Uncensored News from Israel » Turkey

Turkey aids Russians in transporting arms to Syria?

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:54:40 +0000

A Ukrainian-chartered, German-owned ship was intercepted in the Mediterranean with an alleged cargo of Russian and Iranian arms loaded in Djibouti. When ordered to stop, the ship changed its course from Syrian Tartus to Turkey.

Turkey, however, has adopted the EU embargo on arms exports to Syria, and to all appearances opposes Assad. Yet the captain of that ship was sufficiently confident of lenient treatment that the ship docked in Iskanderun, Turkey.

Turkey spurns Israeli business

admin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:46:38 +0000

The Turkish government refused a request by Israeli air company Arkia to establish a security zone for its flights in Antalya, a standard procedure that enables Israeli air companies to ensure security for our passengers traveling abroad. Even though Arkia offered up to six weekly flights to Antalya at a time when the flow of Israeli tourists to Turkey had fallen greatly, the Turks chose domestic politics over business.

A good lesson for Israeli government, which usually does the opposite.

Everyone except Jews can kill Arabs

admin — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 10:49:08 +0000

The UNSC did not hold hearings over the Turkish army’s accidental killing 35 Kurdish villagers in a mistaken airstrike. Assad has had a free hand to kill his citizens for nine months. The Egyptian government has killed many more protestors than Mubarak did during the Arab Spring events.

It is only Israel that has to keep killing individual terrorists in Gaza instead of launching meaningful strikes against their infrastructure.

Knesset provokes Turks, again

admin — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 23:58:02 +0000

The Knesset committee on education will debate today whether to recognize the Armenian genocide in Turkey.

Whether the issue is controversial is irrelevant. We owe nothing to the Armenians. Sure, if we can help them—or any other people—at no significant cost to ourselves, we should do so. But that won’t help the Armenians who died three generations ago, and even a debate in the Knesset about this topic would cost us dearly by enraging the Turks. We have only just managed to reinstate a bit of military cooperation with Turkey, and bugging them about this sensitive topic is completely unnecessary.

Israel got along with Germany by—rhetoric aside—effectively forgetting the Holocaust. We cannot afford to support the Armenians in a similar claim.

Israeli nemesis on his way out

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 11:00:47 +0000

Rumors continue to surface that Erdogan is dying, from which Israel will benefits in several ways.

None of Erdogan’s likely successors has his populist charisma. None of them would be able to sway Turkish public opinion against Israel as easily as Erdogan does. Any successor, moreover, will have to beg the White House for aid in dealing with Turkey’s economic meltdown, now that Erdogan’s economic miracle has predictably turned out to be controlled inflation.

The weakness of Erdogan’s successors offers the secular generals a chance to reclaim their power. That is not very likely, however, given Turkey’s overall trend toward Islamization as the rural population streams into the cities, and given Obama’s preference for moderate Islam, if such a thing exists.

Obama is losing his best friend in the Middle East, the only ruler who took his nonsense seriously because he, too, was a demagogue. Since the White House has badly alienated the Saudis over Egypt and Iraq, Obama is left more or less with Netanyahu as his only regional confidante.

On Jews and masochists

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:44:37 +0000

The Israeli government airlifted aid to Turkey, whose voters have elected a government bent on confronting Israel. Tellingly, Turkey at first refused the aid, and probably only accepted it under US pressure.

Who betrayed our soldiers?

admin — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 07:33:47 +0000

No, this time we are not talking about the Israeli government spitting in the faces of tens of thousands of soldiers and policemen who risked their lives arresting the Arab terrorists Netanyahu’s clique have released.

Istanbul’s prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 174 Israelis involved in the Mavi Marmara incident, which may lead to Interpol warrants on their heads. It would take high connections in the Israeli establishment to prepare such a list, which includes members of the secretive Shayetet-13 unit.

Ahmadinejad is right

admin — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 05:09:16 +0000

The Iranian president criticized Turkey for hosting a US early-warning radar system. He correctly observed that the radar wouldn’t help Israel in the event of a war. He is right, but for a different reason: surely in there were a war Turkey would disable the radar that helps Israel to intercept Iranian missiles.

Fake threats from Netanyahu

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:52:00 +0000

The Turkish Navy approached several Israeli commercial ships in the Mediterranean and ordered them to change course. The Israeli response? IAF jets flew over the incident areas. Oh yeah, that’s supposed to frighten the Turks. Our feeble government did not even send Israeli jets to overfly the Turkish Navy vessels, a standard maritime threat short of military confrontation.

The wrong war to avoid

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 05:58:28 +0000

The Israeli government is busy averting a military clash with Turkey over Mediterranean gas reserves. Instead, we should invite the Turks into the conflict while the IAF still has the strength to soundly defeat them, especially under the umbrella of Greek S-300 batteries. Such a fiasco would ruin Erdogan’s reputation on the Arab street—and in the best-case scenario, heavy Greek losses would cost Turkey its NATO membership and put an end to its EU bid. Now, that might be bad in the long term, as EU membership would vaccinate Turkey against Islam, but in the current turmoil we cannot afford long-term policies.

NATO might not expel Turkey for confronting Israel, but Erdogan cannot be certain of that. It would be interesting to see whether he would choose NATO over Arab street opinion.