You can't really blame them for betting on the strong horse:

While the West is discussing sanctions against Iran, Turkey is discussing the establishment of a joint industrial area with Iran on their shared border the Iranian state news agency, Fars, reported on Friday. Iran's industry minister, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, met on Friday with Turkey's trade minister, Nahat Argon to discuss increasing economic activities between the two nations. Mehrabian said after the meeting that there was a lot of potential for joint economic activities between the two countries.

These aren't just bilateral moves either. The Turks are also boosting their ties with Syria. They've chosen a side and they're making and breaking alliances accordingly:

Two factors in particular seem to have led to Turkey's shift away from Israel and toward Syria. First, Turkey no longer needed Israeli assistance to pressure the Syrian government to change its policy of providing safe-haven to the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Organization (PKK). Second, in the past seven years, once secular Turkish politics have undergone a profound Islamist transformation. At the same time, the dynamic between the Turkish military and the state's civilian leadership has changed. No longer does the military have the upper hand. Today, the Turkish military can do little to impact the policies of the Islamist AKP, which promote solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes while dismissing secular, pro-Western Muslim governments.

That also answers the brainteasers that were getting thrown around mid-2009, about whether Turkey can be politically moved in a secular direction. Turns out when a population keeps electing Islamists who promise to move away from the West, the country ends up moving away from the West. And I was really hoping they were just kidding about all that.

Meanwhile the State Department is trying to jumpstart Israeli-Syrian negotiations via Turkish mediation. Because apparently - at least to George Mitchell - the Turks seem like neutral and objective arbiters. George Mitchell, by the way - there's a guy who's really been building bridges between the US and Israel this week.

References and related after the jump...

The elegant thing about Turkey's slide from the West is how starkly it juxtaposes liberal pseudo-sophistication with conservative warnings. On one side you have Obama's ephemeral charisma, where Turkey was the first Muslim country he visited as part of his global Presidential apology tour. At a minimum that should have made Ankara more rather than less inclined to lean toward the US and NATO.

On the other side you have the hard geopolitical realities being created by Obama's supine foreign policy, where a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran is pushing back US allies and installing proxies across Asia and South America. If Obama's critics are right then the prospect of regional Shiite hegemony will force states to accommodate the Islamic Republic, cut whatever deals they can, and try to exist within the Iranian orbit.

Interesting debate:

Relations between Turkey and Iran appear to be getting closer and those ties are raising concerns among some of Turkey's Western allies... Turkish President Abdullah Gul said... his country is keen to bolster relations with neighboring Iran. Increasing closeness between Turkish leaders and Iran, and Turkey's quest for better ties in the broader Muslim world, have fueled concerns in the West that this key U.S. ally is... is turning its back on the West to embrace Islamist regimes to the East - a vast region that extends from the Middle East to the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Obama's obsequious engagement can't even provide diplomatic wiggle room, where both sides would put on a show of agreement for public consumption:

The growing number of disagreements over global and regional affairs between Turkey and the United States signals a "bumpy road" to Washington, D.C., for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in early December. The deterioration in ties between the two allies was obvious during Philip Gordon's trip to Ankara last week. At a press conference held here, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs hinted that "there were more points of disagreement than of agreement with Turkey."

This is after Turkey banned Israel from US/NATO air exercises as a way of nixing the drills completely, the immediate and predictable withdrawal of the US and Italy being a feature rather than a bug. If they had just been targeting Israel they wouldn't have followed up two days later with joint Turkish-Syrian military maneuvers. That stunt, plus the 10 Turkish ministers they sent to Damascus in the context of a formal cooperation deal, goes deeper than a Turkish/Israeli temporary spat.

I genuinely sympathize with some of these guys. They weren't the ones who demonized Israel for defending itself while the Turkish military killed 700 Kurds. Many of them probably didn't vote for Erdogan, and the ones who did almost certainly cringed when he called for Allah to personally wipe out the Jewish State.

Still, this seems a touch oversimplified:

Some 50 hoteliers from 35 Turkish hotels, representatives of the Turkish tourism ministry and Israeli tourism wholesalers specializing in travel to Turkey met Tuesday at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv to find ways to draw Israelis back to Turkey... Ahmet Barut, chairman of the Turkish Hotels Association, said that he understands the feelings of the Israeli public, but "we want to persuade them that they are welcome in Turkey." Israelis, he says, are emotional people, like the Turks, and so their responses are emotional. "A little push is needed to get communication back into a positive mode," added the representative of a well-known chain. "What was going on was political, and politics isn't real life."

