According to reports by Turkish intelligence agencies, Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by Israel that have been observed in Hatay and Adana provinces in recent months spied for the terrorist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK).
Turkish intelligence agencies prepared a report after the detection of two Israeli Herons in Hatay and Adana roughly two months ago, claiming that the Herons are collecting intelligence on Turkish military units in order to aid PKK operations in those regions.
The report asserts that the PKK's training camps in northern Syria, near Turkey's Hatay border “where Turkish military border posts are relatively weak” were established in those locations based on intelligence collected by the UAVs.
The report also claims that Kenan Yıldızbakan, a PKK member who commanded an assault against a Turkish naval base in İskenderun in 2010, has made repeated trips into Israeli territory, reinforcing suspicions of a possible link between Israeli and the PKK.
I hope this story is true. It's long overdue. One of the first rules of life here in the Middle East is 'my enemy's enemy is my friend.' And the Kurds of Turkey are (or can be) a lot more to us than our enemy's enemy.
The attack helicopters manufactured by Textron Inc. (TXT) unit Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. will be used to combat the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, starting as soon as June, according to the Istanbul-based newspaper.
The U.S. Congress approved the sale amid pressure from Armenian and pro-Israel lobbies to block arms sales to Turkey following an earlier decision to station unmanned Predator aircraft at an American base in Incirlik, in the country’s south, the Star said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked U.S. President Barack Obama during a Sept. 20 meeting in New York to use Predators and share intelligence to track the PKK. Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist organization.
I think more Israelis would view the Turkish government as a terrorist organization than the PKK.
Obama wants to sell helicopters from US arsenal to Turkey
Turkey lost three helicopters in action against the Kurdish PKK last month. They really, really want to replace them. Quickly. And the Obama administration is trying to accommodate them by selling them helicopters from the existing US arsenal. There's just one small problem: Congress is holding up the deal because of Turkey's behavior toward Israel.
Under the administration's plan, the Marines would get two new, late-model Textron Inc Bell AH-1Z SuperCobras in exchange for the three AH-1W aircraft that would be transferred to Ankara from current inventory, a congressional official said.
The officials declined to be identified because of the matter's sensitivity and because they were not authorized to speak on the record. The idea to take weapons from the U.S. arsenal was rare, they said.
The proposal has been held up amid lawmakers' questions about increasingly distant relations between Muslim-majority Turkey and Israel, a key U.S. ally, among other matters.
The AH-1W has sold previously for about $10 million. Turkey bought 10 of them in the 1990s. The larger, twin-engine AH-IZ may sell for about $30 million, according to industry sources.
Under the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, the executive branch must provide 15 days' formal notice to Congress before going ahead with significant arms transfers to a NATO partner. It was not immediately clear when such notice might take place, with informal congressional consultations continuing.
The source of the Z helicopters is not clear to me. I think it means that Congress would allow the Marines to use the money received from Turkey to purchase the Z helicopters.
Turkey's Daily Hurriyet is also covering this story. Here are a couple of key points from their coverage (emphasis added).
The three gunships to be given to Turkey would be new, the U.S. official said. The U.S. rejected earlier Turkish requests for the gunships, saying its Marine Corps had around 170 AH-1Ws and was using all of them in the Afghanistan war.
Turkey acquired 10 AH-1W Super Cobras from the U.S. in the 1990s and has been using them effectively against the PKK. But, following a few crashes, it only has six operational choppers now and Ankara has been asking Washington to transfer a few more.
Turkey has more than 20 earlier models of the Cobra family, all produced by Bell Helicopter Textron. These earlier attack helicopters, however, have single engines and their performances are very limited compared to those of the AH-1Ws.
Bell Helicopter Textron began production of the AH-1Z, the latest member of the Cobra family, in recent years and delivered the first batch to the U.S. Marine Corps in January. Turkey’s efforts to obtain more attack helicopters have been continuing since the late 1990s. Bell Helicopter Textron won Turkey’s first tender with the AH-1Z in 2002, but the U.S. company and the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), Turkey’s procurement agency, were unable to agree on the gunship’s features and price for three years.
As a result, SSM cancelled tender contracts and opened a new bidding process, which was boycotted by U.S. manufacturers. Eventually, Turkey selected the Italian AgustaWestland’s T-129, a Turkish version of the A-129 Mangusta International, over South Africa’s Denel, maker of the AH-2 Rooivalk.
