Israel’s effort to adjust to the new reality of a hostile Islamist Turkey often seems like “one step forward, two steps back.” This week was a giant step back. Yet even so, progress has been made.
This week’s setback was Israel’s decision to participate in a UN probe of May’s raid on a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to Gaza. Several leading Israeli ministers said the decision was made partly “to restore ties with Turkey.” As one senior official put it, “Hopefully the combination of lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip and establishing an international investigation will meet the Turkish demands and lead to a restoration of ties.”
This is appeasement of the worst kind. In order to “restore ties” with a government that has made its hostility crystal-clear, Israel for the first time gave its imprimatur to an investigation by one of the world’s most anti-Israel bodies, which has never sought to probe similar incidents in other countries. That sets a dangerous precedent.
Even worse, this decision comes just days after Defense Minister Ehud Barak voiced concern over the new Turkish intelligence chief’s close ties with Iran. Noting that years of military cooperation had left many Israeli secrets in Turkish hands, he worried that Hakan Fidan might pass them to Tehran. What normal country seeks a closer relationship with a government it suspects of sharing its secrets with its worst enemy?
Yet in its soberer moments, the government has, with considerable success, begun reaching out to some of Turkey’s traditional opponents. Last month, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou paid an official visit to Israel, becoming the first Greek leader to do so in over 30 years. And in May, the Greek and Israeli air forces conducted joint exercises over the Aegean Sea. Turkey used to be a major venue for such exercises, but lately, it has canceled them repeatedly. And these exercises are vital because they enable pilots to train over longer distances and different terrain than Israel offers.
Ties with Cyprus have also warmed. In May, for instance, Cyprus said it would stop letting Gaza-bound flotillas use its ports, and in June, the Free Gaza movement, which has organized several such flotillas, said this decision had forced it to relocate its headquarters from the island.
But Israel’s schizophrenic behavior is damaging — something even Foreign Ministry professionals, trained to favor diplomacy above all, have recognized. When Industry Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer met Turkey’s foreign minister in June in a bid to mend ties, one senior Foreign Ministry professional told Haaretz (Hebrew only):
The American government is giving Turkey the cold shoulder, Jewish organizations are boycotting it and the whole world is uncomfortable with Turkey’s behavior. Amid all this, we’re the ones who want to embrace them. So how will we be able to object to the world [doing the same] afterward?
This week’s decision shows the damage is only getting worse. It’s time for Jerusalem to face facts: as long as Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in power, Turkey will never again be an ally. Better to cut its losses and focus on building other more fruitful relationships.
Alas, this issue has the distinct misfortune of being important.
What planet are you on, Ms. Rubin?
My guess is that Obama did not want the Bush Administration to get the credit for implementing the withdrawal- he wants to be able to say it was the great obamessiah who “ended the mistaken war”..
I have a feeling the GOP will not let this go down without some more inquiries..
In Non-Bizarro World, this would be page one, above the fold, two days running.
In Bizarro World, it is background noise on the internet.
Jennifer you are quoting the new york post… numerous times already today in fact. I mean really…
Obama’s treason got knocked off the front page by Sarah Palin’s tanning bed.
Would the Post be more acceptable if it marched under the Obama banner like just about all the rest of the media? Then the implementation of the Fairness Act and some Canadian-like tinkering with the blogosphere, and you’d have what the left always desires and sometimes achieves, control of the means of communcation.
“Jennifer you are quoting the new york post… numerous times already today in fact. I mean really…”
The New York Post deserves respect—unlike its competitor the New York Times. It has a well earned reputation for accuracy. Do you disagree? If so, please offer an specific example or two why this might not be the case.
“The New York Post deserves respect”
It is barely more then a tabloid… everyone knows that.
How about you offer me an example of its credibility instead?
I’ve lived in NYC for months at a time for my work and read the post daily… it is literally the original modern American tabloid, and lives in sensationalism.
It has been for decades… nothing to do with this election.
That really is common knowledge.
“It is barely more then a tabloid… everyone knows that.
How about you offer me an example of its credibility instead?”
No, the obligation is for you to provide evidence of the New York Post’s lack of credibility. After all, you are the one making the allegation. The Post does indeed spend a lot of time worrying about the misadventures of movie actors and professional athletes—but this does not reflect on its solid reputation for accuracy.
Hey, maybe the Beagle Blogger will take it uopn himself to ask Sen. Obama those questions… Oh, I forgot, he’s still busy with the very important question of who the mother of Trig Palin is!
The only person who can clear this up is Gary Sick…..
Hank in Michigan, the National Enquirer is a tabloid, but got something right about John Edwards. So, to me it seems it’s not so much a matter of tabloid vs. non-tabloid, but of truth vs. lies. Or do you assume the NY Post can never get anything right under any circumstance? And why would that be?
Asking hard questions of Obama? Who has the courage for that?
