gambit
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Odds are even that Turkey, in trying to suck up to the Arabs, will provoke a regional war.
Turkish Navy and PM to accompany more aid ships to Gaza
- Thread starter nawazshahzad
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Jigs
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Sorry but Turkey doesn't do Illegal acts. That is Israel's expertise.
Spring Onion
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The demonstrations were announced by Islamic organisations in India.
we still wait to hear condemnation by other groups
Jigs
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We are trying to help Gaza the Arab states are of minor concern since they have no influence in any matter period. Turkey does.
Ganga
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Actually turkey doesnot have to send a navy.The isrealis will make sure that no one gets killed onboard the ships next time.At the moment the whole world is against Isreal and they would not want to complicate things even more.I will not be suprised if they actually allow the next batch ships to dock at Gaza itself.
Did you not read that GoI has denounced the Israeli actions? What is the ambiguity once the GoI has officially condemned the incident? Why do separate groups have to individually denounce the indicident compulsively? Afterall the GoI speaks for the nation.
gambit
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Guess who are the recipients of the violence of those who protested against Israel? Not Israel but the governments and citizenries of the many countries.
SpArK
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A Zionist-Apartheid dirty deal
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Praful Bidwai
A Zionist-Apartheid dirty deal
As the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference concludes in New York, the western powers led by the United States are focussing on west Asia, because they want Iran to freeze its nuclear activities. But inevitably, attention is getting riveted on Israel, the region's sole nuclear weapons power.
Against this backdrop comes the sensational disclosure from the just-released book, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to white-racist, apartheid South Africa in 1975, and the two states closely coordinated their military programmes and strategic approaches.
This expose is based on "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior South African and Israeli officials accessed by the author, US-based scholar Sasha Pulakow-Suransky. The minutes were recently declassified by the South African government, despite Israel's strong opposition. The disclosure will seriously embarrass Israel, whose intransigence against ending its illegal occupation of Palestine and halting settlements is increasingly isolating it internationally and in western public opinion.
The book says South Africa's defence minister P W Botha asked for nuclear warheads when he met Shimon Peres, Israel's defence minister and now its president, who agreed to supply them "in three sizes". They signed a wide-ranging agreement on bilateral military relations, with a clause stipulating that its "very existence" must remain secret. The military relations were crucial. Israel generously supplied South Africa arms when it faced international economic-military sanctions. South Africa is believed to have made at least six nuclear weapons, but destroyed them before apartheid ended.
The book drives one more stake into Israel's "nuclear ambiguity" policy of neither confirming nor denying nuclear weapons possession. Independent sources, including Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, confirm that Israel has 200 to 300 nuclear warheads. The book also demolishes Israel's claim that it's a "responsible" state which wouldn't use nuclear weapons even if it had them -- unlike Iran, which might well use them or transfer them to Hezbollah. But a nation which not only helped pariah apartheid South Africa overcome richly-deserved international sanctions, but also supplied it mass-destruction weapons, cannot be "responsible". South Africa's military wanted nuclear weapons as a deterrent and for potential attacks upon its neighbours -- just as Israel did, and still does.
No state in modern history has been more shamelessly racist, unequal, undemocratic, and inhuman than apartheid South Africa. If that was at minimum a rogue state, Zionist Israel is in the same league. Pulakow-Suransky shows that Israeli and South African officials held crucial talks in March 1975, at which the former "formally offered to sell South Africa" some nuclear-capable Jericho missiles. Present there was South African military chief RF Armstrong whose "top secret" memorandum detailed the missiles' benefits for South Africa -- but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.
After the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israel was short of uranium, of which South Africa has large reserves. Israel also needed hard currency. It got both by selling conventional weapons, and by sharing nuclear know-how with South Africa and converting some of its yellowcake (mixed oxides of uranium) into weapons-grade plutonium. The Israel–South Africa alliance was close and strategic. In 1987, Israel adopted its own sanctions against South Africa but continued with existing arms contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The alliance was based less on military imperatives than on the two leaderships' shared belief that theirs were two relatively small nations guarding "their land" and "identity" in a hostile environment. Both wanted their privileged colonial settlers to continue in power. Their self-assigned role as regional bulwarks against Communism brought them western support --until global opinion turned against apartheid. Israel forgot Nazi sympathisers' role in putting apartheid's architects into power.
