Comments on News and Reads 9/6

Moving to 'Plan C,' Turkey suspends trade with Israel

"Trade relations, military relations, defense industry — these we will suspend," says Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan • Threatens even more sanctions • Amos Gilad: Turkey has a lot to lose by its extreme behavior.

FP: Action 4 (cont’d from previous posts): Erdogan follows through on his plan to limit Israel in order to gain regional status in an Islamist Arab world, defying the wishful thinking and delusions in Israel and the West that it still has something to gain from links to Israel. Haim Shine:

Erdogan, a shrewd politician, recognizes the geopolitical significance of the unrest plaguing many countries in the Arab world, as well as the weakness of the United States in coping with difficult losses in Afghanistan and the enormous costs of intervening militarily in other countires in the face of a huge economic crises. Not a single person, including well-known Middle East scholars, is able to predict where the Arab countries are heading. The naivete that guided a large part of President George W. Bush's worldview, according to which the world, including Arab dictators, should move towards democratization and openness, may have proven to be a terrible mistake. The State of Israel is at the forefront of this and may be the first to absorb the barrage of changes occuring in neighboring Arab countries. And Erdogan, at his peak since the violent flotilla to Gaza, is leading the escalation against Israel.

Turkey's behavior is a bad omen. It is moving closer to radical Arab countries and supporting extremist opponents of peace whose sole aim is to destroy Israel. Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas understands the new winds blowing through the Middle East, and he too lacks the freedom and the leadership to stand up to Hamas.

Yet Israel keeps deluding itself and refuses to take no for an answer: Amos Gilad: Turkey hasn't frozen military ties with Israel:

Defense Ministry official dismisses Turkish claims that military ties to be downgraded, says Ankara has a lot to lose from such a move.

See next two for more examples.

Despite all we have done, Israel is an ungrateful ally, says Gates

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says despite the many steps the U.S. has taken to protect Israeli security, it has received nothing in return • PMO: Netanyahu's positions enjoy overwhelming support in Israel and in the U.S.

FP: I predicted that in its decline America will promptly dump Israel as a liability and I was right. Do not rely on Congressional support of Israel to stop it; when the US experiences the societal consequences of its economic self-destruction all bets are off and Israel and the Jews will serve their traditional function of scapegoat. But Israel does not seem to internalize the shift: Government official: Cooperation with US better than ever

After publication of Gates's criticism of PM, Israeli officials say coordination between nations has greatly improved, but acknowledge "different voices" exist in both administrations.

Homefront commander under fire for grim security assessment

Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg says regional unrest might lead to "total" war, with weapons of mass destruction directed against Israel • Defense Minister Ehud Barak rejects assessment: "Our enemies will not dare use weapons of mass destruction against us."

FP: If I am not mistaken, most of the Israeli tactical military blunders were due to its leadership ignoring unpleasant reality as conveyed by intelligence (the last example being the Eilat attack). And there seems to be no learning from that experience.

Elliot Jager: Peace Treaty Troubles

But modifying the treaty to appease popular anti-Israel sentiment could open a Pandora's box of demands on Israel. If today's limit on the number of soldiers is an "affront" to Egyptian sensibilities, who's to say forbidding the Egyptian Air Force from holding maneuvers over Sinai won't be the next "affront" to be overcome? The Jordan-Israel peace treaty is no less unpopular. Wouldn't amending the treaty with Egypt put pressure on King Abdullah II to push for similar amends? Moreover, any viable Israeli deal with the Palestinian faction led by Abbas would require the demilitarization of the West Bank. What signal would backtracking on the demilitarization of Sinai send to the Palestinians?
If the treaty with Egypt must be gutted in order to save it, something may be terribly wrong with the underlying land-for-peace approach.

FP: How can it not be terribly wrong to agree to strategic land for just promises with Quranic anti-semitic states that are inspired by Muhammad’ violation of the agreement with the Jews?

