Israel Matzav

Turkish delegation gets cold shoulder from American Jews

A Turkish delegation came to the US last week to mend fences with the American Jewish community and with Congress. They didn't get very far. With the exception of the American Jewish Committee, the organized American Jewish community refused to meet with the Turks. And many of the members of Congress who met with the Turks were harshly critical.

Representatives of most major Jewish organizations were invited to a June 16 meeting with members of a senior Turkish delegation visiting Washington. Only one group, the American Jewish Committee, showed up. AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs — all groups that in the past went to great lengths to push a pro-Turkish agenda on Capitol Hill — chose not to attend.

“We felt that attending the meeting at this particular time would have been counterproductive,” said Dan Mariaschin, executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International. “The inflammatory rhetoric of the Turkish government created an atmosphere in which rational discussion of the issues would not have taken place.”

Still, some in the community warn of taking the anti-Turkish rhetoric too far. “As emotionally satisfying as it would be to burn our Turkish-Jewish club membership cards, it is better to take a deep breath and hope there is a solution,” said William Daroff, vice president for public policy of The Jewish Federations of North America.

The Turkish delegation took note of the Jewish snub and made clear that it was unhappy with the approach of the organized community.

“Those who did not come had made a mistake in terms of their approach to the Turkish-Jewish relationship,” said Omer Celik, vice chairman of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Celik was part of an AKP delegation making the rounds in Washington, in an attempt to mend fences with the Obama administration and with Congress and the Jewish community.

The delegation did not deny its government’s deep differences with Israel on crucial issues, but it vigorously contested pro-Israel Jewish groups and lawmakers now painting Turkey as a terrorist-supporting state working to undermine Israel’s very existence. It was Erdogan, now depicted as an inveterately hostile Islamist, who brought then-prime minister Ehud Olmert to Ankara to give an official address to Turkey’s parliament just three years ago, the delegation noted — the first Turkish leader to invite an Israeli leader to do so.

And just two weeks before the Gaza flotilla episode, the Turks stressed, Turkey voted with other member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to admit Israel to the elite group of top-tier economies. Under OECD rules, which require a consensus to admit a new country, a “no” vote from Turkey would have meant defeat for one of Israel’s prime diplomatic goals.

Despite these talking points, it was a tough week for the high-level delegation. “We heard in Washington words like ‘disappointment,’ ‘displeasure,’” recalled Ibrahim Kalin, chief adviser to the Turkish prime minister who attended the meetings. Administration officials admonished Turkey for voting against the resolution imposing sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council, and harsh criticism was also voiced by members of Congress and by the few Jewish officials who were willing to meet the group.

Among those Jewish officials was Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs at the AJC. Isaacson broke ranks with the Jewish organizational establishment and reached out to Turkey’s ambassador to Washington days after the flotilla incident, an act that won him criticism from Israeli officials who argued that it was the Turks who should have made the first step. AJC was also the only group to attend the meeting with the AKP delegation. Isaacson explained that boycotts could be misunderstood, and therefore it is “important to get our message across without diplomatic filters and niceties. We want Ankara to hear the message in every possible channel.”

But most channels are currently blocked. The Israeli Embassy, according to a senior official, is in “complete disconnect” with Turkey’s diplomatic mission. And in Congress, criticism reached its peak with a series of anti-Turkish remarks by leading Jewish lawmakers.

Read the whole thing.

There are a number of points that need to be made here. First, the Turks are behaving as if the flotilla is the only incident that occurred between the two countries. It is not. Beginning with Erdogan storming off the stage in Davos a year and a half ago, there has been one incident after another between Israel and Turkey. The picture at the top of this post is a group of Turks burning an Israeli flag outside the Israeli embassy in Ankara in October 2009. It is clear that the Turks sought to change the relationship. Not Israel.

Second, for the Turks to accuse American Jews (and by implication Israel) of attempting to 'shift the blame' for the flotilla incident to Turkey is insulting, and to act as if the government had nothing to do with it is disingenuous. The links between the IHH and the Turkish government are clear. The Mavi Marmara - the ship on which Israeli Naval commandos were attacked - is owned by the city of Istanbul. The IHH terrorists boarded the ship in Istanbul before any of the other passengers and without being searched. 'Shifting' the blame? The Turkish government sent a ship to attempt to violently run a legal blockade set up by a purported ally. Who is to blame for that?

Third, the Turks keep issuing threats about Israel losing its best friend. With 'friends' like that, who needs enemies?

Fourth, if the Turks are so frustrated over the fact that no one is willing to listen to them, maybe they need to change tactics. Maybe Erdogan needs to climb down from the tree that he climbed up. Hell will freeze over before anyone in Israel will apologize for what happened (unless he wants to accept an apology from 'Israeli Arabs' or from the far Left Meretz party). The support for stopping the flotilla of fools was and is overwhelming. No one is happy that it ended with nine people dead, but no one here feels any guilt about that either. And no one here is going to agree to another Goldstone Commission like Erdogan is demanding. If it happens, it will happen without an Israeli presence, just like Goldstone did.

Sorry but no one here is going to play the honor game with Erdogan. If he wants to patch up relations, he should swallow his pride and move on. In the meantime, I hope Congress does pass a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide so he has something else to complain about.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:07 PM