In a secret deal, South Africa lifted safeguards on 450 tonnes of yellowcake sold to Israel, in return for Israeli supplies of tritium, a nuclear weapons booster. Israel bailed out a South African politician whose bankruptcy would have scuppered the deal. These revelations expose Israel as an ultra-cynical nation culpable of nuclear proliferation.
Yet, South Africa isn't the only country with which Israel had shady nuclear dealings. Equally implicated from the 1950s onwards were Britain and France, which clandestinely supplied it nuclear materials, including heavy water.
Israel is different from other nuclear weapons-states (NWSs). Its nuclear weapons are undeclared -- unlike those of the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India and Pakistan (or of North Korea, which exploded a crude nuclear bomb in 2006 and another one last year). Israel, like India and Pakistan, hasn't signed the NPT.
However, although dubious, Israel's record of clandestine nuclear collaborations, shady deals and complicity in other countries' weapons pursuits mirrors that of the US, UK, USSR-Russia, China, India and Pakistan. They are all culpable.
India has had overt and clandestine nuclear dealings with the US, UK, Canada, the USSR, China, Russia, even Norway. India built its first bomb using CIRUS, a Canadian-designed reactor to which the US supplied heavy water. The 1974 explosion was called "peaceful", because India didn't want to be seen violating its professed commitment to nuclear disarmament or its "peaceful" use legal commitments to the US and Canada. It also lacked the stomach for more tests.
Pakistan has long collaborated with China clandestinely, which transferred nuclear weapons designs. Dr AQ Khan also pilfered centrifuge designs and suppliers' lists from the Netherlands. The Khan network's dealings with North Korea, Libya and Iran are legend. These needed the collusion of the Pakistani military which exclusively controls the nuclear weapons programme. The US turned a blind eye to Islamabad's nuclear preparations during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which made Pakistan a "frontline" state. Poor, technologically primitive North Korea couldn't have made its bomb without a small Soviet-built reactor.
The point is, all NWSs are guilty of either deliberate proliferation or acting in violation of their dual-use technology commitments. Worse, they are the only nations to have used nuclear weapons and practised nuclear blackmail. So, they are totally hypocritical when they single out countries like Iran. Nuclear weapons are unacceptably dangerous in everybody's hands. Although all NWSs rationalise their nuclear arsenals via "deterrence", they have doctrines for actually using nuclear weapons against unarmed civilians. Even deterrence entails that they're in a state of readiness to use them.
The US and USSR came close to doing this during the Cold War. Even Israel contemplated doing so in 1973. Pakistan and India launched nuclear preparations during the 1999 Kargil conflict, and even more dangerously, in the 10 months-long standoff in 2001.
No government that is committed to exterminating millions of non-combatant civilians is "responsible". The current hype about "terrorist groups" acquiring nuclear material serves to legitimise the NWSs' possession of them and to fraudulently distinguish between "responsible" and "irresponsible" actors.
"Responsible NWSs" is a contradiction in terms. The greatest nuclear danger emanates from the NWSs, which seek security through nuclear terror. Non-state actors like Al Qaeda cannot build the elaborate and relatively sophisticated infrastructure that nuclear programmes need. They have even failed to clandestinely buy fissile material. Yet, so long as nuclear weapons exist and are regarded as a currency of power, both state and non-state actors will be tempted to acquire them. The only way of preventing them is to eliminate all nuclear weapons globally.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Praful Bidwai
A Zionist-Apartheid dirty deal
As the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference concludes in New York, the western powers led by the United States are focussing on west Asia, because they want Iran to freeze its nuclear activities. But inevitably, attention is getting riveted on Israel, the region's sole nuclear weapons power.
Against this backdrop comes the sensational disclosure from the just-released book, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to white-racist, apartheid South Africa in 1975, and the two states closely coordinated their military programmes and strategic approaches.