Maybe. The "Global Jihad Against Israel" conference that met in Turkey after Erdogan pulled his stunt at Davos - that certainly had an element of the political to it. I'm pretty sure it was the "Jews" part that drove attendees to advocate the mass murder of "Israeli Jews" - and I'm not sure why that should matter to Israelis anyway - but fair enough. The guy's in a tough position and he has to say something, and asking Israelis to shrug off calls for anti-Israeli violence isn't that far removed from what the UN does every day.

But the anti-Israel miniseries that Turkish TV aired, which accused Israelis of pushing drugs and prostitution, played on anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish financial and sexual corruption. And the shops with signs that said "no Jews allowed, but dogs are welcome" - that was just rank Nazism. So maybe an emotional response wasn't totally unjustified, on account of the whole "it smacked of the Holocaust" thing.

References:
* Turkey: Israel Should Be Kicked Out Of The UN (Plus: Turkey Kills 700 Kurds In 2008) [MR]
* Turkey: Allah Will Personally Wipe Out Israel [MR]
* Turkish team comes to Israel in bid to woo back tourists [Ha'aretz]
* Clerics urge new jihad over Gaza [BBC]
* Turkish anti-Israel mini-series aired [JPost]
* A climate of fear [JPost]

Previously:
* Wonderful Story Of Jewish-Muslim Cooperation On Temple Mount Destroyed... By Radical Muslims
* Is Turkey Smuggling Iranian Weapons To Syria? Umm... Maybe?
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan

Turkey - otherwise known as the country that Obama supported for EU ascension at the cost of pissing off our Western European allies - wants to do business with the mullahs:

A protocol was signed on Monday on the sidelines of the Turkish-Iranian Business Forum currently being held in the Turkish capital Ankara, outlining the means to increase the value of the trade between the neighboring countries to $20 billion yearly within a five-year time period, Turkish media reported. The document was signed during a meeting between Turkish Minister of Customs and Foreign Trade Kürsat Tüzmen and his Iranian counterpart Masood Mirkazimi. The initiatives include preferential trade tariffs, an agreement to allow the free movement of goods, the merger of customs services and the establishment of a free trade zone.

No worries though. Dennis Ross is being dispatched to the region to... umm... actually I have no idea what he's supposed to be doing:

Dennis Ross, will travel to the Middle East beginning April 28 "to discuss with Gulf and Egyptian leaders issues of mutual and regional concern," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Monday. "This trip will further advance the U.S. commitment to renewed diplomacy in the region and ongoing consultations with partners." Ross will travel to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Egypt. He will be joined by NSC Senior Director Puneet Talwar and CENTCOM Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. John R. Allen... Ross's trip "is about reassuring allies that they are not going to make a grand deal with Iran at their expense," an administration source suggested.

Steve Rosen thinks it's significant that Allen is coming along. I'm not sure that's so surprising. If the point is to assure Sunni states that they'll be safe after Obama shakes Ahmadinejad's hand, bringing along a guy who can credibly buy them off with conventional arms commitments seems reasonable. That's how State does these things, isn't it?

References:
* Change! Obama Successfully Alienates France [MR]
* Turkey set to boost trade with Iran [JPost]
* Interesting Dennis Ross mission [Obama Mideast Monitor]
* President, State Department, And US Media Totally Smitten By Arab World [MR]

Previously:
* Israeli Officials: Hey, Do You Think That Maybe Obama's Going To Detonate The US-Israel Relationship?
* Great News: Obama To Appoint Up To Five Special Envoys To Oversee Middle East
* Dennis Ross: "I'm Endorsing Obama Because He'll Make Iran And Iran's Financial Backers Like Us"

It turns out that when you repeatedly go out of your way to alienate someone, you eventually end up alienating them:

Mr Sarkozy is pouring cold water on President Obama's efforts to recast American leadership on the world stage, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated. ...The American President's call "to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare" was hot air... Most of Mr Obama's proposals had already been made by the Bush administration... "The President is annoyed by what he sees as the naivety and the herd mentality of the media,"... according to the Sarkozy version, at the Nato summit in Strasbourg, Mr Obama was meekly yielding to Turkey's refusal to endorse Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new Secretary-General. It took pressure from Mr Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel of Germany to stiffen him up and change his mind, say the French.

