Israel

[JaiDee]

Can we get this thread pinned, please??

[Bumpa STIKKA]

There is a blockade in pinning threads...

[guydesavoy]

(f0xxee @ Jun. 05 2010,17:17) Claim national security and who can argue?

Exactly. NFF.

[Stewart]

Stratfor, while having worthwhile articles frequently backs the Israeli position on everything. The above came from
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly....opinion

What a surprise. If something does not agree with your opinion, it is, of course, biased and wrong.

Stratfor does not "take a position" - they offer a geopolitical analysis of various events and situations around the world, and make predictions about what might happen, again at a strategic, geopolitical level.

I can't think of a least biased source of information and analysis (not just news) that I subscribe to than these guys.

They don't say any particular group or government is right or wrong - they try to explain why that group or government take certain actions or adopt certain positions.

5 days before the incident, on the 26th May, they published this article:


WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2010 STRATFOR.COM
A Potential Turkish-Israeli Crisis and Its International Implications

A MINOR DEVELOPMENT WITH FAR-REACHING implications occurred Tuesday. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip and allow a flotilla belonging to Insani Yardim Vakfi (Humanitarian Aid Association), a Turkish, religious non-governmental organization (NGO), to fulfill its mission of providing supplies to Palestinians. Earlier, the organization, which possibly has ties to Turkey€™s ruling Justice & Development Party (AKP), had rejected Israel€™s offer to have the supplies delivered via Israeli territory.

Turkey is in the process of trying to stage a comeback as a great power €” a pursuit that has tremendous implications for the alliance it has had with Israel for more than six decades. In fact, Turkey on the path of resurgence means it has to take a critical stance toward Israel, because Ankara needs to re-establish itself as the hegemon in the Middle East and the leader of the wider Islamic world. This would explain Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan€™s scathing and loud criticism of Israel at Davos after the last Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which led to a significant deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations.

The Turks are apparently sensing an opportunity to try and push Israel into a difficult situation. At the same time, they are trying to take advantage of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. While the NGO may have ties to the ruling AKP, there is no evidence to suggest that the move to run the blockade is being organized by the government. The emerging scenario, however, makes for a potentially serious international scene with an outcome €” whatever way €” that could benefit Turkey.

If Israeli forces interdict the ship, Turkey can go on the diplomatic offensive against Israel and rally widespread condemnation against the nation. The rising tensions could get the United States involved. Given the United States€™ dependence on Turkey, the Turks could force Washington to take sides, placing the United States in the difficult position of opposing Ankara. Alternatively, forcing the Israelis to allow the flotilla to complete its mission would be a major victory for the Turks. It would enhance Turkey€™s international standing as a leader and a rising power.

€œThe Turks are apparently sensing an opportunity to try and push Israel into a difficult situation.€

While the emerging situation presents itself as a win-win situation for Turkey, it places Israel in an extremely difficult situation, regardless of how it deals with the flotilla. Should the Israelis decide to prevent the ship from making its delivery, they risk global criticism and further deterioration of relations with Turkey. They also risk further complicating matters with the United States at a time when U.S.-Israeli relations are going through a rough period, and when Washington needs Ankara to resolve multiple regional issues. On the other hand, if the Israelis decide to avoid the diplomatic fallout and allow the ship to sail to its destination, that is tantamount to going on the defensive vis-a-vis the nation€™s security €” something that Israel has never done.

At a time when Israel€™s relations with the United States are already uneasy because of diverging regional interests between Iran and the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu€™s government does not want to have to engage in any further action that exacerbates its tensions with U.S. President Barack Obama€™s administration. This desire notwithstanding, the Turkish ship, which has already set sail for the Gaza coast, is creating a situation where the Israelis don€™t have the option of not doing anything. This scenario has taken on a life of its own €” far beyond the original intent of the players involved.

[BlueBallz]

Last night I even heard our esteemed Professor, OOOOPS, I mean President refer the the "thousands of rockets that have rained down on Israel". Either he a)Isnt a smart as some of you lot think b) Is a puppet for Israel and is dumb enough to believe all the "propaganda c) That perfidious Jewish lobby in DC got to him. Hummm... food for thought.

BTW The Turkish PM, who is CLEARLY attempting to consolidate his power in Turkey, says Hamas is not a terrorist organization.

[BlueBallz]

Why dont people mention that fact that EGYPT clearly support this blockade and have sealed off its own border. In fact they plan on building a fence!! Egypt is shitting pickles wth Hamas right on its doorstep. They are afraid that it will spread to their own country and the radicals will take over a la Iran. Those dictators in Cairo want NO PART of that world.....

[whore]

I found your last two posts of the political side of things to be pretty damn accurate.

[guydesavoy]

Welcome to the Jungle    

(and someone did mention it was an Israeli/Egypt blockade a few pages back   ...)

[Tomcat]

(BlueBallz @ Jun. 05 2010,19:51) Egypt is shitting pickles wth Hamas right on its doorstep.  They are afraid that it will spread to their own country and the radicals will take over a la Iran.  

Spot on BB

You only have to read between the lines in some of the quality newspapers to realise that with the balance of power shifting to China and India and with the forthcoming turmoil in Europe it would not be surprising if some kind of major conflict or War breaks out within the next three years perhaps as a diversion for the Wests economic woes.. We have been here before i think.

Sooner or later the Israelis are going to bomb the shit out of Iran, this is not in doubt, and we have to see what happens after that. Maybe not the third world war but i can tell you that talk amongst the chattering classes leads me to think that if you think the second world war was the very last then maybe you had better think again.

