Zionist Crimes: Turkey and Syria could punish Israel -DR. ABDUL RUFF
Zionist Crimes: Turkey and Syria could punish Israel
-DR. ABDUL RUFF
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Ties between Israel and mostly Muslim Turkey have been frosty since 2010, when nine Turks were killed by Israeli commandos who stormed their ship carrying aid to Palestinians in Gaza, under a naval blockade. In recent weeks, there has been a run of reports in the Turkish and Israeli press about efforts to repair relations, including a senior diplomatic meeting earlier this month in Rome and military equipment transfers.
The Zionist terrorist cum fanatic movement was the main force behind the establishment of the state of Israel.
Recently, maybe as a pure gimmick, fascist Israel's fanatic prime minister B. Netanyahu accused his Turkey of making a "dark and false" statement by calling Zionism a crime against humanity - a comment likely to hit efforts to repair ties between the two former allies.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's statement, made at a U.N. meeting in Vienna, was also condemned by the head of Europe's main Mossad rabbinical group who called it a "hateful attack" on Jews. "Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become impossible not to see Islamophobia as a crime against humanity," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said at the Civilizationss forum, according to Turkish media reports.
The reports have not been confirmed by either government. No one was immediately available from Turkey's foreign ministry to comment on the new criticism from the rabbis or from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A statement from the Israeli premier's office said he "strongly condemns (Erdogan's) statement about Zionism and its comparison to Nazism." "This is a dark and false pronouncement the likes of which we thought had passed into history," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
Pinchas Goldschmidt, chief rabbi of Moscow and the head of the Conference of European Rabbis, said Erdogan's criticism of Zionism amounted to anti-Semitism. "This is an ignorant and hateful attack on the Jewish people and against a movement with peace at its core, which relegates Prime Minster Erdogan to the level of (Iranian President) Mahmoud Ahmadinejadand, to Soviet leaders who used anti-Zionism as a euphemism for anti-Semitism," Goldschmidt said in an emailed statement. "The irony of these comments will not be lost on the families of those slaughtered during the Armenian genocide, a crime still not recognized by the Turkish government," he added.
The Conference of European Rabbis is an umbrella group of 700 religious leaders in Europe, where an estimated 1,7 millions Jewish people live. About 17,000 Jews live in Turkey, a country of 76 million people.
Zionist Armenians accuse Ottoman Turks of committing an orchestrated campaign of massacres against Christian Armenians during World War One. Turkey, which was established as a republic after the Ottoman Empire collapsed, denies those killings were genocide and says both sides lost lives in internecine fighting during the chaos of war.
With US backing, Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the strategic plateau in a move not recognized by the international community.
Meanwhile, Syria is protesting a recent decision by Israel to go ahead with a gas exploration project in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau it captured from Syria in the 1967 war. In letters sent to the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. secretary general Thursday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry called the decision a "blatant violation" of U.N. resolutions and Syria's sovereignty. On Feb. 21, Israel said it had issued a permit for the American-Israeli company Genie Energy to drill for oil on the plateau.
Syria alleges that Israel is trying to consecrate its occupation of Syrian territory and steal its resources.
The United States would back Israel militarily if the Mideast ally were to attack Iran in self-defense, a bipartisan group of Republican-democratic senators said Thursday in introducing a forceful resolution. "No one wants another conflict anywhere in the world militarily, but we also don't want a nuclear-capable Iran," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at a news conference.
The resolution says that if Israel is "compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military and economic support to the government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people and existence." It says that nothing in the measure should be considered an authorization for the use of military force or a declaration of war.
The resolution also strongly endorses unilateral penalties against Iran. The measure comes as world powers met in Kazakhstan and proposed concessions to Tehran to maintain diplomatic channels that aim to rein in Iran's nuclear program.
Iran insists that program is geared toward peaceful purposes such as generating electricity and producing nuclear medical radioisotopes for medical use. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said he hopes for real progress toward a negotiated solution, but "we will not talk for talking sake."
"This is not a green light to Israel to do anything other than defend itself. ... We will be there," Graham said. Joining Menendez and Graham were Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Hoeven, R-N.D., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. The group hopes to pass the resolution before President Barack Obama's expected trip to Israel in March.