Sarkozy slapped down the US President on French TV after he publicly called for Turkish entry to the European Union... it is easy to detect disappointment over Mr Obama's failure to respond to the Sarkozy charm offensive.

Given what happened at the NATO summit, maybe there's something to the idea that the Turkey EU endorsement - which sent Sarkozy and Merkel ballistic - was done in a fit of pique. Though that probably undersells the boneheaded reflexive multilateralism that went into the decision.

Oh well. At least we've won over the Sudanese:

The Janjaweed militia which President Al-Bashir has recruited and armed is responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Africans from the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. Over 2,500,000 Africans have been displaced in the process. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan praised Barack Obama on Monday. Reuters reported, via ROP: Sudan's leader welcomed on Monday "positive signs" sent by U.S. President Barack Obama to the Islamic world, striking a more conciliatory tone towards Washington, seen as an enemy of Khartoum in the past.

And to think, I just got done doing a post about how Obama's groveling multilateralism hasn't gained him any new friends.

References and previously after the jump...

Oh really?

US Middle East special envoy George Mitchell said Thursday that predominantly Muslim Turkey's friendship with Israel gives it a unique opportunity to help achieve peace in the Middle East. Mitchell's remarks reflect the US desire to see Turkey and Israel maintain close relations despite a dispute between the two US allies after Turkey accused Israel of using excessive force in an offensive against Hamas. "As an important democratic nation with strong relations with Israel, (Turkey) has a unique role to play and can have significant influence on our efforts to promote comprehensive peace in the Middle East," Mitchell said after meeting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey has long been Israel's closest ally in the Muslim world, and has tried, along with Egypt and France, to mediate for peace in the Middle East.

Erdogan publicly called on Allah to wipe out Israel and lied about who broke the ceasefire. He tried to get Israel thrown out of the UN and urged Obama to recognize Hamas. He repeatedly lashed out at the Israeli Prime Minister. Then he triggered a once-in-a-decade diplomatic brawl by hissing at the Israeli President and stalking off the stage.

Oh - and his party published anti-Semitic incitement on their website denigrating Jews and denying the Holocaust:

An article rife with anti-Semitic commentary was removed from the website of Turkey's ruling party Friday after receiving brief exposure, the country's Hurriyet News reported. Another paper, the Radikal Gazetesi, featured printed screens proving the article had been posted on the Justice and Development Party (AKP)'s internet site under the heading: 'The Promised Land - Palestine'. In the piece, Jews were dubbed "a swarm of grasshoppers" among other derogatory terms. It also denied the Holocaust had happened.

Or, in the language of the Associated Press, he "accused Israel of using excessive force in an offensive against Hamas." Yeah, because that's what the Israelis are grumpy about.

But just so we're clear: Israeli diplomats have declared that they no longer trust Turkey to provide mediation. Israeli military officials have become particularly tired of dealing with a government and a population that demonizes them and threatens to arrest them. Erdogan himself said before and after the Israeli elections that he doesn't see any point in being a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

And why shouldn't he personally and politically degrade Turkish-Israeli ties? His hateful behavior at Davos elevated him to hero status among Israel-hating Turks. Also among Israel-hating Palestinians and Israel-hating Brits. Iran actually thinks he should get a Nobel Peace Prize for his shrill disrespect of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

So naturally Mitchell thinks that Erdogan should mediate between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Of course he does.

References and previously after the jump...

Because why not? The international community spent six months referring to Hamas's constant shelling as a "shaky ceasefire." This is just the logical conclusion:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Hamas made a mistake by firing at Israel, but he also blasted Israel for "failing to abide" by the Gaza cease-fire prior to Operation Cast Lead. "Hamas, without a doubt, erred by firing rockets at Israel, but we must consider that Hamas fully abided by the truce agreement with Israel for six months, even though Israel did not," Erdogan said in an interview with Al-Hayat. "Israel didn't do anything to lift the blockade and open the crossings despite the agreement, and provoked Hamas and Gazans," Erdogan told the London-based newspaper.

In this reality, of course, Israel repeatedly tried to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza while Hamas shelled the crossings because they wanted aid and weapons. None of that stopped Israel from keeping Gaza supplied with enough aid to successfully stave off a Hamas-created humanitarian disaster. So those can't be the "provocations" that Erdogan is talking about. Maybe he's talking about the time that Israeli civilians Oleg Lipson and Lev Charniak were working to supply Gaza with fuel. If their attempts to deliver humanitarian suppliers were a provocation, that would certainly explain why the Palestinian terrorists murdered them.