Presently, AgustaWestland and Turkish Aerospace Industries, its Turkish partner, are manufacturing a total of 59 T-129s, worth billions of dollars, for the Turkish Army. The first deliveries are scheduled for late next year while the gunship is expected to enter service in the Turkish Army in 2013.
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Defense analysts suggest that to be useful in the fight against the PKK, the planned three AH-1W Super Cobras need to enter service by the beginning of next summer. Each year, PKK-related fighting worsens by the summer and dies down in November because of winter conditions.
“The Super Cobra matter is another reason why the relations between Turkey and Israel should be warm. Otherwise, any pro-Israeli senator may kill it,” said one Turkish defense analyst.
I'd organize a flotilla in support of the Kurds, but I'm afraid no one would join. Perhaps the world believes the Turkish military when it claims that only Kurdish rebels have been killed. Of course, there's this bit of information to suggest that Turkey's surgical operation isn't so surgical:
Turkish authorities have not responded to reports from the Iraq's Kurdish authorities that a family of seven civilians was killed by an airstrike on Sunday.
The pile of rubble at top left is that family's car. There's not even anything left to swarm over. Here are some more details about the incident.
"Seven people, including women and children, were killed by a Turkish air strike against a civilian car in Kortek village" located northeast of the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan, said Hassan Abdullah, the mayor of the Qalat Dizah area.
"Today there was a rocket from a Turkish plane that hit a civilian vehicle, a pickup, carrying seven civilians. The seven were killed," Abdulla said.
"The rocket has badly damaged the car... We could not recognize the bodies, their ages, their identities or even their sex."
There are two possibilities for why the World doesn't care about this incident and others like it. One is that it's just Muslims killing Muslims, and so long as it's not Jews killing Muslims, the World isn't interested.
The other possibility is that because Turkey got the US and the EU to declare the PKK (Kurdistan People's Party) a terrorist organization many years ago, the PKK can do no right in the World's eyes. Of course, given the Turks' track record for lying and murdering (or attempting to murder) in Armenia, in occupied Northern Cyprus, and off the coast of Gaza, perhaps it's time for the World to consider whether the Turks lied about the PKK too.
If you happen to be a Jew who believes in Maimonides' 13 principles of faith, one of which is a belief in the future coming of the Messiah, then Jeffrey Goldberg is really, really scared of you.
Jeffrey Goldberg, respected Jewish-American journalist, felt it was his duty to broadcast to humanity that Jews who believe in the coming of a Messiah - thus earning the "messianic" adjective - are a clear and present danger to world peace. That belief in the coming of a Messiah constitutes one of the 13 Principles of the Jewish Faith, adhered to by all observant Jews throughout history, without a single resultant incident of bloodshed or violence, is irrelevant. For Jeffrey, the important point was to draw a false equivalence between Islamist fanaticism and Jewish virtue; to ensure that civilized people learn to be frightened of Jews, particularly Jews who lovingly adhere to the statutes of their faith, no less than they are of Islamists, and preferably more so. Mission accomplished, indeed.
But wait, there's more! Who are these "messianic" Jewish terrorists, and where are they hiding?
"A few months ago," Jeffrey helpfully directs us, "I visited a building in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City owned by a radical yeshiva." Aha! So that's where the "messianic" Jewish terrorists are encamped, biding their time to strike the blow that ends the world. Camped illegitimately, Goldberg likely wishes to add, it being the Muslim Quarter, and thus the dreaded and preferably Judenrein "West Bank".
To my knowledge, which I admit is limited (where's Yaacov when you need him), the only yeshiva of any prominence in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City is Yeshiva Ateres Cohanim. Here it is on Google Maps, in relation to the Temple Mount. Here's a brief video (click the link, I command you) about the yeshiva, encompassing the history of the place, which has been a center of Jewish learning since 1886, when it was known as Yeshiva Torath Chaim (pictured on the right, 1920s).
That's right, the building now home to Ateres Cohanim housed a yeshiva long before the international community decided that Jews should not be allowed to live in "East" Jerusalem, and longer still before Jeffrey Goldberg decided that any Jew who lives in "East" Jerusalem is a "radical". What's more, the building is the sole survivor of the Jordanian occupation, during which time the other 80 yeshivas and synagogues in the Arab controlled portions of the city were destroyed. The building laid empty after the Arab pogroms of 1936, entrusted to an Arab caretaker, until Israel reunified Jerusalem in 1967.
