"... Turkish support for Hezbollah had 'out-Arabed the Arabs... '"

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Lake, in the Wash-Times/ here

In October 2000, the government of Turkey had a problem..... The Turks called up Keith Weissman, a senior researcher from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and asked him to intervene. Mr. Weissman said in an interview this week that AIPAC lit up the phones and managed at the last minute — with the help of the State Department — to persuade President Clinton himself to write a letter to Mr. Hastert saying a vote on the resolution would cause strategic damage to U.S. interests......

But the American Jewish community is no longer helping Turkey, after a tumultuous deterioration of ties between Israel and Turkey in the past four years. The government in Ankara last week decried a botched Israeli raid on a Turkish aid flotilla, which claimed at least nine lives, as an act of "state terror." In some ways, the Memorial Day flotilla affair marks an end of Israel's more than 20-year strategic alliance with Turkey, and the resulting support from the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.....

In 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon, its army destroyed training camps affiliated with the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, a terrorist organization responsible for the slayings of Turkish diplomats. Turkey rewarded Israel's counterterrorism operations with increased intelligence ties. The intelligence relationship soon blossomed into full ambassadorial relations, and increased commercial trade and closer military cooperation. In exchange for arms sales from Israel, Turkey allowed the Israeli air force to use Anatolian airspace for training purposes.

The relationship began to sour in the early 2000s with the election of the Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish), which is based on elements of parties that had been banned for Islamism.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said, "It's not completely over. There are still close ties between many in Turkey and the community ........The Turks happen to have a government that is extremist, that has chosen a path that is violative of the past relationship. It has been a steady process, not just related to the most recent incident. This began with the election of this Islamist government in 2002."......

"This started in 2006 when I remember one Israeli diplomat complained that Turkish support for Hezbollah had 'out-Arabed the Arabs,'" Mr. Jacobs said, adding that Turkey's unconditional support for Hamas since 2007, combined with Jewish discomfort with defending the Turks on the Armenian issue, led to a dampening of support.......... "We saw things deteriorating but it did not surface publicly until Davos," Mr. Foxman said. "Until then, the trade continued, the military continued. It did not happen till the Gaza war. My feeling is that Turkey made a geopolitical decision before, but it needed an excuse to turn so dramatically."....

Today, far from being an asset for Turkey, the American Jewish community appears to becoming a potent foe of Turkish interests in Washington.

On Tuesday for example, the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release calling on the State Department to designate the IHH, the Turkish charity that helped organize the free-Gaza flotilla as a foreign terrorist organization. In Turkey, the IHH has been praised as a group of peace activists and humanitarians.

"In terms of the Jewish community and Israel, neither one of us wants to throw it away and hope it is not over," Mr. Foxman said. "But every day there is another provocation. Every day the Turkish government goes out of its way to be insulting to Israel and another link is broken."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 6:07 PM

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