This expose is based on "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior South African and Israeli officials accessed by the author, US-based scholar Sasha Pulakow-Suransky. The minutes were recently declassified by the South African government, despite Israel's strong opposition. The disclosure will seriously embarrass Israel, whose intransigence against ending its illegal occupation of Palestine and halting settlements is increasingly isolating it internationally and in western public opinion.
The book says South Africa's defence minister P W Botha asked for nuclear warheads when he met Shimon Peres, Israel's defence minister and now its president, who agreed to supply them "in three sizes". They signed a wide-ranging agreement on bilateral military relations, with a clause stipulating that its "very existence" must remain secret. The military relations were crucial. Israel generously supplied South Africa arms when it faced international economic-military sanctions. South Africa is believed to have made at least six nuclear weapons, but destroyed them before apartheid ended.
The book drives one more stake into Israel's "nuclear ambiguity" policy of neither confirming nor denying nuclear weapons possession. Independent sources, including Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, confirm that Israel has 200 to 300 nuclear warheads. The book also demolishes Israel's claim that it's a "responsible" state which wouldn't use nuclear weapons even if it had them -- unlike Iran, which might well use them or transfer them to Hezbollah. But a nation which not only helped pariah apartheid South Africa overcome richly-deserved international sanctions, but also supplied it mass-destruction weapons, cannot be "responsible". South Africa's military wanted nuclear weapons as a deterrent and for potential attacks upon its neighbours -- just as Israel did, and still does.
No state in modern history has been more shamelessly racist, unequal, undemocratic, and inhuman than apartheid South Africa. If that was at minimum a rogue state, Zionist Israel is in the same league. Pulakow-Suransky shows that Israeli and South African officials held crucial talks in March 1975, at which the former "formally offered to sell South Africa" some nuclear-capable Jericho missiles. Present there was South African military chief RF Armstrong whose "top secret" memorandum detailed the missiles' benefits for South Africa -- but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.
After the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israel was short of uranium, of which South Africa has large reserves. Israel also needed hard currency. It got both by selling conventional weapons, and by sharing nuclear know-how with South Africa and converting some of its yellowcake (mixed oxides of uranium) into weapons-grade plutonium. The Israel–South Africa alliance was close and strategic. In 1987, Israel adopted its own sanctions against South Africa but continued with existing arms contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The alliance was based less on military imperatives than on the two leaderships' shared belief that theirs were two relatively small nations guarding "their land" and "identity" in a hostile environment. Both wanted their privileged colonial settlers to continue in power. Their self-assigned role as regional bulwarks against Communism brought them western support --until global opinion turned against apartheid. Israel forgot Nazi sympathisers' role in putting apartheid's architects into power.
In a secret deal, South Africa lifted safeguards on 450 tonnes of yellowcake sold to Israel, in return for Israeli supplies of tritium, a nuclear weapons booster. Israel bailed out a South African politician whose bankruptcy would have scuppered the deal. These revelations expose Israel as an ultra-cynical nation culpable of nuclear proliferation.
Yet, South Africa isn't the only country with which Israel had shady nuclear dealings. Equally implicated from the 1950s onwards were Britain and France, which clandestinely supplied it nuclear materials, including heavy water.
Israel is different from other nuclear weapons-states (NWSs). Its nuclear weapons are undeclared -- unlike those of the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India and Pakistan (or of North Korea, which exploded a crude nuclear bomb in 2006 and another one last year). Israel, like India and Pakistan, hasn't signed the NPT.
However, although dubious, Israel's record of clandestine nuclear collaborations, shady deals and complicity in other countries' weapons pursuits mirrors that of the US, UK, USSR-Russia, China, India and Pakistan. They are all culpable.
India has had overt and clandestine nuclear dealings with the US, UK, Canada, the USSR, China, Russia, even Norway. India built its first bomb using CIRUS, a Canadian-designed reactor to which the US supplied heavy water. The 1974 explosion was called "peaceful", because India didn't want to be seen violating its professed commitment to nuclear disarmament or its "peaceful" use legal commitments to the US and Canada. It also lacked the stomach for more tests.