Erdogan's been on quite the roll recently, hasn't he? I'm not sure why Hamas won't let Turkish troops monitor the crossings. It would be so perfect.

References:
* Hamas Continues Long Tradition Of "Shaking" And "Threatening" And "Endangering" Ceasefire By Firing Dozens Of Rockets At Israeli Schools And Hospitals [MR]
* Erdogan: Israel broke 6-month truce [JPost]
* Hamas Blocks Israeli Food Shipments, Intentionally Starves Gaza Civilians To Create A Humanitarian Disaster - Again! [MR]
* Breathless HuffPo Headline About Gazans Eating Grass Contradicted By Rest Of Headline, Linked Picture, Reality (Plus: Anti-Semitic Comments Ensue Anyway) [MR]
* Breaking: Two Israelis Murdered By Fatah, IJ Terrorists - While Supplying Fuel To Gaza (UPDATE: Israeli Towns Shelled For Hours Before And After Attack) [MR]
* Erdogan publicly slams Israel - again [JPost]
* Turkey: Israel Should Be Kicked Out Of The UN (Plus: Turkey Kills 700 Kurds In 2008) [MR]
* Hamas Considering Maybe Letting Israel-Hating Turkish Forces Monitor Gaza Border [MR]

Previously:
* Turkish Officials Working To Reinterpret Holy Books, Trigger Muslim Reformation (Plus: Uh Oh)
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You're In Lebanon You Have To Ignore Sexist Muslim Atrocities And Hysterically Call For Anti-Jewish Genocide Instead
* Turkey: Allah Will Personally Wipe Out Israel

What is it that they say about stones...

Turkey's prime minister on Friday said Israel should be barred from the United Nations while it ignores the body's calls to stop fighting in Gaza. "How is such a country, which does not implement resolutions of the UN Security Council, allowed to enter through the gates of the UN (headquarters)?" Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. Erdogan spoke before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrives in Ankara to discuss the conflict. His comments reflected a growing anger in Turkey, Israel's best friend in the Muslim world, over Israel's Gaza operation. Erdogan accused Israel of attacking civilians under the pretext of targeting Islamic militant group of Hamas.

... and glass houses:

Turkey's military says its troops killed 696 Kurdish rebels in clashes in 2008. Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Metin Gurak says another 237 rebels were captured and 177 surrendered. Gurak said Friday that 171 security personnel including soldiers, police and government-paid village guards, were killed fighting the rebels.

In fairness to Erdogan the UN hasn't passed any resolutions condemning Turkey's war onthe Kurds, a stateless minority just like the vaunted Palestinian people. Convenient, that.

References:
* Turkish PM: Israel should be barred from UN [JPost]
* Turkey: some 700 Kurdish rebels killed in 2008 [JPost]

Previously:
* Turkish Officials Working To Reinterpret Holy Books, Trigger Muslim Reformation (Plus: Uh Oh)
* Turkey: Allah Will Personally Wipe Out Israel
* Hamas Considering Maybe Letting Israel-Hating Turkish Forces Monitor Gaza Border

Erdogan declared that Allah will personally wipe out Israel and just this morning informed the Turkish parliament that "media outlets supported by Jews are disseminating false reports". Seems perfect:

Hamas is set to announce that it is willing to allow a Turkish force to deploy at Rafah crossing, despite earlier insistence that it would treat any international presence along Gaza's border as an occupying force. Hamas would agree to a Turkish deployment of forces because it "harbors respect to Turkey as an Islamic nation," a Hamas source told the paper. Turkey has made clear that it would be willing to contribute to a "technical" or "observer" mission.

In fairness, the secular Turkish military is quite literally the farthest thing from their increasingly Islamist political echelon. Some of the army's more exuberant nationalists have been getting visibly antsy for months and Erdogan's public musings about Allah's wrath can't be helping. But things have gotten so bad in Turkey that there's no way to know how a coup would play out: there may not be enough secular sentiment left in the country for it to be sustainable. And if Islamists start influencing the military then these vaunted monitors are going to be exactly as useful as those nonexistent EU monitors.

