Monday, March 19, 2012

Stonegate Update :: Khaled Abu Toameh: Should Jordan Be a Palestinian State?, and more

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Should Jordan Be a Palestinian State?

by Khaled Abu Toameh
March 19, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2951/jordan-palestinian-state

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The talk about "Jordan is Palestine" only plays into the hands of those who seek to turn the kingdom into a radical state that would most probably be affiliated with Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Those who support the idea of turning Jordan into a Palestinian state need to be think carefully about the consequences of such a move.

A Palestinian state in Jordan would only be a source of even further instability and tension in the Middle East.

The royal family in Jordan has always been friendly to Israel and the West. Like his father, the late King Hussein, King Abdullah II is probably Israel's best friend and ally in the Arab and Islamic world.

The long border between Israel and Jordan has been relatively quite over the past few decades -- thanks to the Jordanian authorities' tremendous efforts to prevent terror attacks from their territories.

Turning Jordan into Palestine would mean the loss of a moderate and rational Arab leader at a time when Islamists are rising to power in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya.

It would mean the creation of a third state for the Palestinians, who already have two entities - one in the West Bank and another in the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian state in Jordan would be run by either Hamas or Fatah -- the two parties that have failed their people again and again in the past few decades. In any event, whoever replaces the royal family in Jordan would not be as moderate, pragmatic and open-minded as the Hashemites.

The Jordanian monarch has displayed courage by resisting pressure from wealthy Arab countries like Qatar to allow Hamas, after it was thrown out of Syria, to establish its headquarters in Amman.

King Abdullah II, who since the beginning of the "Arab Spring" has been forced to tackle growing unrest in his kingdom, should also be commended for resisting immense pressure from Muslim Brotherhood and many Jordanians and Palestinians to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel.

Security cooperation between Israel and Jordan has always been strong: the two countries face the same challenges, threats and enemies.

King Abdullah II and his father have prevented Hamas from establishing terror bases in the kingdom.

In 1999, King Hussein did not hesitate to expel Hamas leaders after closing down their offices in Amman.

A few years later, the Jordanians thwarted plans by Hamas to smuggle weapons into the kingdom for the purpose of launching terror attacks against Israel.

The king already has too many problems at home. The talk about "Jordan is Palestine" and "Palestine is Jordan" only aggravates these problems and plays into the hands of those who would turn the kingdom into a radical state that would probably be afflicted with Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh


Turkish Islamist Regime Set to Condone Massacre

by Stephen Schwartz
March 19, 2012 at 4:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2955/turkish-islamist-regime-condone-massacre

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The official explanation for the decision to abandon the Sivas prosecution held that the massacre was not a "crime against humanity".

The Turkish government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the so-called Justice and Development Party or AKP has provoked a major controversy by its ambivalence, after indicating, on March 13, that it would not pursue a legal case against Islamists for a 1993 arson attack that killed 37 people, most of them members of the Alevi Muslim minority.

The atrocity occurred when a mob of enraged Sunni Muslims assaulted the Madimak Hotel in the east-central city of Sivas. Alevis -- who adhere to a heterodox faith combining pre-Islamic Turkish and Kurdish traditions, plus Shiism and spiritual Sufism -- are committed secularists and notable proponents of gender equality. The attack on the hotel was motivated in part by participation in an Alevi cultural festival at the facility by the late Aziz Nesin, a popular author and translator of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses into Turkish. Nesin escaped the blaze set by the extremists; he died in 1995, at 79. Apart from those killed by the flames in the hotel, 60 people were injured in the incident, and 17 more died in anti-fundamentalist protests after the crime.

Sivas, an ancient city known as Sebasteia, and long a center of Armenian culture, now stands as symbolic of Turkish Sunni violence against the Alevis. While the Alevis share the same complaints of discrimination suffered by Armenian and Greek Christians in the country, members of this liberal, dissenting Muslim sect count up to 20 million Turkish citizens, or a quarter of the country's total population. They are therefore more threatening to Islamist clerical and political bigots than the Christians.

The Erdogan government let slip disingenuously that it intended to drop charges against five accused perpetrators of the 1993 Sivas murders. Two more are now dead, including the former mayor of the city, who was a member of Erdogan's party. Thirty people were condemned to execution for the attack, but their sentences were reduced to life imprisonment.