That wasn't the only effort by Goldberg this week to 'protect' the World from 'messianic Jews.' Earlier in the week, he went after David HaIvri (pictured above), executive director of the Shomron Liaison Office, and an occasional source of news for this blog.
I would only note that the person Rep. Gohmert is standing next to, David Halvri, is someone I met in the 90s when he still called himself David Axelrod (no relation, as far as I can tell, to the other David Axelrod), and when he was a leader of the Kach movement, founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, and of Kahane Chai, the successor organization to Kach. Kach men, of course, are fascist fundamentalists. HaIvri was arrested in Israel for celebrating the death of Yitzhak Rabin; he was also jailed for six months for desecrating a mosque. He has also been associated with groups that have been included on the State Department list of terrorist organizations. Just noting this for the record.
In the paranoia of the 1990's, lots of people were arrested for 'celebrating the death of Rabin' (something that absent a threat to someone else would probably constitute free speech in the US by the way). In one apocryphal story I recall from that time, a Jerusalem barber asked "who is next in line" and someone responded "Shimon Peres." Someone called the police and the person was promptly arrested. So I don't put much stock in saying that someone was arrested for 'celebrating the death of Rabin.' Most of them weren't.
As to Kach/Kahane Chai, one of the deep, dark secrets of this country is that many Jews believe Kahane was right about a lot of things (although most of us - including me - would not support the use of violence to induce Arabs to leave). Consider our national anthem, the possibility of Israel having to choose between being a democracy or being a Jewish state (something about which Goldberg himself has expressed concern), and the fact that three years ago, 76% of Israeli Jews surveyed said they favored transferring 'Israeli Arabs' to a 'Palestinian state' if one is ever - God forbid - established. Kahane never envisioned a 'Palestinian state,' but he did favor transferring 'Israeli Arabs' to Arab countries. If you think that's unreasonable, go here and see what the very mainstream Daniel Gordis has to say about it.
As to Goldberg's claims about Kach/Kahane Chai being 'terrorist organizations,' they were in fact so designated, but at the request of an ally of the United States: The Government of Israel. The Israeli government feared that - given the opportunity - many Jews would vote for Kahane, and that just didn't fit in with the branja's plans. So they excluded Kahane from the 1988 elections (something which has never been done to any anti-Zionist Arab parties) and went around the world asking that his organizations be declared terrorist organizations.
By the way, the MEK in Iran and the PKK in Kurdistan were also both designated as terror organizations at the request of then-US allies Iran (under the Shah) and Turkey, respectively. Today, James Jones, formerly President Obama's National Security Adviser, favors removing the terrorist designation from the MEK. Sometimes designation as a terrorist organization is politically influenced.
For those who know little or nothing about Kahane (who was murdered in 1990 a few blocks from my office at the time), here's a video of a 1984 debate between Kahane and Ehud Olmert on ABC's Nightline. Who do you think won?
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
But for the record, I am told by mutual friends that David has been squeaky clean since he got married - no arrests, no Kach/Kahane Chai activities and no more youthful indiscretion. And there's a good chance that Congressman Gohmert (R-Tx) had no idea who David is or what his background is, before during or after that photo shoot.
And in another cheap shot, the normally pro-Israel Harry's Place asked why HaIvri was allowed into the US. As it happens, unless he's given it up, David is a US citizen (who has dual citizenship with Israel, just like I do).
The Jerusalem Post published an editorial on Sunday calling for a Kurdish state.
According to prevalent mythology, the international community deems self-determination the natural and inalienable right of each nationality. That, at least, is the pretext for the worldwide clamor for a Palestinian state.
Swept aside are reservations about the rather recent origin of claims to a separate Palestinian national identity, along with the fact that Palestinians are indistinguishable from their neighbors in language, religion, culture and every conceivable marker of ethic uniqueness.
National designation, we are told, is subjective. If any collective regards itself as worthy of self-determination, then self-determination is its due. Yet this principle is hardly applied with universal even-handedness. Evidence of bias abounds even without bringing in pervasive animus to the very notion that the long-suffering Jewish people merits sovereignty just like far younger and less distinctive ethnicities.
The Kurdish case clearly underscores such double standards.
Far more numerous than Palestinians, they’re estimated at between 30 million and 35 million. They form an obvious separate nationality, non-Arab, with its own culture and readily distinguishable language (a subcategory of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages.) They were around far before any Arabs had learned of the Palestinian moniker, and the Kurds struggled for independence long into the 19th century, before the advent of Arab nationalism. They established the short-lived Republic of Ararat in 1927 but it was soon vanquished. Both Turkey and Iran cruelly suppressed numerous Kurdish uprisings. Kurds are still fighting for their freedom.
