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Posts Tagged ‘Caroline Glick’

With friends like these

by Mojambo ( 40 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, France, Iran, Israel, Palestinians at November 14th, 2011 - 8:30 am

Well it was inevitable that Miss Glick would comment on the Obama-Sarkozy insults against Netanyahu and you knew her analysis would involve a masterful take-down of those two light-weight clowns. And do not be mistaken, the hostility is not directed against Netanyahu (despite the liberals in American and Israel trying to spin it that way) but against the State of Israel altogether. That is why even when you have utter wimps like the execrable Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak running the country, the pressure and the demonization never cease.

by Caroline Glick

The slurs against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voiced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama after last week’s G20 summit were revealing as well as repugnant.

Thinking no one other than Obama could hear him, Sarkozy attacked Netanyahu, saying, “I can’t stand to see him anymore, he’s a liar.”

Obama responded by whining, “You’re fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.”

These statements are interesting both for what they say about the two presidents’ characters and for what they say about the way that Israel is perceived by the West more generally.

To understand why this is the case it is necessary to first ask, when has Netanyahu ever lied to Sarkozy and Obama? This week the UN International Atomic Energy Agency’s report about Iran’s nuclear weapons program made clear that Israel – Netanyahu included – has been telling the truth about Iran and its nuclear ambitions all along. In contrast, world leaders have been lying and burying their heads in the sand.

Since Iran’s nuclear weapons program was first revealed to the public in 2004, Israel has provided in-depth intelligence information proving Iran’s malign intentions to the likes of Sarkozy, Obama and the UN. And for seven years, the US government – Obama included – has claimed that it lacked definitive proof of Iran’s intentions.

Obama wasted the first two years of his administration attempting to charm the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program. He stubbornly ignored the piles of evidence presented to him by Israel that Iran was not interested in cutting a deal.

[…]

Israel, including Netanyahu, was telling the truth.

So if Netanyahu never lied about Iran, what might these two major world leaders think he lies about? Why don’t they want to speak with him anymore? Could it be they don’t like the way he is managing their beloved “peace process” with the Palestinians? The fact is that the only times Netanyahu has spoken less than truthfully about the Palestinians were those instances when he sought to appease the likes of Obama and Sarkozy. Only when Netanyahu embraced the false claims of the likes of Obama and Sarkozy that it is possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River could it be said that he made false statements.

Because the truth is that Israel never had a chance of achieving peace with the Palestinians.

And the reason this has always been the case has nothing to do with Netanyahu or Israel.

THERE WAS never any chance for peace because the Palestinians have no interest in making peace with Israel. As the West’s favorite Palestinian “moderate,” Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Egypt’s Dream TV on October 23, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I will never recognize the ‘Jewishness’ of the State [of Israel] or a ‘Jewish state.’” That is, Abbas will never make peace with Israel.

Acknowledging this, on Tuesday Netanyahu reportedly told his colleagues that through their recent actions, the Palestinians have abrogated the foundations of the peace process. As he put it, “By boycotting negotiations and by going instead to the United Nations [to achieve independent statehood], they [the Palestinians] have reneged on a central tenet of Oslo.”

[…]

So why do the likes of Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu? Why is he “a liar?” Why don’t they pour out their venom on Abbas, who really does lie to them on a regular basis? The answer is because they prefer to blame Israel rather than acknowledge that their positive assessments of the Palestinians are nothing more than fantasy.

And they are not alone. The Western preference for fantasy over reality was given explicit expression by former US president Bill Clinton in September.

In an ugly diatribe against Netanyahu at his Clinton Global Initiative Conference, Clinton insisted that the PA under Abbas was “pro-peace” and that the only real obstacle to a deal was Netanyahu. Ironically, at the same time Clinton was attacking Israel’s leader for killing the peace process, Abbas was at the UN asking the Security Council to accept as a full member an independent Palestine in a de facto state of war with Israel.

So, too, while Clinton was blaming him for the failure of the peace process, Netanyahu was at the UN using his speech to the General Assembly to issue yet another plea to Abbas to renew peace talks with Israel.

