Surprise? Israel-Bashing Season Re-Opens in Turkey - by Burak Bekdil

"What," asked a puzzled European diplomat, a newcomer to Ankara, "does Israel have to do with Turks' choice of metropolitan, small town or even village mayors?" A colleague answered with a smile: "A lot. Anti-Israel rhetoric is now an indispensable part of every Turkish election, including one to elect a village headman."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently threatened
his own citizens -- citizens who practice a different faith,
 of course -- Turkey's already dwindling Jewish community,
 now at around 16,000. "Do not provoke [us]," he said.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. (Photo by Elif Sogut/Getty Images)

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
27 March '19..
Link: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13962/turkey-israel-bashing

Another round of Turkish elections and another wave of Israel-bashing at election rallies. This has become a pattern since 2009 and Turks have not shown any sign of frustration: They simply love it.

Blaming the man who brought Israel to public rallies is the easier thing to do, a kind of intellectual laziness. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been correct in thinking that his diplomatic wars with Israel, his more than undiplomatic language and outright anti-Zionism would work like a ballot box cash machine. It did.

A deeper look, however, should investigate why in the 1970s and 80s, when Turkey did not have full diplomatic relations with Israel, the name of that country or any politician there was never mentioned at Turkish election rallies. Why would the average Turkish voter, three or four decades ago, find the State of Israel totally irrelevant but today show up and cheer at every possible Israel-bashing election rally? How did Turkish politicians who in the mid-1990s spearheaded efforts to build an alliance with Israel, keep winning votes despite their pro-Israel policies? What took place to move the Turkish mindset to its present, deeply anti-Israeli point?

What took place was the not-so-creeping Islamization of Turkish society since 2002, when Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power. A Turk who is now 27 years old was only 10 at that time, and has not seen any other leader of Turkey since. Erdoğan's political and social engineering has changed the way the average Turk identifies himself: Most Turks used to identify themselves as "Turks first." Now they identify themselves as "Muslims first" -- the way Erdoğan seemingly wanted them to.

It is not surprising then that passionate fans of the Justice and Development Party often hear the words Israel, terror state, tyrant, dictator and so on at public rallies as Turkey heads toward its local elections on March 31. "What," asked a puzzled European diplomat, a newcomer to Ankara, "does Israel have to do with Turks' choice of metropolitan, small town or even village mayors?" A colleague answered with a smile: "A lot. Anti-Israel rhetoric is now an indispensable part of every Turkish election, including one to elect a village headman."

Fomenting anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism: Useful tools for promoting Erdogan's ambitious neo-Ottoman vision - by Dr. Efrat Aviv

Turkey continues to insert itself more and more into the ongoing clashes on the Temple Mount, almost as if it legally represents the Palestinians in the dispute. Turkey’s anti-Israel agitation, which garners wide support among Palestinians in both Gaza and the PA, is hardly new. But its patronage of the Palestinians hides more than religious sentiment. Turkish anti-Zionism, which aligns directly with anti-Semitism, is being expressed once again through the current friction.

Dr. Efrat Aviv..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 544..
29 July '17..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/erdogan-temple-mount-crisis/

In May 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the opening ceremony of a two-day conference in Istanbul called “The International Forum on al-Quds Waqf.” He condemned “Israeli crimes against the Palestinians” and called on Muslims to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount as frequently as possible. “As a Muslim community, we need to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque often,” he said. “Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us.”

On July 20, 2017, responding to increased security measures on the Temple Mount following the murders of two Israeli policemen there at the holy site, he said: “Any restriction on Muslims entering the al-Aqsa Mosque is unacceptable…The protection of the Islamic character and sanctity of al-Quds [Jerusalem] and al-Haram al-Sharif [the al-Aqsa Mosque complex] is important for the whole Muslim world…The Muslim world cannot remain silent.”

In his capacity as term chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Erdoğan condemned Israel’s supposed prevention of Muslims’ performing Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque. While extending condolences to those killed during the violent clashes in Jerusalem, he assailed the use of “excessive force” by Israeli security forces against those who had gathered for Friday prayers.

“The OIC was founded in 1969 during an attack on al-Haram al-Sharif, and today the Islamic world stands with our Palestinian brothers with the same spirit of unity and solidarity,” Erdoğan claimed. He said efforts to remove “restrictions on access to the al-Aqsa Mosque” would continue in coordination with the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Jordanian King Abdullah II, whom he phoned on July 24 to discuss the matter. At a press conference, the president’s spokesman İbrahim Kalın asserted, “al-Aqsa Mosque is not alone. It’s not for Israel. It belongs to the Palestinians and to all Muslims.”

Erdogan's Obsession to Take Jerusalem - by Burak Bekdil

...As an American friend delicately asked: "Isn't Turkey supposed to be investing millions to help rebuild Gaza?" Not, it seems, when Islamist ideology is involved.

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
17 July '17
Link: www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10638/turkey-erdogan-jerusalem

Less than a year ago, Turkey and Israel agreed to end their six-year-long diplomatic stand-off and officially "normalized" their relations. They appointed ambassadors Kemal Okem to Israel and Eitan Na'eh to Turkey, two prominent career diplomats, who, since then, have been struggling actually to normalize formally normalized ties. As some observers, including your humble correspondent, cautioned in 2016:

"Erdogan had pragmatically agreed to shake hands with Israel, but his ideological hostility to the Jewish state and his ideological love affair with Hamas have not disappeared; so the Turkish-Israeli 'peace' would not be easy to sustain".

Only half a year into the "normalized charter" Erdogan in May pledged that his government would work with the Palestinian people to guard against the "Judiazation of Jerusalem." This may be vintage Erdogan. The Turkish president's promise was not too different from a call for a struggle to guard against the "Catholicization of the Vatican."