Pakistan has long collaborated with China clandestinely, which transferred nuclear weapons designs. Dr AQ Khan also pilfered centrifuge designs and suppliers' lists from the Netherlands. The Khan network's dealings with North Korea, Libya and Iran are legend. These needed the collusion of the Pakistani military which exclusively controls the nuclear weapons programme. The US turned a blind eye to Islamabad's nuclear preparations during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which made Pakistan a "frontline" state. Poor, technologically primitive North Korea couldn't have made its bomb without a small Soviet-built reactor.
The point is, all NWSs are guilty of either deliberate proliferation or acting in violation of their dual-use technology commitments. Worse, they are the only nations to have used nuclear weapons and practised nuclear blackmail. So, they are totally hypocritical when they single out countries like Iran. Nuclear weapons are unacceptably dangerous in everybody's hands. Although all NWSs rationalise their nuclear arsenals via "deterrence", they have doctrines for actually using nuclear weapons against unarmed civilians. Even deterrence entails that they're in a state of readiness to use them.
The US and USSR came close to doing this during the Cold War. Even Israel contemplated doing so in 1973. Pakistan and India launched nuclear preparations during the 1999 Kargil conflict, and even more dangerously, in the 10 months-long standoff in 2001.
No government that is committed to exterminating millions of non-combatant civilians is "responsible". The current hype about "terrorist groups" acquiring nuclear material serves to legitimise the NWSs' possession of them and to fraudulently distinguish between "responsible" and "irresponsible" actors.
"Responsible NWSs" is a contradiction in terms. The greatest nuclear danger emanates from the NWSs, which seek security through nuclear terror. Non-state actors like Al Qaeda cannot build the elaborate and relatively sophisticated infrastructure that nuclear programmes need. They have even failed to clandestinely buy fissile material. Yet, so long as nuclear weapons exist and are regarded as a currency of power, both state and non-state actors will be tempted to acquire them. The only way of preventing them is to eliminate all nuclear weapons globally.
Spring Onion
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Turkey holds Israel to account
For Israel, the tectonic plates shifted on Monday when its ham-fisted attempt to prevent the Freedom Flotilla from reaching Gaza blew up in its face. The fallout from its lethal commando raid on the Mavi Marmara is still spreading around the world as it scrambles to escape the consequences of a public relations disaster of the first magnitude. Judging from the enormous negative coverage the incident is receiving here in the UK and around the world, being an Israeli diplomat posted in a foreign capital would be a singularly thankless job these days.
However, reading the UN Security Council resolution that emerged after hours of tough negotiations makes it clear that Israel still has powerful friends in Washington. The watered down text reflects American anxiety to shield its ally from the much harsher language of the original draft presented by Turkey. Nevertheless, the fact that the US did not use its veto indicates a more calibrated approach towards Israel than we have witnessed in the recent past.
Liberal public opinion – albeit a small minority in Israel – recognises the insanity of the action as well as of the blockade of Gaza. Ha’aretz today contained a number of articles condemning the raid on a ship carrying unarmed peace activists, and deploring the myopic policy that caused it. The Jerusalem Post, however, lived up to its image of the mouthpiece of jingoistic Zionists by justifying the siege of Gaza, and Israel’s right to board the ship on the high seas. In an article titled Sinking Turkey-Israeli Relations, Anat Ladipat-Firilla argues that Turkey is positioning itself as a regional power, and as a leader of Sunni Muslim countries. According to the writer, this shift in Turkish foreign policy brings it into conformity with the ideology of the ruling AK Party. He also suggests that by de-legitimising Israel, Turkey would enhance its standing in the Muslim world.
It is certainly true that ever since the Israeli assault on Gaza early last year that resulted in 1,400 Palestinian deaths, Turkey has been downgrading its close ties with Israel. The deterioration in relations has been marked by a cancellation of joint military exercises; now, an energy deal is under threat. However, a $180 million order to import a number of Israeli Heron drones is still in place. For Israel, this deterioration in ties would be a disaster as close military links with Turkey have been crucial to its strategic interests. Turkey has been an active mediator between Israel and Syria, and provides an important market for Israeli arms. Israeli air force pilots have trained regularly in Turkish airspace, and the armed forces of the two countries have long conducted exercises together.
