Daled Amos
There is, of course, no mention by Tan of the origins and nature of the Turkish “peace” group that organized the gambit. Only in passing does the ambassador mention the rallying cries of the protestors (e.g., “Whatever the aid carriers may have chanted in opposition to Israel, this was a humanitarian initiative.”), after failing to note the chants, in fact, included both calls for a new holocaust (“Shut up, go back to Auschwitz” ) and glee about Americans killed on 9/11 (“Don’t forget 9/11″).For that matter the double standard, not surprisingly, extends way past Turkey:
If anyone might be offering apologies, it should be Ambassador Tan, or at least an explanation for why a ship left a Turkish port headed for a planned confrontation. A ship, it should be added, staffed in large part by the Insani Yardim Vakfi organization, which according to American and European intelligence chiefs is a terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaeda — an apparent conclusion that formerly a Turkish government used to share when it periodically raided the IHH’s compounds.
But on a larger point, the sanctimonious tone of Tan’s piece is depressing.
Turkey currently quite illegally and against world opinion sponsors the occupation of Cyprus. Nicosia is a far more divided city than Jerusalem. The Turkish government has killed far more Turkish Kurds than the Israeli government has Palestinians; it has zero tolerance for foreign human rights organizations that have wished to investigate the treatment of Kurds in Turkish prisons. Turkish fighter aircraft are not always so careful to stay on their side of the Aegean.
As far as the request that Americans pressure Israel, that is an odd wish from a society that continually broadcasts gruesome anti-American serials on its television channels, and now has chosen to reach out (far more even than the Obama administration) to the terrorist-sponsoring regimes in Teheran and Damascus that are responsible for a number of American deaths in Iraq. When Turkey has felt its own security threatened, it has had no problem with warning of an invasion of Syria or crossing Iraqi borders. Demands don’t work well in the Turkish-American relationship, as we remember from the U.S. House of Representatives’ request that the Turkish government offer some sort of regret for the genocide of the Armenians — a declaration that outraged the present Turkish government. Ambassador Tan evokes history, particularly the Ottomans and World War II, to cement his argument of past Turkish tolerance. Some of us who study Mediterranean history are not quite impressed by either the human rights record of the Ottoman sultanate or the Turkish role in the second World War, especially the German-Turkish friendship pact of June 1941, days before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. My problem is that when I travel abroad, whether in Vienna, Cyprus, or old Smyrna, I am reminded of a different sort of past.
Yes, yes, I know — faulting Israel is hardly anti-Semitism. But note the obsessive focus on Israel, especially from the left. So take any issue: occupied land? Why do we not evoke Ossetia, Tibet, or Cyprus? Or for that matter Prussia?Read the whole thing.
Take a divided city? How about Nicosia?
Take disproportionate force? Try the leveling of Grozny?
Targeted killing? Our own Predators have killed more than Israeli air attacks.
The killing of Muslims? India and China trump Israel.
Wait — the issue is U.S. aid? OK, are we “shocked” that Egypt gets billions and harasses human rights activists, stifles democracy, and tortures its own?
No, the issue is blockading Gaza? So Turkish and European flotillas are off the Egyptian coast?
No, no, the problem is the detention of third parties in international waters? So President Obama has ended, as promised, rendition (remember the movie?)? Hardly.
Yes, the Arabs have hundreds of millions, Israel seven. Yes, they have oil, the Israelis none. Yes, libel a Jew and it’s cute, libel the prophet and go into hiding. And yes, Israel is a surrogate often for anti-Americanism. But all that said, it is still strange that so many Westerners focus such antipathy and attention on Israel over precisely the topics that they otherwise ignore in other countries.
At this point, it is not strange at all--just business as usual.