It is elementary history that Jerusalem's pre-Islamic period of 3300-1000 BCE appeared in the book of Genesis -- the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- when Erdogan's ancestors were probably hunters in the steppes of Central Asia. The years 1000-732 BCE marked the period of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Simply put, Jerusalem's Judaic history dates back to thousands of years before the birth of Islam.

Nevertheless, according to Erdogan, there is a necessity "to protect-against the Judaization of Jerusalem." Erdogan, in his May speech, also repeated an earlier call for Muslims from around the world to "visit al-Aqsa" mosque, located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. "As a Muslim community, we need to visit al-Aqsa Mosque often," he said. "Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us."

The Turkey-Israel Agreement - by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

An analysis of the reasons for the rapprochement, those who helped it come to pass and why Israel did not include the return of the fallen soldiers' bodies.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
israelnationalnews.com..
01 July '16..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19121#.V3YXf9R97wc

My late father, Nahum Kuperschmidt, was a construction site metalworker, a job that was not especially complex, but required absolute honesty, because although no one knows exactly what a metalworker does to keep precipitation from leaking into a building, the first rains are enough to expose any careless work on his part.

He taught me an ironclad rule: When dealing with decent people you don't need a contract, but if the people you are dealing with are not decent, a contract will do you no good. Every time I have to sign a contract I check on the decency of the other party before doing so. And the same rule that works in the private sphere works in the public sphere.

The agreement signed by Israel and Turkey this week is meant to restore relations between the two countries to the level they were before the Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010. When the Justice and Development Party headed by Recep Tayyib Erdogan won the 2002 Turkish elections and blanketed the relations between Turkey and Israel with an Islamist cloud emanating from the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose modern version of political Islam's policy was to deny Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state or to be the homeland of the Jewish people. The Jews were supposed to be under Islamic subjugation as a class of "protected dhimmi" with limited rights at best.

Diplomatic relations with Israel were part of Erdogan's inheritance, but he gradually chilled and downgraded them, while he warmed up to and developed relations with the Islamic entity in Gaza, ruled by Hamas , the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Marmara was Erdogan's contribution towards breaking the Israeli blockade on Gaza, and Israel's success in preventing that from happening was a bitter pill for him to swallow.

Under the Islamic party's rule, Turkey had to put up with, at first, a number of heretical vestiges of the secular vision of the "Attaturk" (Mustapha Kamal) regimes that ran the country from the 1920's until the Islamists returned to power. That included several casinos that continued to operate until a few years past 2002, the sale of alcoholic beverages and beaches where the prevalent attire was light years away from Islamic norms.

Instead of empowering Hamas by granting it the ability to sabotage the agreement, Israel decided to leave the humanitarian issues on a bilateral level, between Israel and Hamas.
The flotilla crisis occurred in May 2010 and its aftermath is now in the hands of President Erdogan, who has to decide if he, the Islamist, will reestablish the relations with Israel which he himself caused to be severed. The decision is not an easy one, especially for a person whose egocentricity trumps every objective factor, so that he has to swallow his pride in order to agree to the deal.

Except that the past few years have left him no choice. Despite his political ambitions to live in peace with all the nations surrounding Turkey, he managed to find himself in conflict with every one of them. He is accused of providing the bridge which Jihadists crossed into Syria, destroying that country; he supported ISIS mainly by purchasing raw fuel that the group produced in Syria and Iraq; he shot down a Russian warplane in 2015 and ound himself at odds with Putin; he is up to his neck in a struggle with the Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Kurds; he is in mess with the Iranians who strongly support Assad, whom he hates with a passion, and he also has to sit by and watch the Iranians take over the Arab areas on the southern border of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, after their takeover of Lebanon by means of Iran's proxy, the Hezbollah.

As soon as Turkey itself became a target for ISIS terror attacks, Erdogan found himself in a war with Islamic fanatics – exactly like Israel. He knows one or two things about Hamas involvement in training, arming and drilling Jihadists in the "Sinai Province of Islamic State" and it is possible that his decision to reach an agreement with Israel will cause a certain chill in his relations with Hamas. Time will tell, especially if Turkey keeps its commitment to prevent Hamas from using Turkey as a base of operations.

In the agreement, Turkey agreed in principle to the continuation of Israel's sea blockade of Gaza, and all Turkish aid to Gaza will arrive through the port of Ashdod after its contents are checked and authorized by Israel. This is a great achievement for Israel - and it is quite possible that Hamas will refuse to accept the aid under these conditions.

Turkey, Israel and the Value of Saying No - by Evelyn Gordon

...Turkey could have gotten these same terms six years ago, but it thought it could force Israel into conceding more. Had Israel’s chattering classes had their way, Ankara would have been right. But all the warnings of dire consequences if Israel refused to capitulate proved false.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
27 June '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/turkey-value-saying-no/

The Israel-Turkey reconciliation agreement announced this week is an object lesson in the importance of being willing to walk away from negotiations. For six years, the Israeli chattering classes and the international community urged Israel to simply accept Turkey’s terms, arguing that Ankara wasn’t going to soften its demands and that Israel desperately needed good relations with Turkey, whatever the price. But it turns out neither part of that argument was true: Turkey proved to need Israel far more than Israel needed it, and consequently, it eventually reduced its demands significantly. The current deal is thus much better than what Israel would have gotten had it caved in and signed earlier.

The biggest change is that Turkey capitulated completely on its longstanding demand for an end to the Gaza blockade, which would have badly undermined Israel’s security. Under the current deal, all restrictions meant to prevent Hamas-run Gaza from importing arms and exporting terror remain in place: The naval blockade will continue; imports to Gaza will still enter through Israel and undergo Israeli security checks, and movement restrictions aimed at preventing Gazan terrorists from entering either Israel or the West Bank will remain in force. Instead, Turkey will bolster its self-image as Gaza’s champion by building a power plant, hospital, and desalination facility–all badly needed humanitarian projects that Israel has long wished someone would undertake. It will also be allowed to send unlimited humanitarian aid through Israel’s Ashdod Port–a meaningless concession since Israel never restricted humanitarian aid shipments.