The reason for current Turkish fury is that the Israelis ignored the fact that the Mavi Marmara is a Turkish vessel, carrying a large number of Turks. It had been inspected at a Turkish port to make sure there were only relief goods on board, and the sponsor of the relief expedition was a well-known Turkish organisation, the IHH. Thus, the flotilla had sailed with Ankara’s blessings and encouragement. For the Israelis to behave in such a barbaric way towards a friendly country’s citizens was an own goal the Nethanyahu government must be secretly ruing.
Although the perception around the world is that Israel gets away with its oppression of Palestinians because of its highly effective lobby in the United States, the reality is somewhat more nuanced. It is true that after President Obama tried to pressure Tel Aviv to halt its colonisation policies in the West Bank and Jerusalem, a number of congressmen – including those from his own party – approached him to persuade him to back off, citing the congressional elections due in November. It seems these tactics have worked, at least for now. But significantly, a top American general said in testimony before a congressional committee that unquestioning support for Israel was putting the lives of US soldiers at risk. So although Washington is still strongly committed to its ally, there are important voices urging a more critical approach. Once the November elections are behind him, Obama might live up to his promise of applying pressure on Nethanyahu. According to reports, he is angry and frustrated over the appalling conditions the Gazans are living in due to the Israeli siege.
Ultimately, there are no permanent friends or enemies in international relations, only permanent interests. Thus far, Israel has thrived by playing on Western guilt and sympathy over the Holocaust, as well as the fact that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Of course, the ingenuity and hard work of its people have played a large part in making it the success story it undoubtedly is. Nevertheless, the world is growing increasingly tired of the endless crises that erupt periodically as Israel maintains its tight grip over occupied land despite the obdurate resistance posed by the Palestinians.
After this latest example of self-defeating brutality, even Israel’s friends in Europe have condemned the violence, and have called for an independent enquiry. But after a time, things will quieten down again until the next explosion. Meanwhile, it is Turkey whose moral outrage will propel this anti-Israel narrative. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the commando raid as state terrorism, and the Turkish foreign minister said at the UN that the Israeli action ‘blurred the line between the state and terrorism’.
As I write this, two more relief ships have set sail for Gaza. According to the Jerusalem Post, they will be met with the same kind of reception that greeted the Freedom Flotilla on Monday. Unfortunately, the Israeli leadership have not learned any lessons from their own history:
in July 1947, a ship called the Exodus set sail from France with Jewish concentration camp survivors intent on breaking the British blockade of Palestine. The Exodus was intercepted in international waters and its passengers taken to Germany to be interned until they could be screened for Zionist terrorists. Many of the passengers resisted being carried ashore, and fought British soldiers with sticks and whatever came to hand. While Lt-Colonel Gregson praised the fortitude of his men in resisting the temptation to use guns despite some of them getting badly beaten, he went to write:
“It should be borne in mind that the guiding factor in the actions of the Jews is to gain the sympathy of the world press.”
Israel has painted itself into a corner, but lacks the capacity to say ‘sorry’ and attempt to minimise the damage it has caused itself so unnecessarily.
DAWN.COM | Columnists | Turkey holds Israel to account
For Israel, the tectonic plates shifted on Monday when its ham-fisted attempt to prevent the Freedom Flotilla from reaching Gaza blew up in its face. The fallout from its lethal commando raid on the Mavi Marmara is still spreading around the world as it scrambles to escape the consequences of a public relations disaster of the first magnitude. Judging from the enormous negative coverage the incident is receiving here in the UK and around the world, being an Israeli diplomat posted in a foreign capital would be a singularly thankless job these days.
However, reading the UN Security Council resolution that emerged after hours of tough negotiations makes it clear that Israel still has powerful friends in Washington. The watered down text reflects American anxiety to shield its ally from the much harsher language of the original draft presented by Turkey. Nevertheless, the fact that the US did not use its veto indicates a more calibrated approach towards Israel than we have witnessed in the recent past.
