I really do think we are witnessing history in the making. Israel’s star is about to set like a tropical sun: one minute it’s there, the next it’s gone. While Turkey’s rise to world prominence is going to be spectacular.
The Palestinians are about to go to the UN on the 25th of this month to ask for a vote on recognition of Palestine as a full member of the UN. They almost certainly have the votes to succeed. Today in a speech in Egypt. quoted in the Guardian, the Turkish Prime Minister Mr Erdogan said,
“Freedom and democracy and human rights must be a united slogan for the future of our people,…The legitimate demands of the people cannot be repressed with force and in blood.”
Turkey is now perfectly positioned as the friend and regional champion of democracy in the Middle East. Israel for its part has made it clear that it does not want the Palestinians to be recognized at the UN and will expect America to use its undemocratic veto to block what the wider UN voted for.
The UN, being a Bretton Woods, creation has no truck with democracy. It is and always has been one dollar or one nuke/ one vote. And so America and Israel will be there at the end of the Arab Spring as the enemies of democracy while Turkey will be its champion. For Turkey this is a win/win situation.
Turkey has already done a great deal of quiet work to build a powerful diplomatic position. Just today Erdogan was very careful to call for Egypt to become a secular democratic state. It will be hard to tar Turkey as ‘too friendly with Iran, promoting radical Islam’ as the vilest of America’s neo-con death dealers, Dick Cheney loves to do to all those whose deaths he wants to profit from.
Turkey talks to everyone from Iran to Berlin to Moscow and Washington. And now it is positioned as the regional champion of of the democratic movements throughout North Africa and the Middle East. As I wrote last week, when Syria collapses further than it already has it will be Turkey who steps into the vacuum. And as it does so it will be in prime position for dealing with the oil rich north of Iraq, to settle intelligently with the Kurds and to inherit all the geographical power that comes from being north of Israel holding power over the water courses upon which everyone else depends.
One or two readers have suggested I am exagerating this shift. I don’t think so at all.
Till now everyone has felt obliged to refer to Israel in all their dealings. Because Israel was the most organized and connected power in the region. So even her enemies dealt with her. But as soon as Turkey became another organized and powerfully connected power in the region this began to change. The Flotilla incident, the financial crisis and now the UN Palestine vote are, I believe, together, the tipping point for Israel. I do not believe Turkey or Egypt or any of the other nations around Israel, is going to try to invade or punish Israel. I think, led by Turkey, they are going to ignore her. Israel’s fall from prominance is going to be rapid and thorough. Israel’s fate is to become irrelevant.
Israel’s relevance and importance has been sustained by nearly constant enmity and agression, from all sides. It has been a Bellus Israeli (Feel free to corect my Latin. I was a dreadful student of Latin). The question I think all the countries of teh Middle East, Arabia, and on the global stage too, will ask themselves is, why continue to determine your hopes and actions in reference to a Bellus Israeli, an essentially negative politics of frustate and deny, when you can simply face away and refer instead to what is already being seen as a politics of hope and change. I think we will see the rise of a regional Pax Turkana.
I totally agree with you.
Turkey was made to wait too long for EU membership and having made the changes demanded and having jumped into line, was soundly ignored.
To have admitted a secular, democratic Muslim state that crosses the borders of Europe and Asia would have been the ultimate achievement of a healthy EU.
It didn’t and Turkey has gone away from the door; wondering why those white Euros thought they ruled the world.
Turkey is what the Arab Spring protesters should be holding on to as their dream, not the US or Europe.
In 1993, the Turkish premier was visiting Antwerpen in Belgium. To a crowd of 30.000 muslims living in Western Europe he said : We shall conquer europe without firing a shot, through the bellies of our women and their women. You will see the power of islam rising, as the veills in the european streets will increase. Brussels will be the first moslim capital in Europe.
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islam knows Taquija : lying and cheating is acceptable to promote Islam.
Erdogan is an Islamist. He wants Sharia law to prevail in the whole world.
Sharia law is a 7th century law – it is the opposite of what he claims in his Taquila speech : Freedom and democracy and human rights must be a united slogan for the future of our people, ” Sharia law does NOT give the same rights to women as it does to men.
Hello willyvan,
and welcome.
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying Turkey is a wonderful place full of noble people or that their government is not duplicitous like any other. I am however saying they have been clever and are in the ascendant while Israel is sinking and fracturing internally. I am also saying I think a new regional politics centred on Turkey will be far better for all concerned, than the politics that has centred upon Israel.
I am aware of Taquija. I think here we call it realipolitik do we not – the notion that it is acceptable to lie to and cheat those who are not your friends.
Erdogan may be an Islamist but I don’t think all Turks are nor even the majority. The speach you report was mildly offensive. I remember it at the time. But is it more offensive thatn similar speaches western leaders give about how they will introduce Western ‘reforms’ and bring about a market based society of western values. The sort of equally unthinking and offensive cultural clod-ery that George Bush and his ilk go nin for?
I do hot think there is any chance at all that Islam will ever conquer European hearts and minds and the population curves do not support his contention that Muslims in Europe will take over by sheer numbers.