Clinton didn’t exhaust his ammunition on Netanyahu. He saved plenty for the Israeli people as well. Ignoring the inconvenient fact that the Palestinians freely elected Hamas to lead them, Clinton provided his audience with a bigoted taxonomy of the Israeli public through which he differentiated the good, “pro-peace Israelis,” from the bad, “anti-peace,” Israelis.

As he put it, “The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there; third, the Ashkenazis of longstanding, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel’s founding.”

[…]

BY RANKING the worthiness of Israel’s citizens in accordance with whether or not they agree with Clinton and his friends, Clinton was acting in line with what has emerged as standard operating practice of Israel’s “friends” in places such as Europe and the US. Like Clinton, they too think it is their right to pick and choose which Israelis are acceptable and which are unworthy.

On Wednesday we saw this practice put into play by British Ambassador Matthew Gould. This week the Knesset began deliberations on a bill that would prohibit foreign governments and international agencies from contributing more than NIS 20,000 to Israeli nongovernmental organizations. The bill was introduced by Likud MK Ofir Okunis with Netanyahu’s support.

According to Haaretz, Gould issued a thinly veiled threat to Okunis related to the bill. Gould reportedly said that if the bill is passed, it would reflect badly on Israel in the international community.

Last month, Makor Rishon published a British government document titled, “NGOs in the Middle East Funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”

The document showed that in 2010, outside of Iraq, the British government gave a total of £100,000 to pro-democracy NGOs throughout the Arab world.

In contrast to Britain’s miserly attitude towards Arab civil society organizations, Her Majesty’s Government gave more than £600,000 pounds to farleftist Israeli NGOs. These Israeli groups included the Economic Cooperation Foundation, Yesh Din, Peace Now, Ir Amim and Gisha. All of these groups are far beyond Israeli mainstream opinion.

[…]

So for every pound Britain forked out to cultivate democracy in 20 Arab non-democracies, it spent £6 to undermine democracy in Israel – the region’s only democracy.

And the British couldn’t be more pleased with the return on their investment. Speaking to Parliament last year, Britain’s Minister of Middle East Affairs Alistair Burt said the money has successfully changed Israeli policies. As he put it, “Since we began supporting these programs some significant changes have been made in the Israeli justice system, both civilian and military, and in the decisions they make. They have also raised a significant debate about these matters and we believe these activities will strengthen democracy in Israel.”

[…]

These shockingly hostile statements echo one made by then-presidential candidate Obama from the campaign trail in February 2008. At the time Obama said, “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a[n] unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

Scarcely a day goes by when some foreign leader, commentator or activist doesn’t say that being pro-Israel doesn’t mean being pro-Israeli government. And like Obama’s campaign-trail statement, Clinton’s diatribe, Sarkozy and Obama’s vile gossip about Netanyahu and Britain’s self-congratulatory declarations and veiled threats, those who make a distinction between the Israeli people and the Israeli government ignore two important facts.

First, Israel is a democracy. Its governments reflect the will of the Israeli people and therefore, are inseparable from the people. If you harbor contempt for Israel’s elected leaders, then by definition you harbor contempt for the Israeli public.

And this makes you anti-Israel.

The second fact these statements ignore is that Israel is the US’s and Europe’s stalwart ally. If Sarkozy and Obama had said what they said about Netanyahu in a conversation about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or if Netanyahu had made similar statements about Obama or Sarkozy, the revelation of the statements would have sparked international outcries of indignation and been roundly condemned from all quarters.

[…]

Outside the Jewish world, Sarkozy’s and Obama’s hateful, false statements about their ally provoked no outrage. Indeed, it took the media three days to even report their conversation. This indicates that Obama and Sarkozy aren’t alone in holding Israel to a double standard. They aren’t the only ones blaming Israel for the Palestinians’ bad behavior.

The Western media also holds Israel to a separate standard. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel and its elected leaders for the Palestinians’ duplicity. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel for failing to make their peace fantasies come true.

And that is the real message of the Obama- Sarkozy exchange last week. Through it we learn that blaming the Jews and the Jewish state for their enemies’ behavior is what passes for polite conversation among Western elites today.

