Ed Koch
WorldTribune.com
11/6/2012
After President Amadinejad of Iran and Iran’s theocratic Islamist state, the greatest threat to Israel is Prime Minister Recep Erdogan of Turkey and Turkey’s Islamist government. This is surprising because Turkey and Israel used to be close allies.
The rift between the countries is directly linked to the ascendancy of Islamist rule in Turkey…
…Erdogan has announced that he intends to visit Gaza. The New York Times of November 3, 2012 reported, “A visit by the leader of Turkey, a huge power that is a member of NATO and a critical bridge between the West and the Islamic world, would make a much bigger diplomatic splash, paving the way for Egypt and other countries to expand direct, independent relationships with Hamas and further dividing the Palestinian leadership. Officials in the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, the Hamas rival that governs in the West Bank, had warned that the Qatari mission would set a dangerous precedent. ‘We are against all these visits,’ President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said in an interview that was recorded before Mr. Erdogan’s comments and was broadcast on Friday night by Channel 2 News in Israel. If they want to help Gaza, they should come through the authorities, through the legal authority.’ ”
All of this is a complicated matter for the United States because Turkey is a member of NATO. Turkey undoubtedly seeks to influence NATO countries such as England, Germany, France, Italy and others with which Israel has good, or relatively good, relations to recognize Hamas. The EU has declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization which they will not recognize, unless it gives up violence, recognizes the legitimacy of the state of Israel and accepts all agreements entered into by the Palestinian Authority with Israel to date, all of which Hamas has refused to do.
If the European Union and the United States had not urged Turkey to end the Turkish Army’s role as defender of the secularity of the Turkish state, the world, and certainly Israel, would be a safer place today. This a tragic example of unintended consequences.
Read the former Mayor’s complete essay at The World Tribune.