Another important change relates to Hamas operations in Turkey, where Hamas’s West Bank command–responsible for planning anti-Israel attacks from the West Bank–has long been headquartered. Ankara insisted for years that the reconciliation deal should include no provisions affecting its relations with Hamas. But the current deal requires it to end all Hamas military activity on its territory.

This falls short of Israel’s demand that it expel Hamas entirely; the Islamist organization will still be able to engage in diplomacy and fund-raising in Turkey. But if Israel refused to have relations with any country that let terrorist groups engage in diplomacy and fund-raising on its territory, it would also have to sever ties with the European Union, where the political wing of Hezbollah–a far more dangerous group than Hamas–is allowed to operate freely in all but a handful of countries. In other words, this is an acceptable compromise that genuinely improves the existing situation.

Backstage at Turkey's Shotgun Wedding with Israel - by Burak Bekdil

...Turks happily expressed their feelings in social media to "celebrate" the Jewish wedding. "One of my biggest dreams is to kill a Jew," wrote one Twitter user. "[Hitler] did not do it in vain," wrote another. The Hitler series went on with "He was a great man," "Where are you Hitler?" and "We are all Hitler. "This is the backstage scene in the country where a Jewish couple happily married at a synagogue for the first time in 41 years -- the same country supposedly to "normalize" its ties with Israel.

Burak Bekdil..
MEF/Gatestone Institute..
14 June '16..
Link: http://www.meforum.org/6072/turkey-israel-shotgun-wedding

There is every indication that Turkey and Israel are not far away from normalizing their troubled diplomatic relations. According to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, for instance, the former allies are "one or two meetings" away from normalization.

If, however, Ankara and Jerusalem finally shake hands after six years of cold war, it will be because Turkey feels increasingly isolated internationally, not because it feels any genuine friendship for the Jewish nation.

In all probability, the "peace" between Turkey and Israel will look like the definition of peace in Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary: "In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting" -- despite the backdrop for peace looking incredibly (but mischievously) convenient.

On May 29, a Jewish wedding ceremony was held in a historical synagogue in the northwestern province of Edirne for the first time in 41 years. A few months before that, in December, the Jewish year 5776 went down in history possibly as the first time in which a public Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony was held in Muslim Turkey in a state-sponsored event. All that is nice -- but can be misleading.

There are two major problems that will probably block a genuine normalization. One is Hamas, and the other is the seemingly irreversible anti-Semitism which most Turks devour.

Even before the bodies of Israeli victims were carried to their homeland - by Burak Bekdil

...Her mistake was probably to express publicly what millions of Turks only thought, but did not say, in the face of a suicide bomb attack.

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
27 March '16..

The bomb attack in Istanbul on the morning of March 19 was the fifth similar act of terror targeting two of Turkey's biggest -- Istanbul and Ankara -- since October.

The suicide bomber, a 24-year-old with links to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), detonated his explosives on Istiklal Avenue, one of Istanbul's busiest streets and a popular tourist attraction. Three Israeli tourists (two of them also carrying U.S. passports) and one Iranian were killed. Dozens of wounded people were rushed to nearby hospitals. The death toll since October was now at nearly 200, including 14 tourists.

At first this author thought that his initial instinct to expect something "out of line" because the victims were now Israeli citizens was wrong. The official, diplomatic way Turkey and Israel were handling the tragedy looked impressively civilized. Even before the bomb attack, there were unusually nice Turkish gestures. A few days before the Istanbul bombing, a senior Turkish official, Ahmet Aydin, deputy speaker of parliament (from the ruling AKP party), had praised historical ties between the peoples of Turkey and Jewish citizens of the country. He described their relationship as "a unity of destiny," and underlined "Jewish citizens' contribution in founding the Republic of Turkey." Such language is too rare in Turkey, and even more rare when it comes from an official from the ruling [Islamist] Justice and Development Party (AKP).

After the suicide bombing in Istanbul, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- surprisingly -- did what any other president of a country hosting a terrorist attack would do. He conveyed his messages of condolences to Turkey's Jewish community and religious leaders. In a similar gesture, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "expressing his condolences to the people of Israel on behalf of the Turkish people."

In return, Israel hailed the "sincere and very helpful cooperation it has received from Turkish officials in the immediate aftermath of the deadly Istanbul attack in which its three citizens have been killed and envisaged this good as a way to help talks for the normalization of relations."

Dore Gold, Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, arrived in Istanbul to meet with Istanbul's governor, Vasip Sahin, for talks on the details of the bombing; and then with his Turkish counterpart, Feridun Sinirlioglu, possibly for talks on the normalization of diplomatic ties between Ankara and Jerusalem.

So far, so good. It is not unusual in diplomacy to use tragic events as a pretext to bolster problematic ties and as an excuse to further refine any effort for reconciliation. The Turkish niceties were the "make-up," partly driven by pragmatism and designed to hide the anti-Semitic sentiments the AKP has worked hard to cultivate in the Turkish society. Before the bodies of Israeli victims were carried to their homeland, the Turkish make-up showed signs of falling apart and the ugly reality emerged.

Where even anti-Semitic Islamists are not immune to anti-Semitic smear campaigns - by Burak Bekdil

...When it comes to diplomatic conflict between Turkey and Israel or Turkish anti-Semitism, there is always an unusual optimism in the official language chosen by Israeli officials or Jewish community leaders. Facts on the ground are a little bit different than the rosy picture.

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
10 March '16..

The 74th anniversary of an embarrassing tragedy took place in Turkey on February 24, 2016.