Plus the full plan calls for a dual French-Turkish monitoring force. And French peacekeepers - how can I put this gently - fucking suck.

References:
* Turkey: Allah Will Personally Wipe Out Israel [MR]
* Erdogan slams Israel harshly in televised parliamentary session [JPost]
* 'Hamas agrees to Turkish force in Rafah' [JPost]
* Suspected coup plotters arrested in Turkey [JPost]
* EU Again Backs Out of Monitoring Agreement, Endangers Israeli Security [MR]
* France, Turkey willing to send troops to Gaza as part of cease-fire [JPost]
* Again With the Idiotic French Self-Congratulation On How Their Soldiers Haven't Disobeyed Basic Instructions [MR]

Previously:
* Wonderful Story Of Jewish-Muslim Cooperation On Temple Mount Destroyed... By Radical Muslims
* Abe Foxman Should Stop Saying Words - Incoherent Support For Armenian Genocide Resolution Edition
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan

A NATO country and EU candidate with 70 million Muslims that the US National Intelligence Council expects to be a nationalist, Islamist regional power by 2015? Good times:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's toxic comments Sunday that Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip would lead to punishment from Allah and Israel's "self-destruction" drew a protest from the Foreign Ministry, which told Turkey's ambassador to Israel that these words were "unacceptable" among friendly nations. Erdogan, speaking at a municipal election campaign rally in Anatolia, said Israel was "perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction. Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents."

For the last few years Turkey has been at the center of US-Syrian peace talks. Though don't read anything into how their Prime Minister is willing now to call down divine wrath on Israel. Before this week their political echelon was totally impartial. But you know who's going to be particularly psyched about this? The Turkish military.

References:
* US intel agencies see stronger, Islamic Turkey in 2025 [Jihad Watch]
* Israel: Erdogan's words 'unacceptable' [JPost]
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan [MR]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Calling Up Reservists?
* Turkish Officials Working To Reinterpret Holy Books, Trigger Muslim Reformation (Plus: Uh Oh)
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan

"Have to ignore..." is probably too strong. "Get to ignore" is probably more accurate:

The women's organization of the Lebanese Hizbullah terror group held a "protest march" along the Lebanese border with Israel Monday, according to Hizbullah news media quoted by The Blue Eye. The women began their march at Kafr Kileh in southern Lebanon and reached the border passage between Israel and Lebanon, which is named the Fatma Gate. There the Hizbullah women began shouting "death to Israel" and to hurl epithets at leaders of the Arab and Western world for allowing the Israeli "siege" of Gaza.

They didn't hurl epithets at Arab and Muslim leaders because 16 year old Jordanian girls are being strangled for visiting female friends. Or because girls' schools in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are regularly destroyed. Or because women are being set on fire for doing academic work in Afghanistan. Or because elderly men are allowed to legally rape 14 year old girls in Turkey and 12 year old girls in Saudi Arabia. Or because Afghani schoolgirls are getting acid thrown on their faces. Or because ritualized gang rape is a way of life in Afghanistan.

Instead they screamed hysterically about Israel. Because those Israelis with their female political leaders and female business leaders - inexcusable.

References:
* Hizbullah Women March on Border, Yell 'Death to Israel' [A7]
* Girl strangled slowly for family's honour [Daily Telegraph]
* The value of Saudi girls [Elder of Ziyon]
* Pakistan: "Unknown miscreants" destroy girls' school [Jihad Watch]
* Taliban Set Woman on Fire for Crime of Social Science Research [Jawa]
* Child-Sex Case Grips Turkey Amid Religious Young-Brides Split [Bloomberg]
* Saudi marries off 12-year old over mother's objections [Elder of Ziyon]
* Two schoolgirls blinded in acid attack in Afghanistan [CNN]
* After being gang raped by her village elders, Mukhtar fought back... [Telegraph]
* Feminist Magazine MS To Powerful Israeli Women: Sorry, You're Too Jewish To Be In Our Magazine [MR]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Israeli Biotech Industry Skyrockets As Women CEOs Lead the Way [Video] [MR]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Feminists Are Defacing Marine Offices In Your Name (Plus: Tiny Reform Of Pakistani Rape Law Causes Major Rioting) [Video]
* Feminism in the Muslim World
* Feminist Magazine MS To Powerful Israeli Women: Sorry, You're Too Jewish To Be In Our Magazine [MR]

Hmmm:

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion. The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran. The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad. As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia... "You can't say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology. I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."