Liberal public opinion – albeit a small minority in Israel – recognises the insanity of the action as well as of the blockade of Gaza. Ha’aretz today contained a number of articles condemning the raid on a ship carrying unarmed peace activists, and deploring the myopic policy that caused it. The Jerusalem Post, however, lived up to its image of the mouthpiece of jingoistic Zionists by justifying the siege of Gaza, and Israel’s right to board the ship on the high seas. In an article titled Sinking Turkey-Israeli Relations, Anat Ladipat-Firilla argues that Turkey is positioning itself as a regional power, and as a leader of Sunni Muslim countries. According to the writer, this shift in Turkish foreign policy brings it into conformity with the ideology of the ruling AK Party. He also suggests that by de-legitimising Israel, Turkey would enhance its standing in the Muslim world.
It is certainly true that ever since the Israeli assault on Gaza early last year that resulted in 1,400 Palestinian deaths, Turkey has been downgrading its close ties with Israel. The deterioration in relations has been marked by a cancellation of joint military exercises; now, an energy deal is under threat. However, a $180 million order to import a number of Israeli Heron drones is still in place. For Israel, this deterioration in ties would be a disaster as close military links with Turkey have been crucial to its strategic interests. Turkey has been an active mediator between Israel and Syria, and provides an important market for Israeli arms. Israeli air force pilots have trained regularly in Turkish airspace, and the armed forces of the two countries have long conducted exercises together.
The reason for current Turkish fury is that the Israelis ignored the fact that the Mavi Marmara is a Turkish vessel, carrying a large number of Turks. It had been inspected at a Turkish port to make sure there were only relief goods on board, and the sponsor of the relief expedition was a well-known Turkish organisation, the IHH. Thus, the flotilla had sailed with Ankara’s blessings and encouragement. For the Israelis to behave in such a barbaric way towards a friendly country’s citizens was an own goal the Nethanyahu government must be secretly ruing.
Although the perception around the world is that Israel gets away with its oppression of Palestinians because of its highly effective lobby in the United States, the reality is somewhat more nuanced. It is true that after President Obama tried to pressure Tel Aviv to halt its colonisation policies in the West Bank and Jerusalem, a number of congressmen – including those from his own party – approached him to persuade him to back off, citing the congressional elections due in November. It seems these tactics have worked, at least for now. But significantly, a top American general said in testimony before a congressional committee that unquestioning support for Israel was putting the lives of US soldiers at risk. So although Washington is still strongly committed to its ally, there are important voices urging a more critical approach. Once the November elections are behind him, Obama might live up to his promise of applying pressure on Nethanyahu. According to reports, he is angry and frustrated over the appalling conditions the Gazans are living in due to the Israeli siege.
Ultimately, there are no permanent friends or enemies in international relations, only permanent interests. Thus far, Israel has thrived by playing on Western guilt and sympathy over the Holocaust, as well as the fact that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Of course, the ingenuity and hard work of its people have played a large part in making it the success story it undoubtedly is. Nevertheless, the world is growing increasingly tired of the endless crises that erupt periodically as Israel maintains its tight grip over occupied land despite the obdurate resistance posed by the Palestinians.
After this latest example of self-defeating brutality, even Israel’s friends in Europe have condemned the violence, and have called for an independent enquiry. But after a time, things will quieten down again until the next explosion. Meanwhile, it is Turkey whose moral outrage will propel this anti-Israel narrative. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the commando raid as state terrorism, and the Turkish foreign minister said at the UN that the Israeli action ‘blurred the line between the state and terrorism’.
As I write this, two more relief ships have set sail for Gaza. According to the Jerusalem Post, they will be met with the same kind of reception that greeted the Freedom Flotilla on Monday. Unfortunately, the Israeli leadership have not learned any lessons from their own history:
in July 1947, a ship called the Exodus set sail from France with Jewish concentration camp survivors intent on breaking the British blockade of Palestine. The Exodus was intercepted in international waters and its passengers taken to Germany to be interned until they could be screened for Zionist terrorists. Many of the passengers resisted being carried ashore, and fought British soldiers with sticks and whatever came to hand. While Lt-Colonel Gregson praised the fortitude of his men in resisting the temptation to use guns despite some of them getting badly beaten, he went to write:
“It should be borne in mind that the guiding factor in the actions of the Jews is to gain the sympathy of the world press.”
