(Guardian-UK) Joshua Teitelbaum - The last time Turkish flags were carried through the streets of Middle Eastern capitals was during the first world war, as people took to the streets to support the Ottoman sultan-caliph against the Western entente powers. Thanks to Turkish government support of a blockade-running mission led by a group of Hamas sympathizers, no ruling Arab leader is as popular as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose discourse amounts to calls for a jihad against Israel. Israel's relations with Ankara have been sacrificed on the altar of Turkey's aspiration to lead the Islamic world and establish itself along with Iran as an alternative to American power. It is difficult to imagine that Turkey would be engaging in this kind of behavior were the U.S. demonstrating world leadership and not abandoning the field to the likes of Erdogan. While the administration works to assure Israel's security with co-operation on missile defense, it has yet emboldened Israel's enemies by publicly pressuring Jerusalem at every turn, not taking decisive action against Iran, and singling out Israel - to the exclusion of Iran - at the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference. The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University.
2010-06-09 08:58:09Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive