#Kerry's claim of #Turkish ‘sensitivity’ astonishes #Israelis

By HERB KEINON

Israeli official tells 'Post' Secretary of state apparently did not read Turkey’s press reaction reports following PM Netanyahu's apology over the 2010 flotilla incident; says reports included gloating.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, April 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters

Israeli officials expressed astonishment on Sunday that US Secretary of State John Kerry praised Turkey for responding “sensitively” and without triumphalism to Israel’s apology for the Mavi Marmara incident.
“They have taken steps to try to prevent any sense of triumphalism,” Kerry said at a press conference on Sunday with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “It has not come from the government. In fact, there has been limited response by the government itself and I think it’s important for everybody to take note of that.”
“What country is he talking about?” one Israeli official responded. “I’m afraid the State Department did not show the secretary of state the press reports from Turkey following the apology.”

The official said those reports were full of interviews and statements by both Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Davutoglu and other government ministers gloating over the apology, which was for operational errors committed that may have led to a loss of life on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010. Nine Turks were killed when Israel Navy commandos, trying to keep the ship from breaking the blockade of the Gaza Strip, were attacked by those on board.
The Israeli perception that Erdogan was indeed rubbing Jerusalem’s nose in the apology led Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the seven-person security cabinet, to write on his Facebook page five days after the apology that “it seems that since the apology, Erdogan is doing everything to make Israel regret it. He is running a personal and vitriolic campaign at the expense of Israeli- Turkish relations.”
Soon after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s apology to Erdogan in a phone call brokered by US President Barack Obama during his visit here, Erdogan, according to the Anadolu news agency, told supporters Israel may have mistakenly thought the Mavi Marmara incident would be forgotten.
The Israeli perception that Erdogan was indeed rubbing Jerusalem’s nose in the apology led Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the seven-person security cabinet, to write on his Facebook page five days after the apology that “it seems that since the apology, Erdogan is doing everything to make Israel regret it. He is running a personal and vitriolic campaign at the expense of Israeli- Turkish relations.”
Soon after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s apology to Erdogan in a phone call brokered by US President Barack Obama during his visit here, Erdogan, according to the Anadolu news agency, told supporters Israel may have mistakenly thought the Mavi Marmara incident would be forgotten.
But this time, he was quoted as saying, “the Israelis met with a different understanding and structure. The AK Party government did not remain silent against this illegality, aggressiveness and massacre.”
He went on to add, “The Israeli apology was important in remembering the martyrs of Turkey and those of Palestine.”
Billboards sponsored by the Ankara Municipality appeared within a day of the apology, reading, “Israel apologized to Turkey. Dear prime minister, we are grateful that you let our country experience this pride.”
The words were superimposed over pictures of a confident Erdogan and a tired, gloomy looking Netanyahu.
Fresh in the blush of the apology, Erdogan also announced immediately afterward that he was going to visit Gaza and the West Bank with Turkish relief organizations. He was also quoted by the Hurriyet Daily News as telling parliament that the apology changed the overall equation in the Middle East.
“The point we have arrived at as a result of our consultations with all our brothers in Palestine and peripheral countries is increasing our responsibility with regard to solving the Palestinian question and thus is bringing about a new equation,” he was quoted as saying.
Davutoglu hosted a dinner at his residence for the family members of those killed in the incident, as well as some officials of the radical Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) that was behind the flotilla.
One of IHH’s leaders was investigated by the Turkish government in 2012 for funding al-Qaida, and that same year the NGO was banned by Germany for its connections to Hamas.
“Please make yourselves at home,” said Davutoglu. “This is your home as well. Their blood will not remain on the floor. Nothing is no longer the same,” stated the foreign minister, according to the website of the Turkish paper Sabah.
If all that, and more that appeared in the Turkish press, “was not triumphalism, then I don’t know what is,” one Israeli official said.
Kerry, meanwhile, urged Turkey and Israel to restore full relations, calling this vital to regional stability, but said it was not up to Washington to dictate the conditions of rapprochement.
Kerry said it was imperative for Israel to honor its commitment to pay compensation to the families of those killed on the Mavi Marmara, and for both countries to return their ambassadors.
“With respect to the Israel- Turkey track, it is not for the United States to be setting conditions or terms,” Kerry told reporters alongside Davutoglu.
“We would like to see this relationship that is important to stability in the Middle East, critical to the peace process itself – we would like to see this relationship get back on track in its full measure,” he said.
To do so, said Kerry, “it is imperative that the compensation component of the agreement be fulfilled, that the ambassadors be returned and that full relationship be embraced, but it’s not up to us to discuss the timing.”
One thing that Kerry did not mention was Ankara’s boast afterward that Israel had agreed to lift the blockade of Gaza.
Israel made no such pledge.
An Israeli delegation is expected to arrive in Turkey this week to begin discussing the details of the compensation agreement. Neither country has said, however, when their ambassadors would go back, though the Turkish press speculated this could occur as early as the end of June.