[BlueBallz]

We all know Iran has, recently, been trying to become the "Big Kahuna" (sorry Kahuna) in the Muslim world. It seems to me that Turkey is vying for that position as well. Perhaps it is trying to be a partner to Iran in gaining the title of "Big Dogs" in the Muslim world. The Turkish PM is trying to recreate, rebirth, the greatness of the Ottoman Empire. How did it all work out the FIRST time?? Any Armenians amongst us???

[guydesavoy]

Cher is the only surviving Armenian possibly interested in LB forums.

[f0xxee]

Yosarian would have been interested were he not a fictional character.

[Torurot]

Egypt builds the iron wall (~20m deep) or it looses $UD2 billion per year in "aid" which is used to prop up the Egyptian dictators friends and family.

[Harry Lime]

Israel had no other choice
By Christopher Caldwell - Published: June 4 2010

€œBotched€ and €œstupid€ are adjectives that have been applied all week to the events of Monday, when Israeli soldiers killed nine passengers and wounded dozens more on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish flagship of a six-boat convoy. The boats, sponsored by a Turkish charity with ties to Islamist radicalism, had a humanitarian objective: to deliver aid to Gazan ports. But as the flotilla leaders themselves acknowledged, they also had a military one: to break the blockade of Gaza that Israel imposed in 2007. When participants in a conflict blur the line between civilians and combatants, good options disappear. Under the circumstances, the raid was neither stupid nor botched. It successfully repelled an attack on Israel€™s borders, albeit at considerably higher cost than Israel would have wished.

There is a blockade of Gaza because Hamas, the Islamist party that runs Gaza, wants Israel destroyed. In recent years, it has launched thousands of rockets at cities in the Israeli south. One can argue over whether quarantining Hamas is wise, reasonable, proportionate or effective. But this is a separate question from whether Israel has the right to enforce a blockade in a war zone. Those complaining loudest about the Israeli raid tend to mix the two up and to say that because a) Israeli€™s blockade of Gaza is unjust, and b) the passengers of the Mavi Marmara oppose the blockade of Gaza, therefore c) in any encounter between Israel and the passengers of the Mavi Marmara, Israel is in the wrong and the passengers are in the right. This is an unreasonable viewpoint. It is also a blueprint for escalating violence. Imagine the dangers, if, during the cold war, non-governmental organisations from the Soviet bloc had sailed flotillas into US waters to protest about racial conflict, or into British waters to protest against IRA internment.

Israel has provided evidence that its soldiers were in mortal danger when they abseiled on to the decks of the Mavi Marmara €“ high-quality video footage, which was released within hours. The government has shown that the passengers brought gas masks and had pre-fabricated propaganda videos. The Guardian reports that three of the dead Turkish citizens were seeking €œmartyrdom€ through the operation.

But the intentions of those on the boat €“ whether humanitarian, as the organisers said (publicly), or terroristic, as the Israelis say €“ have nothing to do with the justice or injustice of the raid. Protecting borders is about sovereignty, not sentiment. The fact that, say, a door-to-door evangelist wants to save your soul rather than rob you does not give him the right to enter your house. Where intentions do matter is in assessing the relevance of whether the boat was in Israeli or international waters. The explicitly stated intention of the activists to violate the Israeli blockade almost certainly renders the precise location of the boat less important.

The insistence, even among Israel€™s friends, that Israel behaved stupidly rests on the idea that it had other options. The American journalist Thomas Friedman and the Israeli novelist David Grossman both faulted Israel€™s leaders for not acting more €œcreatively€. But creativity has its limits. A post on foreign affairs website Stratfor.com on May 26, almost a week before the encounter, laid out the alternatives ominously and accurately. Let the boat through, and you have issued an invitation to Iran and others to re-arm Hamas. Stop the boat and you have an €œincident€. In retrospect, Israel sent its soldiers on to the Mavi Marmara too lightly armed (some with paintball guns) for the mob that met them. Yet this was the right decision at the time, made to avoid even accidental violence.

If there is one attitude that some of Israel€™s sincerest friends share with the extremists who have added comments to many of the Mavi Marmara videos on YouTube, it is that perfection and omniscience are both to be expected from the Jewish state. (They should have deployed their Secret Boat-Stopping Machine!) The extremists, though, take perfection to be a precondition of the state€™s legitimacy.

Israel has been held responsible for the actions of others €“ notably, this week, for the deterioration in its relationship with Turkey. This view is promoted cynically by Suat Kiniklioglu, a spokesman for Turkey€™s ruling AK party, who says the incident has €œirrevocably damaged Turkish-Israeli relations at the bilateral level€, and naively by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who warns, €œIsrael€™s storming of a Turkish-flagged vessel in international waters was a huge setback to efforts to win new sanctions on Iran€.

The deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations has proceeded steadily since Recep Tayyip Erdogan brought the AK party to power. Mr Erdogan wants a more Islamic Turkey, and in this he speaks for his country€™s democratic majority. One cannot re-enter the good graces of the Muslim world with a trusting, or neutral, attitude towards Israel. Turkey€™s growing hostility to Israel is a cause, not a consequence, of the Mavi Marmara incident. The promised United Nations investigation will provide a chance to examine the claims of foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu that the NGOs organising the flotilla were beyond Ankara€™s control.

The most alarming thing this week was not the raid. It was the way internet opinion fell in behind activist opinion, and then the opinions of political and journalistic elites fell into line with the web. That Israel has lost the battle for public opinion is unfortunate. More troubling is that that battle was lost before the facts of the case had even emerged.

The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard
.Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010

[guydesavoy]

More troubling is that that battle was lost before the facts of the case had even emerged.