Saturday, October 19, 2013

Brief Note: Turkey

Mike L.


The tidbit below was published by Y-Net.
MK Avigdor Lieberman on Saturday addressed Turkish claims that Israel was behind a Washington Post report that argued that Anakara had disclosed an alleged Israel spy ring to Iran... 
"That Turkish accusation that argues that Israel was behind the (Washington Post) report in bid to avoid paying compensation to the Marmara passengers – as are previous accusations that argued that Israel was behind the riots of Turkish protesters in Taksim Square and Erdogan's claims that he had 'documents and proof' that Israel was behind the Egypt coup that ousted Morsi – is baseless and proves again that Erdogan's Turkey is not interested in improving ties with Israel.
I have not focused much on Turkey over the last few years, finding myself far more interested in the broader rise of political Islam, the ways in which president Obama sought to assist that rise, and how it is playing out between Israel, Egypt, and the United States.

Turkey is an exceedingly important part of this story that I have not focused on.

In the comments beneath the article we have this:
6. Is the idea of Turkey as a regional ally finally at an end? 
Israel would be wise not to cut the Turks in on any of those off-shore gas & oil finds. 
Cameron, USA (10.19.13)
It is the nuances to this question that many people far more knowledgeable on Israeli-Turkish relations than I are endeavoring to figure out.  By all accounts, Turkey has shifted allegiances, in some significant degree, from the West toward Iran.  I am convinced that many western business people who work with Turkish companies, and who are not necessarily up on the politics, are more or less oblivious to this fact.  I draw this conclusion from my conversations with such people and, thus, it is anecdotal.

Nonetheless, if Turkish intelligence gave over the names of Iranians working with Israeli intelligence then this has - or should have - highly significant repercussions concerning relations between the two countries.  What kind of relationship can Israel have with a country that is clearly not an ally or one that does not seem to think that it shares strategic interests with Israel?

I certainly do not have the answers to these questions, but it's becoming more and more clear that The Apology was nothing more than a humiliation that bestowed upon Israel nothing and that may have been forced down Netanyahu's throat by Barack Obama.

2 comments:

  1. It's sad, but if Turkey's 'leader' wants to take his nation back hundreds of years and side with medieval Islamists, then so be it.

    That's their problem, not Israel's.

    Israel should stay concerned with keeping such backward fuckups at bay, outside strong final borders, and continue to produce cultural, technological and economic advances at its current steady pace.

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  2. Erdogan a few a years ago commanded the central bank to issue essentially free money on a wide scale. He had them print the hell out of their money and then spread it around to fuel a consumer consumption spending fury. As long as consumers were buying it sort of worked, until everyone ran out of credit and couldn't borrow enough to service the consumer credit they already owned. Now the central bank is faced with the proposition of borrowing against unsecured debt to service that debt - rolling it over and over with nothing underneath. What they've done is intentionally fueled their own bubble. They have a few basic options here - one is to put the brakes on credit expansion and let inflation skyrocket. Another is to keep feeding the monster all the way to default and depression. One suspects they'll roll out the ever reliable 'Let's incinerate the Jews!' as a response to this. Since Baathism is little more than Nazism and the AKP is a weird confluence of modern Islamic Turkish Nationalist fascism and modern Arab ideological fascism it's clear that in order to stave off the screaming mobs like we saw earlier this year, they will be turning to ever more hysterical calls for war with the Jews. What with their new interest in violating NATO laws by purchasing Chinese weapons systems and sharing whatever technology they have with China and Iran, I would put the odds of Turkey starting a war with Israel at better than 50/50 in the next year.

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