Read the rest: With friends like these

Tags: Bill Clinton, Caroline Glick
Posted in Barack Obama, France, Iran, Israel, Palestinians | 40 Comments »

Delegitimizing the deligitimizers

by Mojambo ( 145 Comments › )
Filed under Israel, Palestinians, United Nations at November 8th, 2011 - 5:00 pm

“The only way to defeat those who deny our rights to our land, our nationhood and our history is to expose their corruption, and their hateful intentions towards the Jewish people.” I could not agree more. Unfortunately the world Jewish organizations are pretty much craven and weaklings. Funding needs to be cut off to these malicious and corrupt U.N.agencies. Decades ago someone once asked Golda Meir “Prime Minister, why is it that the PLO belongs to UNESCO while Israel does not?” She said, “Well, let’s think about it. ‘UNESCO’ stands for ‘United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.’ Obviously, the Palestinians have more to contribute to education, science, and culture than we do.”

by Caroline Glick

You have to hand it to the Palestinians. They decided to abandon the peace process and seek international recognition of the “State of Palestine” — a state in a de facto state of war with Israel. And they are pursuing their goal relentlessly.

This week their efforts bore their first fruit with the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) vote to accept “Palestine” as a full state member.

It is not a coincidence that the PLO/PA decided to apply for membership for “Palestine” at UNESCO first. Since 1974 UNESCO has been an enthusiastic partner in the Palestinians’ bid to erase Jewish history, heritage and culture in the Land of Israel from the historical record.

In 1974 UNESCO voted to boycott Israel and “withhold assistance from Israel in the fields of education, science and culture because of Israel’s persistent alteration of historic features in Jerusalem.”

UNESCO’s moves to deny Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the rest of historic Israel have continued unabated ever since. For instance, in 1989 UNESCO condemned “Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem” claiming it was destroying the city through “acts of interference, destruction and transformation.”

In 1996 UNESCO held a symposium on Jerusalem at its Paris headquarters. No Jewish or Israeli groups were invited to participate.

Beginning in 1996, the Arab Wakf on the the Temple Mount began systematically destroying artifacts of the Second Temple. The destruction was undertaken during illegal excavations under the Temple Mount carried out in order to construct an illegal, unlicensed mosque at Solomon’s Stables.

UNESCO never bothered to condemn this act. It was silent despite the fact that the Wakf’s actions constituted a grave breach of the very international laws related to antiquities and sacred sites that UNESCO is charter bound to protect. Similarly, UNESCO never condemned Palestinian desecration of Rachel’s Tomb, of Joesph’s Tomb or of any of the ancient synagogues in Gaza and Jericho which they razed to the ground.

The reason for UNESCO’s miscarriage of its responsibilities is clear. Far from fulfilling its mission of protecting world heritage sites, since 1974 UNESCO has been a partner in one of the greatest cultural crimes in human history – the Palestinian and pan-Arab attempt to wipe Jewish history in the Land of Israel off the historical record. And UNESCO’s crimes in this area are unending. In 2009 it designated Jerusalem a “capital of Arab culture.”

In 2010 it designated Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron “Muslim mosques.”

UNESCO’s campaign against Jewish history is not limited to Israel. In 1995 it passed a resolution marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. Despite requests from Israel, the resolution made no mention of the Holocaust.

In December 2010, UNESCO published a report on the history of science in the Arab world. Its report listed the great Jewish doctor and rabbinic scholar Rabbi Moshe ben-Maimon — Maimonides — as a Muslim renamed “Moussa ben Maimoun.”

[…]

More surprising than UNESCO’s behavior was the behavior of all but five EU member states. Aside from the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden, all EU member states either voted in favor of the Palestinian membership application or abstained from the vote.

The reason it is surprising is because the EU has made strengthening UN institutions and speeding up the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians to facilitate Palestinian independence the central aims of its foreign policy. And by supporting or failing to oppose the Palestinian membership bid, the Europeans undercut both aims.

UNESCO was weakened by the vote for two reasons. First, since US law bars the government from funding UN agencies that accept “Palestine” as a member nation outside the framework of a negotiated peace with Israel, in accepting “Palestine” UNESCO reduced its budget by the 22 percent covered by US contributions.

Second, by accepting the Palestinians as a member state UNESCO undermined its legitimacy and organizational viability. Accepting “Palestine” represents a breach of the organization’s charter. The charter stipulates that only states can be accepted as members.

