The Israeli recipe for dealing with the world: “If force does not work, use more force.”

Turkey is the Key

By Israel Shamir

 

Bombs go off in Turkey -- a great spree of terrorist bombings and attacks. Practically every day Turkish soldiers and civilians are being killed. The killings are done ostensibly by the Kurd terrorists of the PKK, but in reality it is a new step in Israel’s warfare against Turkish independence. Encouraged by Israel, the PKK has extended its operations to the Aegean and the Black Sea resorts all the way to Izmir.

Israelis have armed, supplied and trained Kurdish terrorists for many years; they have turned Iraqi Kurdistan into their own territory, with many Israeli businessmen going about their affairs while waiting for Kirkuk oil to flow to Haifa as it did in the days of colonial British rule. The Kurds have remained a hidden tool of Israel in the region for many years; their activation now shows that Israel still wants to teach the Turks a lesson.

The main neocon magazine in the US, frontpagemag.com, has openly called for the Kurds to retaliate for Turkey’s support of Palestine. Another Jewish right-wing think-tank speaks of mobilising the US Congress to condemn the one-hundred-year-old Armenian tragedy as a means of undermining Turkey.  After many years of siding with Turkey, the Jewish Lobby has now decided to switch sides and support the Armenian claims. So Turkey is now under attack from all sides. This was to be expected, for the popular Israeli slogan says: “If force does not work, use more force.”

This is the explanation of the Flotilla Massacre on May 31, 2010. The Mavi Marmara attack was intended to be a short, sharp shock to the increasingly independent Turks. The Israelis intended to terrify and frighten them into obedience; this is why they ordered a blood bath on board the Mavi Marmara. As we now know, the Israeli commandos began shooting well before encountering any resistance. They were not there to play softball; submission was what they were after. Murder was not a result of being surprised or of miscalculation: it was an open attack on Turkey.

Israel’s conflict with Turkey was not an unfortunate result of the murderous raid. The confrontation between them became acute two weeks before the massacre, on May 17, 2010. Together with Brazil, Turkey had arranged and signed the Tehran Declaration -- a nuclear fuel swap deal with beleaguered Iran. This declaration could have derailed the US-Israeli plans of sanctioning Iran to death prior to bombing it.

Israel wants Iran destroyed; as much as she wanted Iraq demolished, Gaza starved and the rest cowed. The swap agreement undermined all the logic behind the sanctions. All the plotting of Israeli lobbyists in the US and Europe was wiped out in an instant. Indeed, as the Muslims say: they plot, but Allah plots better.

Israel received the news of the Turkey-Brazil-Iran agreement as a heavy blow. “We were defeated by the crafty Turks and Iranians,” read the headlines of Israeli newspapers. Not so fast! The US State Department minimized the damage, effectively asking: “Who cares what these lowlifes agree about? If we have decided to bomb somebody, bomb we shall. We shall never allow the facts to confuse us.” Thomas Friedman in the NYT was disappointed that “a Holocaust-denying thug” was being allowed to live.

Brazenly disregarding the agreement, the UN Security Council approved the sanctions on June, 9. Moscow and Beijing were bribed or blackmailed to agree. China preferred to play ball in order to avoid confrontation over North Korea. The story of the sunken South Korean ship had provided a pretext for an attack on North Korea, and such an attack could cause much damage to China. The Chinese are also vulnerable to Western meddling in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The Russians have received some precious gifts: the Ukraine was returned to Russia’s fold, Georgia was marginalised, the new nuclear arms treaty was better for Russia than anything they could have expected. At the same time, Moscow suffered a severe terrorist attack, reminding the Russians of their enemies’ ability to seed trouble. Notwithstanding, Turkey voted against the sanctions, proving its new regional role as a reliable new pivot for the Middle East.

The conflict between Turkey and Israel did not start with the Iran swap: it began earlier, in January 2010, when the Israeli deputy Foreign Minister Dani Ayalon invited the Turkish ambassador and publicly humiliated him. In Oriental fashion, Ambassador Chelikkol was offered a seat on a sofa lower the Ayalon’s armchair. Ayalon refused to shake hands with the ambassador and told journalists in Hebrew while the cameras were rolling: “We would like to show that he takes a lower seat and there is only the Israeli flag on the table”.

Or perhaps the conflict began a year earlier, in January 2009, when the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Erdogan was annoyed by the attempt of a Western moderator to cut off his angry response to Israeli president Shimon Peres, who had justified the mass killings in Gaza.

Or perhaps it started in September 2007 when Israeli planes flew over Turkey to bomb Syria without as much as ‘by your leave’.

Perhaps it was even earlier, when Turkey began to assert its independence by discarding its century-old, shop-worn ideology of Kemalism. The secular nationalism of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a trap for the former Empire. Brutish Kemalist Turkey was necessarily a member of NATO, an enemy to Arabs and Iranians, a docile client of the US, a loyal ally of Israel and a persecutor of the Kurds.

Now is the time to thank the Europeans for doing their bit to reform Turkey. In endless negotiations with Turkey, the European Union demanded a release of the Army’s iron grip on power. Without this gentle prompting from Europe, Turkey would still be ruled by a Zionist general or by a Zionist generals’ appointee. With their people freed from military rule, the Turks ended their violent secularism and regained peace with Islam and with their neighbours.

I visited Turkey last Christmas, and met with the activists who were about to depart for Gaza. Turkey is doing well: no economic crisis, steady growth, peace with the Kurds, a brave attempt to make peace with Armenians, and a perfect balance of religion and freedom. Whoever wishes to may go to a beautifully restored Ottoman mosque and pray, or to a café and drink very good Turkish wine. Girls are forced neither to shed their scarves nor to cover their arms.

“We lost Turkey”, said Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defence, and blamed the European Union for refusing to accept Turkey. But we have to thank the Europeans for this refusal. We do not want Turkey in the EU; we need Turkey for ourselves, for the region.

There is a great new plan for creating an Eastern Union as a regional equivalent of the European Union. This is the right place for Turkey, at the head of this new formation. In a way, it will be restoration of the Ottoman Empire -- to the same extent that the European Union is a restoration of Charlemagne’s empire. The difference is that Europe was fragmented for centuries, while our region was united until 1917. Even if full political union is a distant prospect, this is good start on the way to this worthy goal.

There are already free-trade treaties between Turkey and its Arab neighbours; the spiritual dimension is there, for Istanbul was the last seat of the Caliphate and the see of Constantinople Patriarchate. Now Turkey may establish a regional International Court to deal with regional problems -- among others, with Zionist excesses. Europe is still not free from Zionist control and that is why the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court in The Hague are unsuitable places to try Zionist criminals. Moreover, their present location recalls the Eurocentric world of yesterday. A regional court may also convincingly deal with war criminals in occupied Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. Great lawyers like Richard Falk and Judge Goldstone could be invited to sit in it.

The establishment of the International Court (East) would be a serious and realistic step towards further decolonization of the region and its future unification in an Eastern Union.

However, the Eastern Union will be as different from the Ottoman Empire as the European Union differs from the Third Reich, that previous attempt to unite Europe. It will be a voluntary union of sovereign states, where they all will preserve their unique cultures and traditions, a good neighbour to united Europe, to Russia, Iran and China.

 Looking beyond the Middle East

The Union could peacefully spread well beyond the Middle East as well, reuniting its natural territories from Gibraltar to Danube. This natural territory was formed a long time ago, in the fourth century, when the mighty Roman Empire was divided into the Western Empire with its capital in Rome, and the Eastern Empire, or Byzantium, with its capital in Constantinople, as Istanbul was then called. The Byzantine Empire became the Ottoman Empire in 1456. Still, it is the same ‘great space’, the same united large civilisation of Muslims and Eastern Christians. People of Turkey and Greece, Serbia and Egypt have the same attitudes, they share their common values, they are more religious than their Western brethren, they object to the Western colonisation, American imperialism and Israeli Zionism.

The rising West could not vanquish the united East; so in order to colonise its lands, the West has tempted the nations with a futile dream of independence. This mirage of independence was but a trap: the new “liberated independent” countries became subjects of Western rule. We may compare that with a human body: if our arms and legs will become independent of our mind, they won’t manage well. Indeed all members of the single body, the Ottoman Empire, do not function well after the amputation, or independence, forced upon them.

That was the case with the Arabs during World War I. The Arab Revolt was brought forth by Lawrence of Arabia, a great agent of British intelligence. The Arab lands became much more dependent than they ever were, and now they are ruled by a plethora of sheiks, stooges and dictators. The only democratic regime in the whole Arab world is unhappy, besieged Gaza.

However, the Arabs were not the only victims of these Western policies. The British intrigues had caused Greece’s independence in early 19^th century, and afterwards rivers of blood and transfers had made this separation complete. But Greece is not at home in the EU, just as Greece of old was not at home in the Empire ruled from Rome. The recent financial crisis has proven it again: Greece’s roots and destiny are in the East.

No sane person would suggest that Greece should be incorporated in Turkey. Equally, none would suggest France be incorporated in Germany. However, France joined Germany to form the EU, and Greece may join Turkey to create the Eastern Union, eventually to embrace other Muslim and Orthodox Balkan provinces of the Byzantines, namely Albania and Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, even Romania and Georgia. All these countries may find the Eastern Union more suitable than the European one.

The Eastern Union may reach other countries and former provinces that were torn away and colonised by the Europeans in the 19^th century. Algeria is a country that needs this reconnection most of all, as this oil-rich land is run by a bunch of secular anti-religious and pro-Western generals just like Turkey was until ten years ago. Morocco with its outdated and unsuccessful monarchy that combines systematic torture of dissidents with abject Zionism, maverick Libya and fragile Tunis also need a broader framework which would not cancel out but instead reinforce their sovereignty.

The Eastern Union could also establish an area of joint interests with the Russians over the Caucasus. Russians have a problem over there: separation of these Russian provinces is too dangerous as it is likely to bring the hostile forces of NATO into Russia’s backyard. Keeping them against the population’s will is an expensive and unpopular policy. A Russian attempt to grant independence in all but name to Chechnya misfired as the small country immediately turned its territory into a base of armed raids into Russia proper. The Eastern Union could put paid to these insurgencies and bring peace and stability to the turbulent Caucasus. In return, the Union may recognise Russian interests in the Christian Orthodox sites.

  Palestine will become a crown jewel of the Eastern Union. Demise of colonialism will end Zionism as well, for after all, Zionism would never win ground without European imperialist support. The Christians, Jews and Muslims of Palestine will have equal rights and duties in the Holy Land, forever free from political ambitions and ethnic rivalry.