The MV Struma was a small iron-hulled ship built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner, but was later re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine. In 1941, it was tasked with safely transporting an estimated 781 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Britain's Mandatory Palestine. Between its departure from Constanta on the Black Sea on Dec. 12, 1941 and arrival in Istanbul on Dec. 15, the vessel's engine failed several times. On Feb. 23, 1942 with her engine still not running but the refugees aboard, Turkish authorities towed the Struma from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea. On the morning of Feb. 24, the Soviet submarine Shch-213 torpedoed the Struma, killing all but one of the refugees and 10 crew aboard.

Until this year Turkey, one of the main culprits, had only once commemorated the victims. This year, official Turkey decided, should be the second time. A wreath and carnations were hurled at the sea in the shadow of the horrible event that took place decades ago.

At the commemoration ceremony at Sarayburnu harbor on the Bosporus were the head of Turkey's Jewish community, Ishak Ibrahimzadeh, Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva and Istanbul's governor, Vasip Sahin. In his speech, Sahin said: "We observe that the necessary lessons were not drawn from such tragedies." He was right, at least from a Turkish point of view.

When it comes to diplomatic conflict between Turkey and Israel or Turkish anti-Semitism, there is always an unusual optimism in the official language chosen by Israeli officials or Jewish community leaders.

For instance, Ibrahimzadeh praised "recent steps by the Turkish state to mend history with the Jewish community." Echoing the same optimism, chairman Stephen Greenberg and executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, assured that Turkey's small (less than 17,000-strong) Jewish community feels "safe and secure" despite being placed in the middle of a political feud between Turkey and Israel -- sparked first in 2009 by then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's clash with former Israeli President Shimon Peres at a World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Such optimism in official narratives is normal, especially because Ankara and Jerusalem have been privately negotiating a deal to end their hostilities and normalize their diplomatic relations. Non-constructive, let alone explosive, speeches from any state or non-state actor will not help diplomats from either side in their efforts to reconcile. All the same, facts on the ground are a little bit different than the rosy picture.

Turkey and Israel: A Rickety Handshake - by Burak Bekdil

...The future Turkish and Israeli ambassadors would always have to keep their bags packed, ready to return to their own capitals at the first dispute – which could be caused by Israeli retaliation against Arab terrorism or anything that may make Erdogan roar in front of cameras, "Our Palestinian brothers ... Those murderer Jews again ... Go back to your pre-1967 borders or you'll suffer the consequences!"

Burak Bekdil..
MEF/Gatestone Institute..
23 December '15..

None of this happened half a century ago; the timeline here covers only a span of a year and a half: A Turkish-Kurdish pop star wrote on her Twitter account, "May God bless Hitler. He did far less [than he should have done to Jews]." The mayor of Ankara replied: "I applaud you!" Hundreds of angry Turks, hurling rocks, tried to break into the Israeli diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul. The mayor of Ankara said: "We will conquer the consulate of the despicable murderers." He blamed the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on Israel's Mossad. Islamist columnists close to the government suggested imposing a "wealth tax" on Turkish Jews (who are full citizens). A governor threatened to suspend restoration work at a synagogue. And a credible research group at the Kadir Has University in Istanbul found in a poll that Turks view Israel as the top threat to Turkey.

Against such a background, Turkish and Israeli diplomats are negotiating a historical deal that will, in theory, end Turkey's hostility toward the Jewish state and normalize diplomatic ties between Ankara and Jerusalem.

In 2010, a Turkish flotilla, led by the Mavi Marmara with hundreds of jihadists and anti-Israeli "intellectuals" aboard, sailed toward the coast of Gaza, aiming to break Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-run strip. Israel's naval blockade aims to prevent weapons such as rockets being smuggled into Gaza. To stop the flotilla, naval commandos of the Israel Defense Forces boarded the vessel and, during clashes, killed nine aboard.

Since the incident, Turkey's Islamist leaders have pledged to isolate Israel internationally and have downgraded diplomatic ties with Jerusalem. They have put forward three conditions before any normalization could take place: an Israeli apology, compensation for the families of the victims and the removal of the naval blockade on Gaza.

After President Barack Obama's intervention, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013 apologized for "any error that may have led to the loss of life." Turkey's two other conditions remain unfulfilled. But diplomatic teams from Ankara and Jerusalem are apparently working on a deal. There are good reasons why an accord may or may not be possible.

Since the nearest Turkish election is four years from now, neither Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has any reason to cultivate further anti-Semitism at election rallies in order harvest votes from conservative masses who are deeply hostile to Israel and Jews. These are days when Turkey's leaders need not practice their usual anti-Israeli rhetoric.

There is another reason related to "timing" that makes a deal attainable. After pledging to isolate Israel, Turkey has become the most isolated country in the region, especially after the recent crisis with Russia that emerged after two Turkish F-16 fighters shot down a Russian SU-24 aircraft along Turkey's Syrian border on Nov. 24.

In its region, Turkey does not have diplomatic relations with Cyprus and Armenia. It has downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel and Egypt. It is confronted by Shiite and Shiite-dominated regimes in Iran and Iraq, respectively. On top of all that, an angry Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, curses and threatens every day to punish Turkey. Turkey buys over half of its natural gas and 10% of its oil from Russia.

Nowhere Else to Go? When All Else Fails, Erdogan Calls Israel

...Turkey's was always a double game. The restoration of relations with Israel is less a political reconciliation than an admission of the utter bankruptcy of Turkey's last five years of diplomatic endeavor.

Shoshana Bryen..
JPC/ Gatestone Institute..
18 December '15..

The announcement of the restoration of Israel-Turkish relations should be seen in the context of Turkey having nowhere else to go.