Reuters contributed to this report.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

Jordanian King #Abdullah: PM #Erdogan views democracy as ‘bus ride,’ | #Atatürk #Jordan #Turkey #Islam #Morsi

Jordanian King Abdullah: PM Erdogan views democracy as ‘bus ride,’. (HD)(Other) Jordanian King Abdullah II has criticized Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying the prime minister views democracy as a “bus ride.”
Erdoğan is merely promoting a softer version of Islamism, the king told the Atlantic magazine in an interview. “Erdoğan once said that democracy, for him, is a bus ride,” King Abdullah said. “‘Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off,’ [Erdoğan said].” King Abdullah paid a two-day official visit to Turkey earlier this month, where he shed tears as he visited Anıtkabir, the mausoleum dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey.
The King sees Erdoğan as a more restrained and savvier version of Mohamed Morsi, according to the interview. “Instead of the Turkish model, taking six or seven years, [instead of] being an Erdoğan, Morsi wanted to do it overnight,” the King said.
“There is no depth there,” Abdullah reportedly told the Atlantic of he and Morsi’s discussion on Hamas. “I was trying to explain to him how to deal with Hamas, how to get the peace process moving, and he was like, ‘The Israelis will not move.’ I said, ‘Listen, whether the Israelis move or don’t move, it’s how we get Fatah and Hamas ‘together.’” When Morsi remained fixated on the Israelis, the King said, he tried to reiterate the importance of sorting out “the mess” on the Palestinian side.
“There’s no depth to the guy,” he repeated of Morsi. Hmmmm......The Islam 'Light' will just as well get to the same result, Morsi and Erdogan are not that different.Read the full story here.

King Abdullah doing Obama's dirty work, but both of them are king over an elite aristocracy.

Turkey’s PM slams popular TV series for tarnishing Ottoman history.

Turkey’s PM slams popular TV series for tarnishing Ottoman history.(HD).A historical Turkish TV series has distorted Ottoman history, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reported as saying by a news agency on Monday. “The Magnificent Century” chronicles the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled the Ottoman Empire in its golden age, has gained popularity in the Arab World, but according to Erdogan, the series has tarnished the image of the 16th century longest-reigning Ottoman emperor, Sultan Suleiman, Anadolu Agency reported Erdogan saying. “These are not our ancestors who have been portrayed in this TV series,” he said during the inauguration of an airport in Kutahya Province, 190 miles west of the capital Ankara. In the TV series, scenes which have particularly offended show a young and lusty sultan cavorting in the harem and drinking goblets of wine. These pursuits were frowned upon by the Muslim faithful for whom the sultan had religious as well as temporal authority. “We live in a seven-billion-people strong world and we know our role. We go to every place that our ancestors reached on their horsebacks, and we care about these regions,” he added. During the emperor’s reign, the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith, he said. “He spent 30 years of his life on the horseback, fighting wars and conquering cities.” The prime minister said he is pursuing a legal case against the TV directors of the Turkish drama. Read the full story here.

via mfs-theothernews.com

WHERE IS AMERICA'S LOYALTY?

Back stabbed. cuckolded?“There is an exuberant atmosphere of narcissism rampant amongst the close advisors of Erdogan. They all believe if Turkey attacked Israel, the United States will stand by Turkey”. Obama to Erdogan: 'We'll defend Turkey before we defend Israel'?

the Obama Administration (who's your bitch?)

Turkey's Religious Leader Gülen and his Opposition to the Flotilla

Gülen said that if Turkey wanted to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Turkish government should have coordinated this with the Israeli authorities, because "one must not go against authority."
What does this mean? Although both Gülen and the current Turkish Islamist government agree on many Islamic subjects, they disagree on very basic issues:
President Gül, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu, and to some extent Prime Minister Erdoğan, have views very similar to those of the Arab-Oriented Muslim Brotherhood; so it is therefore not surprising that many Arabs, as a result of the Flotilla crisis, are now looking toward Turkey as their leader. Strange as this may seem, they see Prime Minister Erdoğan's Flotilla Incident as standing up for the Arabs as no other Arab leader has done. (For more Arab reactions to the Flotilla Crisis, See, http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4383.htm).
Gülen, on the other hand, is Turkish and Turkic-Oriented. Gülen has huge amounts of funds at his disposal; he finances schools throughout the Turkic lands of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as Europe and the U.S.. These schools teach a "Turkish/Turkic-oriented Islam," which has little concern for the Arab world. It is therefore obvious why so many ultra-nationalist Turks -- some of whom want a union of all Turks from Northwestern China to the Adriatic Sea -- support Gülen. These Turks have little interest in the Arabs; they see the Flotilla crisis as actually hurting the interests of the Turks.

via hudson-ny.org

There are many forces in play in Turkey that could undermine the Arabist government as of late.

The Reaction of the Turkish Military

Early last week, there was an attack on a Turkish naval installation in the port of Iskenderun on Turkey's southern coast. Erdoğan blamed this attack on the PKK (a Kurdish terrorist organization), and insinuated that Israel was behind this attack. The military launched an investigation of the attack, and issued a statement on Friday, June 20, that there had been no foreign involvement whatever in that incident.
What happened here, and what does this tell us about the flotilla crisis and internal Turkish politics?
Until this announcement, the Turkish military had been notably silent about the flotilla incident. The reason for the silence was that they knew the government was looking for a scapegoat to blame for the negative fallout from the flotilla crisis -- and that the military would be the obvious group to blame.
The public, however, interpreted the military's silence as disapproval of the government's having created the crisis.
By issuing the statement that there had been no foreign involvement, the military showed it felt confident that the Turkish public was holding Erdoğan, Davutoğlu, and their cronies responsible for the flotilla blunder: The military was indirectly accusing the government of lying to the people about the facts.
The military reaction is just one more indication that the Turkish public feels that its governmental leaders are heading Turkey down a dangerous path. Further, given Turkish culture, it is also highly unlikely that the military would have issued such a statement if it thought that the government had the support of the people.

via hudson-ny.org

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