Elder of Ziyon: Abbas: "Palestinians have been under occupation for 63 years"

From NYT, in an interview with Mahmoud Abbas:

We don’t want to isolate Israel but to live with it in peace and security. We don’t want to delegitimize Israel. We want to legitimize ourselves.

All well and good - except for what he said immediately prior to this:

We are going to complain [at the UN] that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years.

How can one reconcile those two statements? If Israel has been occupying their land since its birth in 1948, doesn't that make Israel illegitimate?
(Somehow, I don't think he was referring to Jordanian occupation.)
The New York Times' Ethan Bronner, as usual, did not ask for clarification. And Mahmoud Abbas remains free to say whatever he wants to whatever audience he wants without fear of someone pointing out that he is a liar.

FP: Abbas was speaking to a group of Israeli “intellectuals” who came to express their “sense of injustice done to the Palestinians” and support their UN statehood application. As usual, he has played them for the fools they are and they did not even notice. And, as Israel Matzav points out, their salaries are paid by the Israel government.

Caroline Glick: Ankara's chosen scapegoat

Since 2003, Turkey has undertaken a series of actions that have harmed US strategic interests. The first, of course, was Erdogan's decision on the eve of the Iraq War to deny the US military the right to invade northern Iraq from Turkey.
The latest action was arguably Turkey's joint air exercises with the Chinese Air Force last September.
Chinese jets en route to Turkey refueled in Iran. The exercise was a clear signal that NATO member Turkey intends to exploit its alliance with the US to build ties with the US's chief geostrategic competitor.
Yet at the same time that Turkey has harmed the US, it has also taken steps to assist it. Most recently, last week, Erdogan belatedly agreed to station the high-powered US X-Band radar on its territory as part of a missile defense system to protect NATO allies against the threat of Iranian long-range missiles.
Turkey's mixed policies toward the US reveal that unlike its position on Israel, Turkey believes that it has an interest in maintaining its alliance with the US. Its hostile behavior is more a function of perceived US weakness than anything else. That is, Turkey is willing to risk angering the US by undercutting it because it does not fear US retribution.
…
With newspapers running groundless stories about prospects for reconstituting relations with Turkey, we need to recognize that what we are experiencing now is the beginning, not the end, of Turkey's slide into the enemy camp. Erdogan is openly taking steps to transform Turkey into an Islamic state along the lines of Iran. And the further he goes down his chosen path, the more harshly and aggressively he will lash out at Israel.
Given that scapegoating Israel is not a momentary lapse of reason on Turkey's part but a central aspect of a long-term regional strategy, it is clear that Israel needs to meet Turkish aggression with more than momentary courage in the face of intimidation and threats. Israel needs to build on its already successful policy of forming a ring of alliances around Turkey and develop a long-term military and diplomatic strategy for containing and weakening it.

FP: Hey, take this, Shlomo Avineri and your leftist colleagues. Appeasement will get Israel nowhere.

Matt Taibbi: Obama and Jobs: Why I Don't Believe Him Anymore

It's not just that he hasn't done those things. The more important thing is that the people he's surrounded himself with are not labor people, but stooges from Wall Street. Barack Obama has as his chief of staff a former top-ranking executive from one of the most grossly corrupt mega-companies on earth, JP Morgan Chase. He sees Bill Daley in his own office every day, yet when it comes time to talk abut labor issues, he has to go out and make selected visits twice a year or whatever to the Richard Trumkas of the world.
Listening to Obama talk about jobs and shared prosperity yesterday reminded me that we are back in campaign mode and Barack Obama has started doing again what he does best – play the part of a progressive. He's good at it. It sounds like he has a natural affinity for union workers and ordinary people when he makes these speeches. But his policies are crafted by representatives of corporate/financial America, who happen to entirely make up his inner circle.
I just don't believe this guy anymore, and it's become almost painful to listen to him.

FP: (1) there is hardly a difference between the Democratic and Republican parties and its presidents insofar as the corporate welfare state is concerned (2) from the get go Obama was a sheer talker and empty suit. The left deluded itself and got what it deserved, but the whole US is paying the price.