Turkey's relations with Israel have been strained, to put it mildly, since 2010 when, through a non-profit organization, Turkey funded the 2010 Gaza Flotilla aimed at breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

After a bloody confrontation, which ended in the deaths of nine Turks, Turkey demanded that Israel be tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and subjected to UN sanction. The ICC ruled that Israel's actions did not constitute war crimes. In addition, the UN's Palmer Commission concluded that the blockade of Gaza was legal, and that the IDF commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara ship had faced "organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers," and were therefore required to use force for their own protection. The commission, however, did label the commandos' force "excessive and unreasonable."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already shown hostility towards Israel. Already in 2009, then-Prime Minister Erdogan denounced Israel's President Shimon Peres publicly at the Davos World Economic Forum. "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. You know very well how to kill." When Hamas was thrown out of Damascus, Erdogan invited Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh to put the terrorist organization's "West Bank and Jerusalem Headquarters" in Istanbul.

Speaking at the Paris rally in January 2015, after the murderous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices and the terrorist murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "Just as the massacre in Paris committed by terrorists is a crime against humanity, Netanyahu... has committed crimes against humanity." Erdogan, speaking in Ankara, said he could "hardly understand how he (Netanyahu) dared to go" to the march in the French capital. Just last month, Davutoglu told an audience, "Israel kneels down to us."

Not exactly.

Turkey's foreign policy choices and current crises have combined to make Erdogan reach out to Israel for help. Erdogan came to office as Prime Minister in 2003 with a policy of "zero problems with neighbors," but has since led Turkey to problems with most, if not all, of them. Alon Liel, former Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, "Turkey didn't do very well in the last five years in the region. Turkey needs friends."

That is an understatement.

Turkey's Rather Interesting View of Terror

...Turkey boldly challenged its Western allies to join them in a fight against terror. But the target was not al-Qaeda or ISIS. Instead, Turkey wanted the West to fight the "terrorist state, Israel."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(then prime minister) cries over the death
of a teenage Egyptian Islamist activist during
a televised interview in 2013.
(Image source: Cihan video screenshot)

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
07 July '15..

Turkey's Islamist government, now squeezed in a political drama in which it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, has in many recent years boldly challenged its Western allies by calling them to join an allied fight against terror. But the target was not al-Qaeda, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or one of the dozens of different Islamist groups designated by the civilized world as terrorist.

Instead, Turkey wanted the West to fight the "terrorist state, Israel."

Turkey's Islamist rulers have a deeply corrupted perception of which acts count for terror and which ones do not: Anyone who kills in the name of a cause other than Islamism is probably a terrorist.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once publicly declared a 15-year-old boy, who was shot by the police and died after many months in a coma, "a terrorist." In a claim never proven, Erdogan said the boy was carrying a slingshot in his pocket. He was hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by anti-riot police. In Erdogan's thinking, the boy was a terrorist because he was hit during anti-government protests, he was carrying a slingshot and he was an Alevi (a member of a heterodox Muslim Shi'ite religious minority).

In 2013, the world was shocked at the dramatic death tolls in Kenya and Pakistan, when jihadists, in separate attacks over one weekend, killed more than 150 innocent people -- with the Kenya attack claiming victims aged between two and 78. Erdogan, then prime minister, looked very sad indeed -- but not for the victims of the terror attacks. He was mourning Asmaa al-Beltagi, a poor, 17-year-old Egyptian girl who had been shot dead by security forces in Cairo, as she was protesting the ouster of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, in a coup d'état. Asmaa's father was a senior Brotherhood figure; after her death, Erdogan once even shed tears during a televised interview. He then commemorated the girl at almost every election rally.

One of Erdogan's favorite statements is his famous line, "There is no Islamic terror." Erdogan also rejects outright any link between Muslims and massacres or genocide.

Last November, after a meeting in Paris with French President François Hollande, Erdogan accused "those who try to portray ISIS as an Islamic organization...." Fortunately, he did not claim that ISIS was a Jewish organization. But funny, the organization he says is not "Islamic," flags itself as the "Islamic State"...

How a Population Dropped to Two - Ethnic Cleansing of Jews in Turkey

...The sweet little secret in both Turkey and Europe is that anti-Semites do not need the existence of a Jewish state to attack or threaten Jews. Hatred of Jews did not start with the re-establishment of the state of Israel. The truth is that those who carried out ethnic cleansing of Jews are the last persons who should whine about the non-existent Israeli "occupation." Israelis are not occupiers in Israel. Israel is the home of the Jews; you cannot be an occupier in your own home. Israel has the legal, moral and historical right to exist as a sovereign state.

Uzay Bulut..
Gatestone Institute..
15 December '14..

The latest anti-Semitic statement in Turkey was made on November 21 by Dursun Ali Sahin, the governor of Edirne, a city in Eastern Thrace. Governor Sahin announced that because he was angry at Israel, he would turn the city's synagogue into a museum. "While those bandits [Israeli security forces] blow winds of war inside al-Aqsa and slay Muslims," he said, "we build their synagogues. I say this with a huge hatred inside me. We clean their graveyards, send their projects to boards. But the synagogue here will be registered only as a museum, and there will be no exhibitions inside it."

In response to the uproar that followed, Governor Sahin phoned the Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Ishak Haleva, to apologize and, according to the newspaper, Salom, said his statements had been misunderstood and distorted by the media.

The Director General of the General Directorate of Foundations, Adnan Ertem, then said that the synagogue would, after all, remain a house of worship.

More shocking, however, is the demographic makeup of Edirne's current population.

Before the Turkish Republic was established in 1923, the Jewish population of Edirne, for centuries a home to Jews, was 13,000, as reported in the detailed essay "The Jews of Edirne," by Rifat Bali, an independent scholar specializing in the history of Turkish Jewry. But by 1998, Edirne had three Jews left: Yasef Romano, who was born in 1938, and Rifat and Sara Miftani, a couple who owned a shop there.

Today, the current Jewish population of Edirne is two.

The Jewish presence in Edirne dates back to early Byzantine times, during the rule of Roman Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379-395 CE). During the Ottoman Empire, Edirne -- home to many Jewish intellectuals, scientists, musicians, publishers and merchants -- was as central to Jews as Constantinople (Istanbul) and Thessaloniki.

