisoners
of clerical extremists in their own second-rate regimes. Turkey cannot
be thought of as European until it stops lying about Armenia, gets
its invading troops out of Cyprus, and grants full rights to its huge
Kurdish population. Israel will never be accepted as a state for Jews,
let alone as a Jewish state, until it ceases to govern other people
against their will. The flotilla foul-up, pitting former friends
against each other, only serves to obscure these unignorable facts.
From: A. Papazian