Israel has painted itself into a corner, but lacks the capacity to say ‘sorry’ and attempt to minimise the damage it has caused itself so unnecessarily.
DAWN.COM | Columnists | Turkey holds Israel to account
Aslan
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Chomsky, Gaza and Israe
What is going on at the moment with Israel? You know when it's hit the mainstream when Auckland celeb photographer Norrie Montgomery steps beyond the A list script and voices his anger on facebook - "Israel is a rogue state and its getting worse..."
A couple of weeks back Israel hit the news big time when it barred Jewish American Professor Noam Chomsky from entering Palestinian Territory - The West Bank, having been invited to give a lecture at Bir Zeit University. The news of the eminent scholars detention at the Allenby Bridge and subsequently questioned for several hours by a guard whilst on a line to his superiors, travelled the main media hubs - Hindu Times, Bangkok Post, Jerusalem Post, BBC, CNN, as well as an op Ed in the New York Times and editorials in the Boston Globe and Chicago-Sun Tribune.
And this is an excerpt from the Editorial of one of Israel's main newspapers, Haaretz: "By stopping the illustrious American scholar Prof. Noam Chomsky at the Allenby Bridge and barring his entry into Israel and the Palestinian authority, the Government's outrageous treatment of those with the audacity to criticize its policies has reached new heights. Israel looks like a bully who has been insulted by a superior intellect and is now trying to fight it, arrest it, and expel it."
Chomsky, who spent a year in Israel in a kibbutz, and like his father is fluent in Hebrew, regards himself as a friend of Israel. Nonetheless the young guard, on the phone to higher officials told the 81 year old professor "Israel does not like what you say", to which the famous linguist asked him to try and find a country that does.
To paraphrase the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is this the way in which a country that claims to be the one true democracy in the Middle East ought to behave? When Chomsky was asked if there was any other country that has barred him he replied, yes - Czechoslovakia in 1968 - i.e. under Soviet rule. The message being clear - this is precisely the sort of behaviour that you'd expect from a totalitarian regime.
And now up to 16 international protesters have been killed and over 60 wounded after an encounter by Israeli Defense force vessels with the free Gaza flotilla - attempting to get humanitarian supplies into Gaza. The flotilla included such crazies like 1976 Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators, and an elderly Holocaust survivor.
Of course the reason for the flotilla is because there is a humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Territory - something the Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman completely denies ("There is no humanitarian crisis"). But Jewish journalist Amira Hass points out that there indeed is. The 360 square km prison of 1.5 million is, for example, stripped of pure water. Ninety per cent of the Coastal aquifer, Gaza's only water source, is unfit for human consumption. And as Hass points out, it's only thanks to UNRWA, international aid programmes, and the 'tunnel economy' that the population is not being starved.
To quote the Haaretz newspaper again - "One does not have to be an ardent supporter of Chomsky in order to agree with his view that Israel is behaving like South Africa in the 1960's, when it understood that it was an outcast, but thought it could solve the problem with the help of a better public relations campaign."
Provocative yet timely sentiments. And all the more profound in that they come from inside Israel.
Wallace's Blog: Chomsky, Gaza and Israel | Back Benches | Television New Zealand | Television | TV One, TV2, TVNZ 6, TVNZ 7
What is going on at the moment with Israel? You know when it's hit the mainstream when Auckland celeb photographer Norrie Montgomery steps beyond the A list script and voices his anger on facebook - "Israel is a rogue state and its getting worse..."
A couple of weeks back Israel hit the news big time when it barred Jewish American Professor Noam Chomsky from entering Palestinian Territory - The West Bank, having been invited to give a lecture at Bir Zeit University. The news of the eminent scholars detention at the Allenby Bridge and subsequently questioned for several hours by a guard whilst on a line to his superiors, travelled the main media hubs - Hindu Times, Bangkok Post, Jerusalem Post, BBC, CNN, as well as an op Ed in the New York Times and editorials in the Boston Globe and Chicago-Sun Tribune.