What happened?

Golda Meir was right. Sorry to remind you ‘once’ again – Part II

...“But why do the Turks have the ‘Palestine fetish’ even though most of them can’t point the Palestinian territories out on a map? Why did they not raise a finger when, for instance, the mullahs killed dissident Iranian Muslims? Why did the Turks not raise a finger when non-Muslim occupying forces killed a million Iraqi Muslims? Why did we not hear one single Turkish voice protesting the deaths of 300,000 Muslims in Darfur?

Burak Bekdil..
Hurriyet Daily..
18 July '14..




Sorry to remind you ‘once’ again (but Golda Meir was right) – Part I can be read by clicking here

Jihadists keep on saying that “they love death more than we love life.” Good for them.

Then there is the proxy jihadists. In 2012, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that “Iran provided the Palestinian organizations the technology to produce Fajr-5 and other missiles, and they can now produce these missiles themselves in large quantities.” Apparently, Iran will fight Israel down to the last Palestinian. And so will Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the Sunni mullah. It’s one of the rare qualities Sunni and Shiite Islamists feature: They have an obsession about fighting Israel at times when their Sunni and Shiite militants are not busy killing each other.

A recent front-page headline in our flagship newspaper, Hürriyet, was particularly revealing: They (Israel) bombed a mosque in Gaza! Including the exclamation mark! Yes, the exclamation mark, at times when sectarian mosque bombing is so routine that it cannot find even a few column inches of space in Muslim newspapers. A quick search, if you typed the words “mosque bombing Shiite-Sunni,” would give you 782,000 results on July 16.

But again, the “they-(Israel)-bombed-a-mosque” shock on Muslim faces is not too unfamiliar. From this column on June 3, 2010, “Why is Palestine ‘a second Cyprus’ for Turks?”:

“But why do the Turks have the ‘Palestine fetish’ even though most of them can’t point the Palestinian territories out on a map? Why did they not raise a finger when, for instance, the mullahs killed dissident Iranian Muslims? Why did the Turks not raise a finger when non-Muslim occupying forces killed a million Iraqi Muslims? Why did we not hear one single Turkish voice protesting the deaths of 300,000 Muslims in Darfur?

“Subconsciously (and sadly) the Muslim-Turkish thinking tolerates it if Muslims kill Muslims; does not tolerate it but does not turn the world upside down when Christians kill Muslims; pragmatically ignores it when too-powerful Christians kill Muslims; but is programmed to turn the world upside down when Jews kill Muslims.”

How to Not Stand Up to Turkey by Mordechai Kedar

...Israel has tried to be optimistic since his election twelve years ago, in 2002, noting that the army remained basically secular and therefore continued its good relations with Israel. However, Islamic clouds gradually darkened the relations between the two countries, so that as the trend towards Islamism grew stronger in Turkey, Israel's value to Ankara lessened appreciably, as did any mutual cooperation. Israel's official spokesmen tried to minimize the significance of these developments, but the bitter reality struck Israel in the face when Erdogan – under IHH camouflage – organized the Marmara flotilla in order to break the sea embargo that Israel maintains on Gaza.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Arutz Sheva..
29 May '14..

From the first day on which the Islamic Party gained control of the government of Turkey, Israel has attempted to pacify and reassure Erdogan, despite that leader's proven antagonism to Jews - in line with his extreme Islamic approach - that was all too evident by the 1980's. During that period, he wrote a play called "Mas-kum-ya", an abbreviation of "The Free builders, Communists and Jews" and recently called an anti-Erdogan demonstrator "Jewish seed", considered a most denigrating and humiliating insult in Turkey.

Israel has tried to be optimistic since his election twelve years ago, in 2002, noting that the army remained basically secular and therefore continued its good relations with Israel.

However, Islamic clouds gradually darkened the relations between the two countries, so that as the trend towards Islamism grew stronger in Turkey, Israel's value to Ankara lessened appreciably, as did any mutual cooperation. Israel's official spokesmen tried to minimize the significance of these developments, but the bitter reality struck Israel in the face when Erdogan – under IHH camouflage – organized the Marmara flotilla in order to break the sea embargo that Israel maintains on Gaza.

IHH is internationally known as a terror-sponsoring Islamist organization. That fact alone justified Israel's takeover of the Mavi Marmara, even if it entailed the use of force. Israel has the right to protect itself from weapons-smuggling to Gaza, and the armed terrorists who holed up on the Marmara disguised as "human rights activists" did not convince anyone that their mission was necessary. Even the UN investigative team – of which Turkey was a member – justified the takeover after the fact.

Except that Erdogan was not convinced, continued to claim that Israel had committed a crime and increased the pressure on her to admit it, accept responsibility for it and its results, remove the blockade of Gaza, and pay compensation to the families of terrorists who were aboard the ship. Israel tried to resolve the issue behind the scenes and reach a modus vivendi between the two nations, assuming that the Marmara episode aside, there is no other problem affecting relations between Israel and Turkey under Erdogan.

Israel's policy makers seemed to believe that as soon as a compensation agreement could be signed and the sums it demands paid, there would be no more problems and relations with Turkey would go back to what they were before 2002.

But then came this week's report of Turkey's complaint to Interpol against high-ranking IDF officers who were in active service at the time of the Marmara takeover. If Interpol accepts the Turkish complaint, these officers will be unable to fly to most points on the globe, because the minute they tread on the ground of a country that is a member of Interpol, they can be arrested and sent to Turkey, imprisoned, questioned, tried and sent to the infamous Turkish jails.

This is intended to bring Israel to its knees and have it beg the Turks to spare the lives of the IDF officers whose every move out of Israel might now be controlled by Turkey.