The contrast between how the world treats the Palestinians and the Kurds couldn’t be more marked. Palestinians are spoiled with international succor and are pampered financially. They were offered an independent state back in 1947 but rejected it, preferring to destroy the twin Jewish state instead.
Practically the entire world has come round to backing Palestinian statehood again and awaits with fevered anticipation the unilateral quest for recognition of Palestinian independence at the UN General Assembly in September.
The unilateral declaration of Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, however, was greeted with deadly silence. The world couldn’t care less. It doesn’t glorify the Kurdish nationalist drive, doesn’t offer it diplomatic assistance, doesn’t shower it with indulgent cheer-leading in the media and doesn’t fund Kurdish separatists, and has denounced what’s perceived as Kurdish terrorism but has abided anti-Kurdish ruthlessness in four countries for many decades.
The editorial goes on to suggest that Israel should support the Kurdish quest for an independent state. There have been rumors that we have been doing so covertly for years. But doing so openly could put us on a collision course with the US, which wants us to reconcile with Turkey.
The PKK, the Kurdish nationalist party, is at risk of war with Iran and Turkey. Turkey and Iran have joined forces against the Kurds, and have attacked the Kurds on the Iranian - Turkish border, allegedly with the blessing of the United States, which regards the PKK and other Kurdish nationalist parties as terror organizations. More here.
One of the rules of the jungle in these parts is that my enemy's enemy is my friend. By that standard, we ought to be helping the Kurds out. Were it not for our relationship with the US, I believe we would have been doing so openly for a long time.
Clearly, Kurdistan is a much more legitimate candidate for statehood than the fictitious 'Palestinians.' Some might argue that by supporting a Kurdish quest for statehood, we would be undermining our own position vis a vis the 'Palestinians.' But if that's the case, why did we support South Sudan?
Citing a Washington-sourced report, the Italian daily [Corriere della Sera] reported that Hezbollah was targeting Israeli Consul General to Istanbul Moshe Kamhi in retaliation for Mossad’s alleged assassination of Iranian nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Muhammedi in Tehran in 2010.
Corriere della Sera reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, or MİT, appeared to be tracing the bombing back to the PKK before reportedly realizing that Hezbollah, acting on behalf of Iran, allegedly perpetrated the attack.
The daily alleged that three members of Hezbollah arrived in Istanbul from Beirut to stage the attack and that assassins observed the route Kamhi took from his residence to the Israeli consulate every day before choosing to detonate the bomb in Etiler.
On the day of the attack, however, Kamhi's vehicle was driving slower than normal and was unaffected by the blast, the report said.
Intelligence sources in Ankara, however, have denied Corriere della Sera’s report. "Israel carries out similar disinformation campaigns through newspapers from time to time," one source said.
You will recall that at the end of the Turkish elections, Recep Tayipp Erdogan and his AKP were five votes short of being able to establish their Muslim Caliphate. Now, through the courts which are beholden to them, they are trying to steal those votes. The Kurds, at least, are quite upset about it.
Reactions were harsh from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) after the Supreme Election Board (YSK) voted unanimously on Tuesday night to strip Hatip Dicle, who was elected to Parliament as an independent candidate last Sunday, of his deputyship.
Ahmet Türk, the co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (DTK), which convened on Wednesday to evaluate the YSK decision, said the decision is neither moral nor legal. “This is a decision to drag Turkey into a state of chaos,” he said. Noting that democratic politics are being blocked, he added, “The nation will hold this mentality, which blocks efforts for democracy, accountable.”
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Dicle was endorsed by the BDP from Diyarbakır, a predominantly Kurdish province in the Southeast, after the pro-Kurdish party decided to enter the June 12 general elections with independent candidates, fearing that it would fail to exceed the 10 percent election threshold if it entered the elections as a party. He was convicted of “disseminating the propaganda of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK]” in 2009 by the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court, and the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the decision in March of this year. The court sentenced Dicle to one year, eight months in prison on terrorism charges.
