Northern Cyprus vs. Israel

Emanuele Ottolenghi
Contentions/Commentary
26 September '10

A boat full of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and other such organizations is setting sail today for Gaza from Northern Cyprus, as reported here. The pious group, no doubt, thinks they are fighting occupation through acts of kindness.

There is, nevertheless, a certain irony in the fact that they use Northern Cyprus as a staging ground for their activities — like the Mavi Marmara-led Flotilla did last May. Here’s the irony — Northern Cyprus is an illegally occupied territory that belongs to the EU as part of its member state, Cyprus; it was seized by force in 1974 by the Turkish army; its legal status as a fictionally independent state is only recognized by Turkey (the occupying power); Turkey forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Greeks from that territory and settled its own population to permanently alter the ethnic balance of the area – and, in the process, encouraged the building of what one could characterize as settlements.

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Turkey in Cyprus vs. Israel in Gaza

Daniel Pipes
danielpipes.org
20 July '10

In light of Ankara's recent criticism of what it calls Israel's "open-air jail" in Gaza, today's date, which marks the anniversary of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, has special relevance.

Turkish policy toward Israel, historically warm and only a decade ago approaching full alliance, has cooled since Islamists took power in Ankara in 2002. Their hostility became explicit in January 2009, during the Israel-Hamas war. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan grandly condemned Israeli policies as "perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction" and even invoked God ("Allah will … punish those who transgress the rights of innocents"). His wife Emine Erdoğan hyperbolically condemned Israeli actions as so awful they "cannot be expressed in words."

Their verbal assaults augured a further hostility that included insulting the Israeli president, helping sponsor the "Freedom Flotilla," and recalling the Turkish ambassador.

This Turkish rage prompts a question: Is Israel in Gaza really worse than Turkey in Cyprus? A comparison finds this hardly to be so. Consider some contrasts:

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Turkey's Two Faces

Emanuele Ottolenghi
standpointmag.co.uk
July/August '10

There is a non-Arab Middle Eastern country that has occupied foreign territory by force for more than three decades — and nobody else recognises that occupation. That same country has denied its national minorities such basic rights as cultural autonomy and has prevented them from using their own languages. A ruthless war has been raging against a self-appointed national liberation movement, which it calls terrorists. Not infrequently, it has launched brutal cross-border raids in pursuit of the said "terrorists", without bothering to ask its neighbours for permission. And it has blockaded a landlocked neighbour as punishment for a long-standing conflict tinged with the memory of a genocide that the blockading party denies ever happened.

If you thought I was describing Israel you'd be wrong: it's Turkey.

Turkey occupied Northern Cyprus in 1974, later supporting a separate Turkish-speaking republic there that is recognised by no one except Ankara.

Turkey has also fought the Kurdish PKK in a ruthless war that has seen tens of thousands killed. While fighting the PKK — in Iraq — Turkey has been reluctant to recognise Kurdish autonomy at home. Not only is separatism not indulged but the very notion of a separate Kurdish identity is dismissed. Kurds cannot teach and learn in their own language, while their national identity is routinely suppressed.

Turkey is reluctant (to put it mildly) to confront its past and still won't accept its genocide against the Armenians.

Now comes Turkey's harsh criticism of Israel, before and after the Gaza flotilla incident in June. You may notice a tinge of hypocrisy.

Naturally, Turks of all political stripes will object to at least some of the above. The PKK are terrorists, without the inverted commas — and it is hard to fight terrorism within the constraints of international law and human rights. Israel wouldn't disagree.

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