I share some of your dislike of Sharia law in its more fundamentalist and backward manifestations. Islamists can puff themseves up all they like but I think Sharia law is a non starter in the West.
I think it far more likely that some time fairly soon Islam will finally have its own Reformation and shed the dry skin of some of its more barbaric and simple minded tenets. The face of intollerant and intellectually stunted Islam we see, and which is in the ascendant in many places is not all there is or can be.
Turkey’s very success will, I think, make fundamentalist Islam less attractive to Turks and to many others throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
I think the key to the rise of withering of Fundamentalist Islam is how we in Europe treat Muslim countries. Continue to abet the impoverishment of their people and Radical Islam will have its appeal. Welcome a new Pax Turkana and work with it and we in the West will change Islam far more than Islam will change us.
I hope you’re right David. God knows the Palestinians deserve justice & peace. Thanks for posting 🙂 (There are many Israelis that want this too, tho’ they have not been able to challenge their elite as yet.)
As for the Oil rich part of Northern Iraq..or Kurdistan… progress is slowly being made on an oil law between the KAR and Iraq but now Tony Hayward late of BP has gone in with his new oil investment company with a Turkish company Genel. This has given a huge vote of confidence to the future of the massive oil finds there. Oil pipes run through Turkey now and can be linked up.
Strategically these are significant oil and gas fields because potentially there is a direct link to Europe not needing to go through the Suez nor Russia. So Yes I can see Turkey as becoming a very significant player in the next five years. Israel is looking outpaced by events.
I sincerely hope it works out well in that very troubled part of the world, it would make a nice change. I found these diagrams that describe what they might hopefully avoid, Only shows US forces casualties, nobody has any real idea of Afghani or Iraqi casualties.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/dangerroom_911toll_0909/all/1
” The Palestinians are about to go to the UN on the 25th of this month to ask for a vote on recognition of Palestine as a full member of the UN. ”
Have you heard of this thing called a veto David? Nothing is going to happen until everyone agrees or agrees not to agree. What matters to Turkey is not the arab street politics its trying to play but all that gas sitting between Cyprus and Israel. It just so happens that the PLO or whatever it is these days are a nice stick to wave around.
Sean,
I was unaware of any appreciable gas deposit between Cyprus and Israel. That is very interesting. It doesn’t change my mind at all though. If anything it adds, in my mind at least, to the argument.
I’m not trying to paint the Turks as saintly, just clever and in the right place at the right moment – a moment they have worked hard and intelligently to bring about.
As for the Veto – I did mention it in the piece. But as I said veto or no veto Turkey comes out smelling of roses while the US and Israel come out wearing tea-shirts which say “Sod Democracy”.. So I think you are wuite wrong to say that because of the veto ‘nothing will happen’. In fact everything will happen, veto or not. The veto now stops nothing as far as the rise of Turkey is concerned.
But thatnks again for telling us about teh gas. Do you know any more about it?
Whatever hand Turkey holds, the manner it chooses to play it within the toxic swamp of politics will be as corrupt and self serving as the strategies adopted by the neo-con idiots.
For humanity to suddenly embrace a maxim of not maximising profit or power from a situation where they find they’re in advantage would be a ‘miracle’ of such magnitude, the Vatican would be paralysed with fear in the belief of the final reckoning being initiated.
Or, even more fanciful, that the current financial crises is a real crises and those fighting the mirage of doom really know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and what the result will be.
David I’m afraid while the results may change the misery will be maintained.
Turkey are also rather fed up of Israeli interference with Turkey!
Rather unsuccessful spy ring there. BiBi is a twit. Killing the Shamir was a bad idea!
Peres may bring about a face saving solution or not…. Israel being corrupt, has not got the
breadth of talent it needs and failures will cost a lot.
Turkey is a powerhouse. They learned how to work hard in Germany in the 70’s, and have thousands of very competent corporations. They now run most of the giant civil engineering construction projects in the Middle East. They work long hours, are interested in improving, and pay only lip service to heavy-handed religion. They keep a dialogue going with all their neighbours. They have now cracked the tourist market, and they are westernising their legal and financial systems.
I think they are trying to find an accommodation with the Greeks over Cyprus et al, especially if they are a rising economy and Greece is in the doldrums.
Turkey is going to shame us all in Europe with their growth and success.
http://www.heptagonpost.com/node/122
http://www.aussieviewsnews.com/2011/09/05/gas-israel-lebanon/
That should get you started.
Sean,
Ashamed to say I hadn’t heard a word about this. I’ve only had a quick look at the links but it looks very interesting indeed.
Thanks
Wirplit
Tony hayward is there, god help them!
I would very much like to think what you are saying is true and that it really is the good news you suggest. Unfortunately however the US will spare no expense in backing Israel in every way it can, because Israel has extremely powerful friends there who are motivated not by economics but by religious and ethnic factors. For that reason the state of Israel need not care a hoot what Turkey or any other neighbouring country might think.
Have you looked at Turkey’s balance of payments situation? Not good.
I addition, Turkey is one of the biggest recipients of US military aid, along with Pakistan, Israel, and Egypt.
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