And this is an excerpt from the Editorial of one of Israel's main newspapers, Haaretz: "By stopping the illustrious American scholar Prof. Noam Chomsky at the Allenby Bridge and barring his entry into Israel and the Palestinian authority, the Government's outrageous treatment of those with the audacity to criticize its policies has reached new heights. Israel looks like a bully who has been insulted by a superior intellect and is now trying to fight it, arrest it, and expel it."
Chomsky, who spent a year in Israel in a kibbutz, and like his father is fluent in Hebrew, regards himself as a friend of Israel. Nonetheless the young guard, on the phone to higher officials told the 81 year old professor "Israel does not like what you say", to which the famous linguist asked him to try and find a country that does.
To paraphrase the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is this the way in which a country that claims to be the one true democracy in the Middle East ought to behave? When Chomsky was asked if there was any other country that has barred him he replied, yes - Czechoslovakia in 1968 - i.e. under Soviet rule. The message being clear - this is precisely the sort of behaviour that you'd expect from a totalitarian regime.
And now up to 16 international protesters have been killed and over 60 wounded after an encounter by Israeli Defense force vessels with the free Gaza flotilla - attempting to get humanitarian supplies into Gaza. The flotilla included such crazies like 1976 Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators, and an elderly Holocaust survivor.
Of course the reason for the flotilla is because there is a humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Territory - something the Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman completely denies ("There is no humanitarian crisis"). But Jewish journalist Amira Hass points out that there indeed is. The 360 square km prison of 1.5 million is, for example, stripped of pure water. Ninety per cent of the Coastal aquifer, Gaza's only water source, is unfit for human consumption. And as Hass points out, it's only thanks to UNRWA, international aid programmes, and the 'tunnel economy' that the population is not being starved.
To quote the Haaretz newspaper again - "One does not have to be an ardent supporter of Chomsky in order to agree with his view that Israel is behaving like South Africa in the 1960's, when it understood that it was an outcast, but thought it could solve the problem with the help of a better public relations campaign."
Provocative yet timely sentiments. And all the more profound in that they come from inside Israel.
Wallace's Blog: Chomsky, Gaza and Israel | Back Benches | Television New Zealand | Television | TV One, TV2, TVNZ 6, TVNZ 7
gambit
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No...The countries whose citizens are on those 'aid' ships, and even for those who were killed, will not get involved in a shooting fight between Turkey and Israel. I say that Turkey is in as tight a spot as Israel. Turkey was the origin point for this 'aid' fleet. Turkey protested the loudest, or among the loudest. Now the world's attention is equally on Turkey as to what the Erdogan government is going to do to back up its rhetoric just as Israel is being condemned in many corners. Anything less than war will be seen as weak and if a war does happen, no one will come to Turkey's aid.
Marxist
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Turkey to normalise Israel ties if Gaza blockade ends
June 2 (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday it was ready to normalise ties with Israel if the Jewish state lifts a blockade on Gaza and said "it was time calm replaces anger" in the wake of Israel's deadly raid on a Turkish-backed flotilla.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutogu, in Ankara after a visit to the United States to discuss the diplomatic crisis, also told a news conference that the future of Turkish-Israeli ties depended on Israel's attitude. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel following Monday's storming of Gaza bound aid ships.
Turkey to normalise Israel ties if Gaza blockade ends | Reuters
June 2 (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday it was ready to normalise ties with Israel if the Jewish state lifts a blockade on Gaza and said "it was time calm replaces anger" in the wake of Israel's deadly raid on a Turkish-backed flotilla.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutogu, in Ankara after a visit to the United States to discuss the diplomatic crisis, also told a news conference that the future of Turkish-Israeli ties depended on Israel's attitude. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel following Monday's storming of Gaza bound aid ships.
Turkey to normalise Israel ties if Gaza blockade ends | Reuters
Aslan
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Well then you definitely dont know the crazy neighborhood that they are in.
Ganga
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No one will come to isreals aid either.
america will back israel no matter what crimes israel comits.
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