Dicle is also currently on trial in the 6th Diyarbakır High Criminal Court as a suspect in a separate investigation into the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK). He was detained in December 2009 as part of the KCK probe and has been in custody since. Dicle's lawyers appealed to the 11th Ankara High Criminal Court to cut the prison term he had served as a detainee during the KCK investigation from his earlier conviction of 20 months on charges of “disseminating the propaganda of the PKK.” As the Supreme Court of Appeals only recently upheld the 2009 decision by the 11th Ankara High Criminal Court, Dicle was in custody not because of his 2009 conviction but as part of the investigation into the KCK.
Last week, the Ankara court decided to cut 453 days, the period he had served as a detainee during the KCK probe, from the sentence he originally received in 2009. The YSK convened on Tuesday to discuss Dicle’s deputyship. The board decided that Dicle does not qualify to become a deputy in accordance with Article 76 of the Constitution. According to the Constitution, persons who have been convicted of dishonorable offenses such as involvement in acts or terrorism or incitement and encouragement of such activities shall not be elected deputies even if they have been pardoned.
After the cancellation of Dicle’s deputyship, Oya Eronat, a Diyarbakır candidate for deputy from the AK Party, won a parliamentary seat. Eronat came second to Dicle in Diyarbakır in the elections. She obtained her official deputyship certification on Wednesday afternoon. The BDP seats in Parliament have dropped to 35, while those of the AK Party have risen to 327.
Reader Joshua I reports by email that the AKP is challenging a total of eleven seats, including Dicle's (Dicle is apparently one of six from the KCK probe):
6 seats Prosecutors call for rejection of jailed KCK deputies’ demand for release: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-248248-prosecutors-call-for-rejection-of-jailed-kck-deputies-demand-for-release.html
1 seat Youngest deputy in Parliament after vote count at Customs gates: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-248060-youngest-deputy-in-parliament-after-vote-count-at-customs-gates.html
1 seat AK Party candidate gets seat after YSK rules to disbar Kurdish deputy: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-248164-ak-party-candidate-gets-seat-after-ysk-rules-to-disbar-kurdish-deputy-.html
There's another mass release of Wikileaks documents being released this week, and they are said to show that Turkey helped al-Qaeda in Iraq, while the United States has helped the Kurdish PKK rebels.
One of the documents, a US military report, reportedly charges Turkey with failing to control its borders, because Iraqi citizens residing in Turkey provided al-Qaida with supplies to build bombs, guns and ammunition.
A Wikileaks administrator also told Al-Hayat that the site needs Turks to volunteer to translate documents about Turkey's role in the war in Iraq and its bid for EU membership.
Other documents show that the US has supported the PKK, which has been waging a separatist war against Turkey since 1984 and has been classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization since 1979. The US military documents call the PKK "warriors for freedom and Turkish citizens," and say that the US set free arrested PKK members in Iraq. The documents also point out that US forces in Iraq have given weapons to the PKK and ignored the organization's operations inside Turkey.
Iranian blood libel claims US and Israel behind suicide bombing
The Iranian news agency FARS is claiming that the United States and Israel were behind a suicide bombing that took place in Istanbul last Sunday. The bombing has been blamed on the Kurdish PKK (which denies it) and on al-Qaeda. But the Iranians think they know better.
A source privy to the investigations into Istanbul's Sunday blast revealed that the US embassy in Turkey had convincing information about the terrorist attack in the Taksim Square days before the incident, and stressed that the terrorist measure was a response to Ankara's latest security assessment which named the Zionist regime as the No 1 threat to Turkey's national security.
The source quoted Uzjan, the manager of the Ramli Khan restaurant near the scene of the blast, as saying that the restaurant was scheduled to host a Halloween party and 30 foreign nationals were to attend the party, among them 9 Americans.
"A day before the party, a number of our guests announced that they couldn't attend the party since the US embassy in Turkey has warned the 9 American nationals about an impending bomb attack," the source quoted Uzjan as saying after the blast.
Analysts see the incident as the scene of another confrontation between Washington and Turkey after Ankara rejected a US demand for erecting a missile shield in Turkey's border regions with Iran.
This reminds me of the Muslims who claim that Israel was behind 9/11 and 'back it up' with unsubstantiated claims that Jews didn't come to work that day.
And Israel's supposed role in all this? Well, there really isn't one. They just claim that Israel's media is trying to revive tensions between Turks and Kurds by blaming the Kurds for the bombing. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
But something tells me that much of the UN (especially the 'human rights council') will believe it.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
Turkish intelligence agencies are claiming that Israeli Heron drones are helping the PKK in Turkey. 