The good news is that this is happening. The bad news is that it's a sign that Turkey's secularists are increasingly looking to accommodate political Islam. And it's not the only sign:

Turkey's ruling party agreed with an opposition party on Monday to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarf in universities of the mainly Muslim but secular nation. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party and the Nationalist Action Party said in a joint statement that the two parties agreed to make changes in the constitution and the Higher Education Law to allow female students wearing head scarves into universities... Erdogan, who is a devout Muslim, vowed to end the ban during his election campaign last summer. He scored a resounding victory against the secularist opposition. The staunchly secularist Republican People's Party has repeatedly said lifting the ban would harm the nation's secular traditions.

An increasingly Islamist NATO ally. Super.

References:
* Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts [BBC]
* Turkey to lift ban on Islamic head scarf in universities [JPost]

Previously:
* Turkey Won't Accept PKK Ceasefire. World Reacts Exactly the Opposite Way They'd React If Israel Refused To Accept Hamas Ceasefire.
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan
* Is Turkey Smuggling Iranian Weapons To Syria? Umm... Maybe?

Although it may look like we don't care on the outside, on the inside we're actually crying:

Turkey has traditionally been the go-to mediator for any Israeli Prime Minister who wants to give territory back to Syria, one of the worst and least trustworthy regimes on the planet. So we're sure you can imagine how heartbroken we are about this.

And don't worry about the broader context of Israeli-Turkish relations. The Turkish army has a very firm answer for Turkish politicians who genuinely seek to undermine relations between the secular Turkish army and the IDF: absolutely not. Turkey's army enjoys extremely warm relations with Israel. But if you did want to start getting a little paranoid about the degree to which the Turkish army is actually on Israel's side, there's this...

One way or another, this will become a problem in a generation or two. By then a massive number of Turks will have adopted the peculiar interpretation of the Religion of Peace that embraces killing people. But until then, Turkey's concern about Israeli bombing raids on weapons meant for Hezbollah is less than dramatic.

References:
* Complicated relationship among Ankara, Damascus and Jerusalem [Ha'aretz]
* Is Turkey Smuggling Iranian Weapons To Syria? Umm... Maybe? [MR]

Previously:
* The Significance Of the Pope's Visit To Turkey - Not That Much, Actually
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent
* Olmert Offers Golan To Assad In Exchange For Worthless Piece Of Paper. Whatever.

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers
* Israpundit

Is Assad really this confident in global anti-Israel diplomacy and Russian anti-aircraft weapons? Really?

In other Syrian fly-over news, it's quite certain that if this is even close to true* then this is almost certainly false. Turkey has as much to lose from an Iranian bomb as any country other than Israel and America.

* All usual Debka-related warnings apply

References:
* Olmert: 'Not all IDF operations can be disclosed to the public' [JPost]
* Advanced Russian Air Defense Missile Cannot Protect Syrian and Iranian Skies [Debka]
* 'Turkey furious over alleged IAF foray' [JPost]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - IDF Says It's Not Gonna Happen
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent
* This Summer's War With Syria, Iranian Coordination Edition

Seriously? This is what we're supposed to be caring about now? Memo to Abe Foxman: not your job. We don't care where anyone falls on this resolution. Right or wrong, totally symbolic or genuinely meaningful. We don't care. It might even feel very good in that insipid identity politics standing in solidarity with the oppressed kind of way, but it's not your job. Doesn't Mel Gibson have a movie or something coming out? What about evangelical Christians? If they're trying to help Israel, you better tell them to knock that off. Tool:

This and making lewd comments about pregnant ultra-orthodox schoolteachers. That's what we've got today. Can this month just end already please?

References:
* Israel must get US Jews to back down, Turkey's envoy tells 'Post' [JPost]
* It's Tuesday, So the ADL is Concerned About Evangelical Christians [MR]

Previously:
* UC Irvine Gives Interview to Anti-Semitic Hate Group, Wonders Why Everyone Thinks There's Anti-Semitism on Their Campus
* ADL Thinks Real Hard, Identifies Religious Threat to American Jews - Christians!
* Evangelical Support for Israel - It's Not Because They Hate Jews

For the least couple of weeks, the pro-Kurdish site DozaMe.org has been following the aftermath of a PKK attack on a Turkish cargo train carrying a lot of weapons from a lot of strange places - and to very one strange place:

It's tough to imagine what mutual interests might unite the Turkish army in common cause with Iran, except... undermining the PKK. So there's certainly a world in which Turkey could see itself benefiting from a little Iranian sumthin' sumthin'. On the other hand, this would be an incredible risk. Turkey is a NATO ally for one, is an Israeli ally for two, and is trying to get into the EU for three - and even if none of those things were true, there's no conceivable way the cost/benefit on this makes sense. On the other hand, there are several links in the original blog posts to Turkish articles confirming that the train was attacked. Kurdish sources independently presented evidence about the munitions that were on board:

We certainly wouldn't object to knowing where they were coming from and where they were going.

References:
* Turkish media: Cargo train derailed by HPG was transporting rockets from Iran to Syria [DozaMe.org]
* IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT . . . [Rastibini]

Previously:
* Thousands Of Turkish Troops Stream Into Iraq
* Iranian Police Beating People For Drinking Beer
* Iranian Police Beating People For Drinking Beer

Ummm...

You know what would really be assume? A massive summer war in northern Iraq, to go along with the ongoing war in central Iraq and to compliment the war that's about to break out between Israel and Syria. This month is going to be super (h/t: Stanley)

References:
* Turkish Officials: Troops Enter Iraq [AP]

Previously:
* Hey, Remember How We Said That The Iranian General Defected? Yeah...
* Syria and the Problem of Meaning
* EU Pressuring US To Eliminate Visa Requirements For All EU Members. What Could Go Wrong?

Turkey's secular military seems increasingly unamused that NATO's only Muslim-majority country (for now) is sliding into Islamism

LGF reports that huge crowds have turned out to support the military's secular stand, with some frankly inspirational words about the secular legacy of Ataturk. AFP is saying that more than one million people showed marched. Captain's Quarters describes it as proof that Turkish secularism still lives

References:
* Turkish Army Threatens Political Intervention on Islamism Fears [Media Line]
* Huge Crowd Protests Against Islamic Rule in Turkey [LGF]
* Turkish Secularism Lives [CQ]

Previously:
* Wonderful Story Of Jewish-Muslim Cooperation On Temple Mount Destroyed... By Radical Muslims
* The Significance Of the Pope's Visit To Turkey - Not That Much, Actually
* Turkey Won't Accept PKK Ceasefire. World Reacts Exactly the Opposite Way They'd React If Israel Refused To Accept Hamas Ceasefire.

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers
* Israpundit

Sometimes, the obtuseness of journalists still somehow manages to stun us a little. Yehuda Litani's got an oh so heartwarming story of how Jews and Turks cooperated in renovating the Temple Mount in the late 1800s, and how this event was commemorated on a plaque. Oh - and how the Wakf destroyed that plaque in his ongoing campaign to wipe out evidence of a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. Such a mind-bogglingly ironic twist practically writes itself... unless you're determined not to notice the mind-boggling irony. Then you just sound like a pathetic bleeding heart:

The first buried lede: the Turkish involvement in the Temple Mount is a disaster. It's the first step to the internationalization of Jerusalem - something that Israel's enemies have been trying to accomplish since 1967. Through the 1950s and up till 1967, of course, Jordanian rule was just fine for East Jerusalem. It was just fine even though the Jordanians systematically desecrated Jewish holy sites in ways that would have made the Nazis take pause ("yeah, I dunno about using the gravestones of ancient Jews to pave the way to latrines... maybe we can just vandalize the cemetery and leave it at that?") It was only after 1967, when Israel had taken over and guaranteed the sanctity of all religions' sites, that internationalization became a hot topic again.

The second buried lede is actually the very last paragraph of the article (how's that for burial?)

That's right - this beautiful symbol of Jewish-Muslim cooperation has been destroyed by the Muslim Waqf - who, incidentally, was placed in a position to destroy it because Israel went out of their way to guarantee Muslim rights. So the Turks are coming in to investigate Israeli destruction of the Temple Mount (false) and the story is about how Muslims are destroying the Temple Mount (true) - but somehow, that contrast doesn't make it into the article (h/t: MR reader Merav)

References:
* Friendship on Temple Mount [YNet]

Previously:
* Turns Out, Jerusalem Really Was Important To Ancient Jews
* The LA Times: "Islam gets concessions; infidels get conquered." Ummm... Wow
* Do They Just Get To Make Things Up Now?