David, the problem isn’t just that this is a New York Post story. It’s a New York Post story by seasoned fabricator Amir Taheri.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=6df3e493-f350-4b53-bc16-53262b49a4f7
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/06/the_yellow_badge_bamboozlers_h.php
I’d more readily trust reporting by the National Enquirer (even pre-John Edwards scoop).
I’m sure getting tired of this cliche, “doubling down.”
Referring to Taheri as a “seasoned fabricator” is a slander, and linking to TPM, one of the most fiercely partisan sites on the web, is a joke. Most commenters on this story have, however, prefaced or enclosed their remarks with entirely appropriate unwillingness to take Taheri on face value, given his past sloppiness. In any event, traducing Taheri when the Obama campaign has effectively admitted that the bases of his allegations are true is classic liberal fascism at work, the same tactic that has Obamanauts besieging radio stations when Obama critics appear, or trying to shout down people like “KKKarl Rove” when they show up to give a public talk – as occurred near where I live just last night.
Obama himself is dangerous enough, but a failure to repudiate the tactics of his supporters might be even more dangerous.
Well, I know what to make of it, and said so at the time. It was stunning to see Obama insert himself between his own president and the Iraqi head of state, in the very middle of a fraught negotiation over ending a war his own countrymen were fighting. This was unconscionable in and of itself, before even contemplating questions of intent. The exercise itself gives the concept of “meeting without preconditions” alarming new meaning.
Obama gave Maliki added heft not only in wartime maneuvers against a sitting U.S president, but also in Maliki’s upcoming Iraqi elections as well, to unknown inadvertant effect on the balance of powers within Iraq itself. Obama then very publicly used Maliki’s purported blessing, and quite possibly misstating it, to shore up his own political position here at home — thus trapping Maliki into a harder negotiating stance than he might otherwise have taken. How could Maliki substantially modify his position without losing face nationally, regionally and internationally? Nor could he substantially contradict Obama’s representations, without risking the ire of the expected future President.
Undercutting the American chief executive and his foreign policy surrogates, even as a private citizen, is sin enough. If Obama even allowed his own government the courtesy of a debriefing, I certainly didn’t hear about it. The idea that a potential President (especially with an election which he was favored to win in the immediate offing) can go on a listening tour or have a simple conversation with any head of state is astonishingly obtuse. There is simply no possibility that Maliki would treat any recommendation about delaying any resolution of any facet of the war as a simple suggestion, not a warning. Could there be a clearer demonstration of dangerous naivete, as well as what someone on Obama’s own side of the blogosphere dubbed “accidental foreign policy”?
Obama is a walking diplomatic disaster zone. Though prosecution under the Logan Act is a virtual impossibility, compounding his original myopia with an explicit attempt to meddle with U.S. foreign policy stratagems and ongoing diplomatic missions at the highest level, without any legitimate standing whatsoever, is clearly a Logan Act violation.
Even without explicit an explicit intent to meddle
Scratch my own inadvertent sloppy pasting at the tail end of the above. I really hate it when that happens!
Don’t worry about the paste, JM – the main part of your post is very clear and cogent. As I recall, Obama’s political ploy worked relatively well for him at the time. As I recall, the pundits were a lot more excited about the phony “timetable” issue – as though Maliki’s apparent interest in an orderly withdrawal timetable, whatever that really means, was the same thing as insisting on a timetable for retreat regardless of conditions.
The John Edwards story was brushed aside because it appeared (originally) in the Enquirer. Look how that turned out.
Attacking the Post as being a tabloid is unfair, but more importantly, it doesn’t address the meat of the issue here. Say only 95% of this story turns out to be true? What then? Does that somehow make this less disgraceful?
Wank & Eric A.,
if you cant refute the story, smear the messager, eh?
If you clowns could prove the Post is a yellow paper like the Times, you would. Unfounded accusations don’t prove a thing other than your own dishonesty. Linking stories smearing Taheri from moonbat extremist websites only proves how dishonest and weak your smear-job is. Taheri does not lie for a living like the man you’re excusing does.
Please spare me your outrage, CK. I slander (or libel) or smear no one.
Among the many who have called out Taheri for false reporting:
–Ehud Olmert
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1177591149988&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
–Iran authority Shaul Bakhash
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2007/11/is_iran_suicidal_or_deterrable.cfm
–Jewish Week of NY editor-at-large Larry Cohler-Esses (sorry, but this one is in The Nation, a left-leaning publication, so feel free to avert your eyes)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/cohleresses
–Iran’s sole Jewish MP, Maurice Motammed
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19196947-1702,00.html
Also happy to link to the Taheri’s responses. I don’t believe they do anything to re-establish his credibility, but you may draw your own conclusions:
–To Olmert
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3393010,00.html
–To Professor Bakhash (by NPod and Taheri)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2007/11/a_reply_from_norman_podhoretz.cfm
–Regarding the false “Iranian badge” story
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19508
I’ve seen no response (by Taheri or otherwise) to the Cohler-Esses story, but will post if I find.