Israel Matzav

Turkey: People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

Perhaps this explains why the Turks have been so downright hostile to Israel lately.

Turkey points to Israel to deflect from itself
October 17, 10:51 AM Progressive Geopolitics Examiner Andrew E. Mathis

Turkey has been enormously critical of Israel's military policy in Gaza since last year's war, and the most recent development is that Turkish television has aired a television program on the conflict in which a fictional Israeli soldier is seen shooting a Palestinian baby.

It's a charming bit of teledrama I'm sure. But what are the Turks trying to do in being so critical of Israel? Perhaps it amounts to their trying, in essence, to deflect attention away from its own dismal human rights record.

The chief area in which the Turkish government has committed the grossest human rights offenses has ben in its ongoing conflict with the Kurdish minority. Since 1978, the Turks have been in armed conflict with a secessionist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). There's a strong analogy to be drawn between Israel's fight with Hamas and Turkey's fight with the PKK. Both the PKK and Hamas are recognized by the international community at large to be terrorist organizations. For its part, the PKK has engaged in bombings, killings of officials, etc.

The Turkish response has been, according to Human Rights Watch, to engage in torture, house raids, extrajudicial killings, and firing on crowds without discrimination for who is a combatant and who is not.

Does that ring familiarly at all? Sound like the things with which Israel has been accused in its conflict with the Palestinians?

Well, yes, except that Turkey has actually done all those horrible things and Israel has not. And Israel doesn't need Turkey's accusations to draw disproportionate attention from the 'international community.' The 'international community' is after us even without Turkey's assistance.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:44 PM