[…]

To understand the full significance of the administration’s behavior, it is important to contrast it with the administration’s response to the Israeli government’s decision in the aftermath of the UNESCO vote to approve the construction of housing for Jews in Jerusalem, Maaleh Adumim and Efrat. All of the housing units will be built in areas that will remain part of Israel even after a peace deal. And the administration knows this.

But speaking of the government’s decision, a US official told Reuters that the administration is “deeply disappointed by the announcement.

“We continue to make clear to the [Israeli] government [that] unilateral actions such as these work against efforts to resume direct negotiations and do not advance the goal of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties.”

So on the one hand, the Palestinians’ move to abandon the peace process and UNESCO’s support for their move is merely “regrettable” and “premature.” But on the other hand, Israel’s decision not to discriminate against Jewish property rights undermines efforts to resume peace talks and harm prospects for an agreement.

Since entering office, Netanyahu has repeatedly characterized Arab and leftist efforts to delegitimize Israel as “a strategic threat” to the state. In truth, he overstates the danger. Delegitimization is a political threat, not a strategic threat. Israel will not be destroyed by the UN or by professors at Oxford and Columbia or trade unions in Norway.

But still it is a threat that Israel cannot ignore.

Since September 2009, citing the need to demonstrate the dishonesty of the delegitimizers’ accusations against Israel, Netanyahu abandoned his lifelong opposition to a Palestinian state. He believed that Israel had to embrace the PLO/PA as a legitimate partner for peace in order to prove to the likes of Obama and his supporters that Israel has a right to exist. In the meantime, and in the face of Netanyahu’s staggering concession, the PLO/PA abandoned the peace talks and escalated its political war to criminalize Israel and delegitimate it.

UNESCO’s acceptance of “Palestine” demonstrates that Netanyahu’s chosen policy is misguided. By accepting the legitimacy of the Palestinian demand for statehood, Netanyahu indirectly conceded Israel’s rights to Judea and Samaria and at a minimum placed its right to sole sovereignty over Jerusalem in question. In so doing, Israel gave the Palestinians’ supporters at the UN, in Europe and the White House no reason to reconsider their anti-Israel bias. With the Palestinians relentlessly asserting their rights, and Israel conceding its rights, why should anyone side with Israel?

In the end, the only way to defeat those who delegitimize Israel and deny our rights to our land, our nationhood and history is to expose their corruption, and their malevolent, dishonest and hateful intentions towards the Jewish people and the Jewish state. That is, the only way to defeat the delegitimizers is to delegitimize them by proudly and consistently asserting Israel’s historic and legal rights and the justice of our cause.

Read the rest: Delegitimizing the deligitimizers

Tags: Caroline Glick
Posted in Israel, Palestinians, United Nations | 145 Comments »

The forgtten Christians of the Middle East and Central Asia

by Mojambo ( 119 Comments › )
Filed under Ahmadinejad, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Supremacism, Israel, Lebanon, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, Syria at October 12th, 2011 - 2:00 pm

Not only in Egypt, but throughout the Islamic world as well – Christians are being persecuted and are trying to flee in great numbers. Iran used to have a thriving Christian community – not any more! Churches throughout the Western world are sadly all too silent in the face of this growing persecution and religious cleansing. The left-wing World Council of Churches in fact seems to spend most of its time trying to boycott and economically destroy Israel.

by Caroline Glick

On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt’s state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.

According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.

State television Sunday night reported only that three soldiers had been killed. According to al-Ahram Online, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra television on Sunday night to block its broadcast of information on the military assault on the Copts.

Apparently the attempt to control information about what happened worked. Monday’s news reports about the violence gave little indication of the identity of the dead or wounded. They certainly left untold the story of what actually happened in Cairo on Sunday night.

In a not unrelated event, Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai caused a storm two weeks ago. During an official visit to Paris, Rai warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria could be a disaster for Christians in Syria and throughout the region. Today the Western-backed Syrian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Rai cautioned that the overthrow of President Bashar Assad could lead to civil war and the establishment of an Islamic regime.

In Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored insurgency that followed the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in 2003 fomented a bloody jihad against Iraq’s Christian population. This month marks the anniversary of last year’s massacre of 58 Christian worshippers in a Catholic church in Baghdad. A decade ago there were 800,000 Christians in Iraq. Today there are 150,000.

Under the Shah of Iran, Iran’s Christians were more or less free to practice their religion.

Today, they are subject to the whims of Islamic overlords who know no law other than Islamic supremacism.

[…]

For instance, at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30% of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the Christian population has dwindled from 2 million at the end of World War I to less than 100,000 today. In Syria, at the time of independence Christians made up nearly half of the population. Today 4% of Syrians are Christian. In Jordan half a century ago 18% of the population was Christian. Today 2% of Jordanians are Christian.

Christians are prohibited from practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Christian population is being systematically destroyed by regime-supported Islamic groups. Church burnings, forced conversions, rape, murder, kidnap and legal persecution of Pakistani Christians has become a daily occurrence.

Sadly for the Christians of the Islamic world, their cause is not being championed either by Western governments or by Western Christians. Rather than condition French support for the Syrian opposition on its leaders’ commitment to religious freedom for all in a post-Assad Syria, the French Foreign Ministry reacted with anger to Rai’s warning of what is liable to befall Syria’s Christians in the event President Bashar Assad and his regime are overthrown. The Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming it was “surprised and disappointed,” by Rai’s statement.

The Obama administration was even less sympathetic. Rai is now travelling through the US and Latin America on a three week visit to émigré Maronite communities. The existence of these communities is a direct result of Arab and Islamic persecution of Lebanese Maronite Christians.

Rai’s visit to the US was supposed to begin with a visit to Washington and meetings with senior administration officials including President Barack Obama. Yet, following his statement in Paris, the administration cancelled all of its scheduled meetings with him. That is, rather than consider the dangers that Rai warned about and use US influence to increase the power of Christians and Kurds and other minorities in any post- Assad Syrian government, the Obama administration decided to blackball Rai for pointing out the dangers.

Aside from Evangelical Protestants, most Western churches are similarly uninterested in defending the rights of their co-religionists in the Islamic world. Most mainline Protestant churches, from the Anglican Church and its US and international branches to the Methodists, Baptists, Mennonite and other churches have organized no sustained efforts to protect or defend the rights of Christians in the Muslim world.

Instead, over the past decade these churches and their related international bodies have made repeated efforts to attack the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has increased in the past 60 years – Israel.

[…]

It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday’s events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow.

Read the rest: The Forgotten Christians of the East

Tags: Caroline Glick
Posted in Ahmadinejad, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Supremacism, Israel, Lebanon, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, Syria | 119 Comments »

The Turkish house of cards may collapse sooner than we realize

by Mojambo ( 38 Comments › )
Filed under Balkans, Bosnia, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Islamic Supremacism, Islamists, Israel, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinians, Syria, Turkey at October 5th, 2011 - 11:30 am

Like an addicitve gambler who does not know when to rein it in, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (whom I personally feel is insane) is overplaying his hand. Israel is refusing to be intimidated by his threats, Turkish belligerence towards Cyprus is bringing Russia into the Cypriot side, also the Russians are not going to allow Turkish encroachment into the Balkans, and the vaunted Turkish economy is built on credit and will eventually implode. The Arab world will never welcome neo-Ottoman hegemony. What is needed is an American administration willing to tell Turkey to knock it off or else! Obama referring to Turkey as a model of Islamic democracy would be hilarious if it were not such an example as to how clueless this administration truly is.

by Caroline Glick

To the naked eye, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to be moving from strength to strength.

Erdogan was welcomed as a hero on his recent trip to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. The Arabs embraced him as the new face of the war against Israel.

The Obama administration celebrates Turkey as a paragon of Islamic democracy.

The Obama administration cannot thank Erdogan enough for his recent decision to permit NATO to station the US X-Band missile shield on its territory.

The US is following Turkey’s lead in contending with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s massacre of his people.

[…]

Turkey requires the drones to facilitate its war against the Kurds in Iraq and eastern Anatolia. The Obama administration also just agreed to provide Turkey with three Super Cobra attack helicopters.

Despite its apparent abandonment of Iran’s Syrian client Assad, Turkey’s onslaught against the Kurds has enabled it to maintain its strategic alliance with Iran. Last month Erdogan announced that the Turkish and Iranian militaries are cooperating in intelligence sharing and gearing up to escalate their joint operations against the Kurds in Iraq.

Erdogan is probably the only world leader that conducted prolonged friendly meetings with both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and US President Barak Obama at the UN last month.

Then there are the Balkans. After winning his third national election in June, Erdogan dispatched his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Kosovo, Bosnia and Romania to conduct what the Turks referred to as “mosque diplomacy.”

Erdogan’s government has been lavishing aid on Bosnia for several years and is promoting itself as a neo-Ottoman guardian of the former Ottoman possessions.

EVEN ERDOGAN’S threats of war seem to be paying off. His attacks on Israel have won him respect and admiration throughout the Arab world. His threats against Cyprus’s exploration of offshore natural gas fields caused Cypriot President Demetris Christofias to announce at the UN that Cyprus will share the revenues generated by its natural gas with Turkish occupied northern Cyprus.

[…]

Then there is the Turkish economy.

On the face of it, it seems that Turkey’s assertive foreign policy is facilitated by its impressive economic growth.

According to Turkey’s statistics agency, the Turkish economy grew by 8.8 percent in the second quarter of the year – far outperforming expectations. Last year the Turkish economy grew by 9 percent. With this impressive data, Erdogan is able to make a seemingly credible case to the likes of Egypt that it can expect to be enriched by a strategic partnership with Turkey.

For Israelis, these achievements are a cause for uneasiness. With Turkey building itself into a regional powerhouse largely on the back of its outspoken belligerency towards Israel, many observers argue Israel must do everything it can to mend fences with Turkey. Israel simply cannot afford to have Turkey angry at it, they claim.

If Turkey’s position was as strong as the conventional wisdom claims, then maybe these commentators and politicians would have a point. But Turkey’s actual situation is very different from its surface image.

Turkey’s aggressive, peripatetic foreign policy is earning Ankara few friends.

Erdogan’s threat to freeze Turkish-EU relations if the EU goes ahead as planned and transfers its rotating presidency to Cyprus next July has backfired.

European leaders wasted no time in angrily dismissing and rejecting Erdogan’s threat. So too, Germany and France have been loudly critical of Turkey’s belligerence towards Israel.

Then there is Cyprus. Turkey’s ever escalating threats to attack Cyprus’s natural gas project have angered both the EU and Russia. The EU is angry because as an EU member state, Cypriot gas will eventually benefit consumers throughout the EU, who are currently beholden to Russian suppliers and Turkish pipelines.

Russia itself has announced it will defend Cyprus against Turkish threats.

Russia is annoyed by Turkish courtship of the Balkan states. It sees no reason to allow Turkey to throw its weight around in Cyprus. Doing so successfully will only strengthen Ankara’s appeal in the Balkans and among the Turkic minorities in Russia.

THIS BRINGS us to the Muslim world. Despite Erdogan’s professions of friendship with Iran, it is far from clear that their alliance is as smooth as he presents it. The Iranians are concerned about Turkish ascendance in the Middle East and angry at Turkey for threatening Syria.

In truth if Assad is able to ride out the current storm and remain in power, he will owe his survival in no small measure to Turkey. Since the riots broke out in the spring, Turkey has restrained Washington from taking any concerted steps to overthrow the Syrian dictator.

Had it not been for Erdogan’s success in containing the US, it is possible the US and Europe might have acted swiftly to support the opposition.

But whether he stays in power or is overthrown, it is doubtful that Assad will feel any gratitude towards Erdogan.

Rather, Assad will likely blame Erdogan for betraying him. And if Assad is toppled, the Kurds of Syria could easily forge alliances with their brethren in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, to Turkey’s strategic detriment.

[…]

No matter what stands behind Turkey’s actions, it is clear Ankara has overplayed its hand. Its threats against Israel and Cyprus are hollow. Its hopes to be a regional power are faltering.

The only thing Israel really needs to be concerned about is the US’s continued insistence that Turkey is a model ally in the Islamic world. More than anything else, it is US support for Turkey that makes Erdogan a threat to the Jewish state and to the region.