Best Efforts Aside, Why Turkey is Gone for Good by Caroline Glick

...THE SWORD-WIELDING restaurateur who responded to the mere presence of Jewish diners in his establishment with murderous rage is no more exceptional than lynch mobs in Ramallah. And as Turkey’s economic plight worsens and Erdogan’s embrace of Iran and jihadist groups tightens, Turkey’s behavior will only become more extreme, unappeasable and dangerous....

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
14 February '14..

Last Thursday, two Turkish businessmen stopped for lunch in a fish restaurant during a business trip to Edirne in the Babaeski region.

At some point during their meal, the restaurant owner figured out that they were Jews.

Rather than show them the hospitality Turkey is renowned for, he said he won’t serve Jews, and began cursing them and the Torah. He then took a long knife off the counter and threatened to kill them.

The men ran for their lives.

Anti-Semitic attacks have become regular events in Turkey. In December, after leaving an anti-corruption rally in Istanbul, a young woman was attacked by 10 to 15 supporters of Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan who had just left a support rally for the premier.

They accused her of being a Jew, as they beat her up.

In an interview with The Times of Israel, Turkish opposition MP Ayken Kerdemir said that Erdogan has cultivated Turkish anti-Semitism. “He is not only capitalizing on the existing sentiments, Kerdemir explained. Erdogan is “fueling some of that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic feeling… with his rhetoric, conspiracy theories, campaign slogans and actions.”

Kerdemir explained that Erdogan’s cultivation of anti-Semitism in Turkish society will continue to affect Turkey’s behavior and social values long after he is gone. “Even after Erdogan and AKP are gone, even if [the opposition party] CHP comes to power, it will take us quite some time to mend inter-societal relations through dialogue, awareness raising and sensitivity training.”

Once you let that genie out of the bottle, it is very hard to stuff it back inside.

Erdogan’s anti-Semitism is not opportunistic. He isn’t simply exploiting a popular prejudice for his own benefit. He is an anti-Semite. And his anti-Semitism informs his behavior toward Israel.

In Kerdemir’s view, Erdogan’s uncontrollable hatred of Jews makes it impossible for him to agree to reconcile Turkey’s relations with Israel.

As he put it, “Erdogan’s core values vis-à-vis Jews and Israel prevent him from dealing with this issue in a tolerant, embracing and sustainable way.”

Against this backdrop it should surprise no one that this week Erdogan sunk prospects for a renewal of Turkish ties with Israel.

An Autocratic Islamist Bigot - Turkey's Erdogan

...Thus, even if the US clings to the fantasy that Turkey represents a moderate, democratically influenced form of Islam, we should not delude ourselves. Erdogan is running an anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli regime that supports Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood. As long as he remains in power, Israel-Turkish relations will remain cold at best.

Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking From Jerusalem..
29 October '13..

After over 50 years of Israeli-Turkish intelligence co-operation and sharing, the Turkish disclosure to Iran of the identities of Mossad operatives – apparently subsequently executed, illustrates the depths to which Israel-Turkey relations have descended under Islamist autocrat, Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan.

Erdogan seeks to conceal his true intentions and convey the illusion that he is himself a role model for an enlightened Islam which blends with democracy.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Erdogan is a fanatical Islamist and a vile bigot who lavishes praise on the Moslem Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah and whose behavior is more reminiscent of an Ottoman Sultan than a democratically elected leader.

Erdogan has employed Islamist demagoguery to win three elections and has exploited his power and position to intimidate the media and destroy the opposition. He has purged the Army of its secular officers through primitive show trials and brutally repressed freedom of speech. Today, there are more imprisoned journalists in Turkey than in Communist China and perhaps any other country in the world.

Erdogan’s brutal response to environmentalist protesters against the redeveloping of Gezi Park in central Istanbul a few months ago, injuring over 4000 peaceful demonstrators, exemplified his authoritarianism and brutality. Der Spiegel quotes Turkish human rights organizations attesting that he subsequently engaged in a campaign to punish journalists, teachers and other activists involved in the protests, arresting at least 3000 people including children.

Since his demagogic outburst against President Peres in Davos live on TV in January 2009, followed by his dramatic storming out of the meeting, Erdogan’s attitude towards Israel has dramatically deteriorated. He shamelessly allies himself with the genocidal Hamas and refers to Israel as a “terrorist state” which “massacres children” and “knows well how to kill”. Only a few weeks ago, Erdogan hosted Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Turkey for the third time in twelve months.

Clearly, he reached the conclusion that as a major Israel global basher he reaps dividends amongst the Arab masses and furthers his dream of becoming head of a new Ottoman Sunni empire.

Erdogan’s anti-Zionism is a natural extension of his anti-Semitism. As far back as 1974, he directed and played a leading role in a play entitled Maskomya, based on the evil global influence of Jews, Communists and Freemasons. As Mayor of Istanbul in 1998, he stated “Today the image of the Jews is no different from that of the Nazis”. In 2006 he endorsed the popular virulent anti-Semitic film “Valley of the Wolves” about an American Jew who trades in body parts. He blamed the Gezi Park environmental protest on the “interest rate lobby”, the “dual loyalists” and the “rootless cosmopolitans”, clear references to “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. His deputy explicitly attributed the blame for the riots on the Jewish diaspora.

Someone serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program would be raging, but...

...But even without the Ignatius bombshell (which should also lead to mass resignations from the Congressional Turkey Caucus, if Congress is as serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program as it has hitherto shown itself to be), the contrast between this week’s negotiating session with Iran and Obama’s meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu last month provided pretty clear evidence of Obama’s attitudes.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
17 October '13..

If anyone still believes President Barack Obama’s vow to keep Iran from going nuclear, today’s bombshell from the Washington Post’s David Ignatius ought to dispel this illusion. According to Ignatius, Turkey deliberately gave Tehran the identities of up to 10 Iranians working as informants for Israel, resulting in a “significant” loss of intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally approved this decision, and it followed several other incidents in which Erdoğan’s handpicked spy chief gave Iran “sensitive intelligence collected by the U.S. and Israel.” Yet not only did Washington refuse to even lodge a protest with Ankara, it warmed relations with Turkey even further, to the point that “Erdoğan was among Obama’s key confidants.”

