Senior security officials: US has naive view of Arab spring
Bristling at Israel's exclusion from two counterterrorism meetings to placate Turkey, senior Israeli security sources have attacked the United States' naive view of the Arab spring.“Israel has been one of the key counterterrorism allies of the United States for 30 years,” observed Dr. Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations in an interview with The Algemeiner.What could go wrong?
“Its absence from an American-sponsored counter-terror conference raises questions that need to be answered,” said Dr. Gold, an expert on the Persian Gulf region who was born and educated in the US.
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Israeli officials say the Obama Administration has a naïve or even uninformed view of recent upheavals in Arab-Islamic states, particularly events in Egypt and Turkey, believing that the Erdogan government in Turkey and the new regime of Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Morsi are both forces for moderation.
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President Obama has said that he considers Turkish leader Recep Erdogan a model of moderation, even asking him to moderate between the US and Iran on the issue of Iran’s presumed atomic bomb project, while top Obama aides have said they think Egypt’s Brotherhood is also moderate.
“Morsi says ‘I want an Islamic caliphate (empire) whose capital is Jerusalem,’ and what do they say: ‘Don’t believe him. He doesn’t really mean it.’ Well, he does mean it,” observed Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad, in a briefing to students in Herzliya.
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“We talk to the Americans about the ‘Arab Spring’ as if Jefferson was chosen as the head man of some village, but there is a tradition here of reactionary regimes,” said Gilad, who is director of the political wing of the Ministry of Defense.
Gilad said the US had a naïve view of the upheavals, noting that “democracy” often released “satanic forces” under which “women don’t count for anything” and where “marriages are forced on youngsters who are 14 or 15 years old—the kind of practice that in the end leads to an Islamic empire.”
Labels: Arab spring, counterterrorism, Egypt, Mohammed Morsy, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:44 AM
2 Comments:
I suspect the Israelis are quite good at efficient low impact counter terrorism. If Obama feels the need to re invent that wheel and fail repeatedly in the process thereby endangering American lives, I say fine, let him.
Correction/Amendment: Senior Israeli security officials have a naive view of this U.S. administration. Anybody who doesn't foresee a string attached to $billions in green project funding accepted is criminally naive.
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