Needless to say, someone serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program would be raging over the loss of “significant” intelligence about it, not rewarding the person responsible for this loss by elevating him to the role of key confidant. By this behavior, Obama signaled Tehran that he’s quite content to remain in ignorance about its race toward the bomb. Someone serious about stopping this program would also stop sharing “sensitive” intelligence about it with a person who known to have passed it on to Tehran, rather than continuing to treat him as a confidant.

But even without the Ignatius bombshell (which should also lead to mass resignations from the Congressional Turkey Caucus, if Congress is as serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program as it has hitherto shown itself to be), the contrast between this week’s negotiating session with Iran and Obama’s meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu last month provided pretty clear evidence of Obama’s attitudes. According to Haaretz, Obama complained to the Israeli premier that Israeli-Palestinian talks were progressing too slowly and demanded that they be accelerated, saying otherwise, the nine-month deadline wouldn’t be met. Nothing irreversible is likely to happen that would make a deal impossible if this deadline were missed, yet even so, Obama considered the once-a-week negotiating sessions insufficient.

Israeli-Turkish Detente? Nice Try But...

...More importantly, though, I thought the “apology” might be justifiable as a realpolitik move if it led to restored Israeli-Turkish strategic cooperation. The critics pooh-poohed that possibility as well, stressing Erdogan’s nature as an anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic Islamist. They had good foundations for saying that; but the history was a bit more complicated.

P. David Hornik..
Frontpage Magazine..
12 July '13..

Last March 22, at the tail-end of President Obama’s visit to Israel, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “apologized” over the phone to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident—in which Israeli commandos, in fighting for their lives against a club- and knife-wielding mob of Turkish Islamists, killed nine of the attackers.

The apology drew sharp criticism, mainly from Israeli and U.S. conservatives. Some blamed Netanyahu for allegedly cravenly giving in to Obama; some blamed Obama for allegedly pressuring Netanyahu into the move.

I didn’t join the critics at the time. First of all, there was Netanyahu’s wording. He told Erdogan he “apologized for operational errors that may have led to a loss of life.” In fact, it’s agreed in Israel that the commandos’ landing on the ship was poorly planned, and if done differently could have averted a violent eruption.

That doesn’t mean Israel actually had anything at all to apologize for. It didn’t; the Turkish side had instigated the aggression. But Netanyahu did not say he “apologized” for the fact that his soldiers had defended themselves, which indeed would have been deplorable. It was a nuance worth noting.

More importantly, though, I thought the “apology” might be justifiable as a realpolitik move if it led to restored Israeli-Turkish strategic cooperation. The critics pooh-poohed that possibility as well, stressing Erdogan’s nature as an anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic Islamist.

They had good foundations for saying that; but the history was a bit more complicated. Although Erdogan and his Islamist AKP had first taken office in 2003, the strategic relations had continued after that point. In 2005 Erdogan visited Israel with a large group of businessmen, held talks with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, laid a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and said Iran’s nuclear program was a threat not just to Israel but to the whole world.

True, relations started to sour before the Mavi Marmara when Erdogan—not a huge fan of Israeli self-defense against terrorists—objected to Israel’s 2008-2009 operation against Hamas in Gaza. Already in October 2009, Erdogan barred Israel from participating in an aerial exercise with Turkey, the U.S., and Italy.

(Video) World War Z: Paramount thinks Turks afraid of Israel, not Zombies

Yarden Frankl..
Honest Reporting..
30 June '13..

Paramount pictures thinks that Islamic audiences in Turkey can handle a movie in which flesh eating zombies take over the world. But they were afraid that mentioning the word "Israel" might really horrify them. So they took the word out of the movie and replaced it with the words "Middle East."

Go to Paramount's Facebook page and leave a comment that Israel in Turkish is translated as "Israel" not "Middle East." https://www.facebook.com/Paramount



When the West is afraid of irrational anti-Israel sentiment, they end up giving it credibility.

If you can handle a zombie movie, you can handle the word "Israel."

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Vj7yaqf1c

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

.

Blind Alleys and Empty Words - Kerry in Israel

P. David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com..
10 April '13..

Secretary of State John Kerry was in Israel on Monday and Tuesday, after a stop in Turkey. Reports indicate the usual mix of Obama-administration delusions and dubious promises.

The Jerusalem Post reported Israeli officials’ “astonishment” at statements Kerry made in Istanbul on Sunday, when he praised the Turkish government’s “sensitiv[ity]” and lack of “triumphalism” in responding to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s “apology” over Israel’s Mavi Marmara raid.

That apology was made by phone to Turkish prime minister Erdogan over two weeks ago at the tail-end of President Obama’s visit to Israel. Some believe Obama pressured Netanyahu into making the call; some sources in Israel have said Israeli officialdom was itself keen on mending fences with Turkey out of a hope of renewed strategic cooperation on regional threats.

But what is clear is that Turkey’s response has been less than heartwarming and tends to confirm those who stressed Erdogan’s ideological hostility (if not outright anti-Semitism) toward Israel. As Israeli officials reminded the Post, the Turkish press has been full of reports and interviews with Erdogan and his foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu “gloating over the apology.” A day after the apology, billboards in Ankara gave a clear triumphalist message.

Erdogan has announced plans to visit Hamas in Gaza. Davutoglu hosted a dinner for relatives of Turks killed on the Mavi Marmara and members of the Al-Qaeda-linked IHH organization that sent the ship. Meanwhile Israeli-Turkish talks on supposedly renewing ties have been delayed by two weeks.

Kerry appears to respond to such developments with Orwellian inversions instead of serious stocktaking.