The official explanation for the decision to abandon the Sivas prosecution held that the massacre was not a "crime against humanity," and therefore is subject to a 15-year statute of limitations. But while Turkey under Erdogan and the AKP claim to adhere to Western values, in most countries, homicide – especially mass murder, and incitement to it – are not covered by any statute of limitations.

In the American South, after decades, racists involved in lethal terrorist acts against civil rights volunteers during the 1960s have been brought to justice. Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust, once they are found, regardless of their age, are still captured and arraigned. In the aftermath of the Balkan conflicts and other attempts at genocide over the past 20 years, war criminals have been caught and sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and similar bodies at The Hague. It has been argued that the same fate awaits the bloodthirsty Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad and his cohorts.

Turkey, however, regardless of its posturing against the Damascus tyrant, is different. The suggestion that the accused in the Sivas tragedy would escape a reckoning fits the "soft" fundamentalist direction Erdogan and his party, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, have imposed on their citizens.

Outrage over the apparent impunity enjoyed by radicals, murdering in the name of Sunnism, and inflicting continued oppression on Alevis and others of whom they disapprove, led to new confrontations with Turkish police last week. President Abdullah Gul, an AKP stalwart, was moved to declare that the Sivas events remain to be clarified, suggesting that Erdogan's followers might back away from such an obvious injustice. Further, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag denied that a statute of limitations could be applied in the Sivas fatalities.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main secular opposition force, the Republican People's Party (known by its Turkish initials as the CHP), commented sharply, "I am sure Prime Minister Erdogan is happy (and) relieved at such a proposed court decision. This is an affront to humanity, and this is where the polarization of society starts." Kilicdaroglu noted that some of the defense lawyers for the Sivas Sunni agitators are legislators representing Erdogan's AKP.

The accommodation of Sunni Muslim radicals in the Sivas case came as both Erdogan and the AKP face condemnation over obvious abuses of the justice system and other state institutions. Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, two leading journalists imprisoned in a murky series of proceedings during which hundreds of secularist media, military, and minority figures have been indicted for alleged subversion, were released on Monday, the day before the gambit to exculpate the Sivas plotters was announced.

Sik was targeted by the AKP for exposing the penetration of Turkish police agencies by a powerful Islamist movement headed by Fethullah Gulen, a purported Sufi living in the U.S. Two less prominent media personalities, Sait Cakir and Coskun Musluk, were also set free after being jailed in the same convoluted campaign of repression. But AKP allegations against the journalists have not been dropped: while they have been let out of prison, they still face trials.

In public education, where Erdogan and the AKP have promoted an Islamist agenda painstakingly, the Ankara authorities announced that they will replace the established eight-year primary curriculum with a split structure under which students will be permitted to complete four years each in primary and secondary schools. Between the ages of 10 and 14, young people would then be allowed to matriculate in "imam-hatip" schools, which train Muslim clerics and Friday preachers. Turkish parents expressed anxiety that such a "reform" would encourage girls, in particular, to leave school after only four years.

A probable consequence of such a new educational standard would be an increase in child marriages – a major blight on Turkish society, and a devastating setback for women.


"Responsibility to Protect"

by Shoshana Bryen
March 19, 2012 at 3:30 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2950/responsibility-to-protect

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If Syria and Egypt have nothing to fear from the President of the United States, what will Iran fear?

"What is being done in Homs [Syria] . . . is simply appalling and shouldn't be allowed to stand in our world," said British Prime Minister David Cameron in Washington. The British, he said, are cataloguing "these crimes," and Assad should "always remember that international law has got a long reach and a long memory."

Standing next to Mr. Cameron, President Obama demanded that Bashar al-Asad step down while reassuring him that the U.S. is unlikely actually to do anything about the porblem. "The best thing we can do right now is to make sure that the international community continues to unify around the fact that what the Syrian regime is doing is unacceptable."

Really? That's the BEST we can do? Who out there doesn't think what the Syrians are doing is unacceptable? The Russians? They know perfectly well it is morally unacceptable; they just don't care because a larger Russian interest is involved. As in Chechnya. As when the French and Germans said they were opposed to the Iraq war for moral reasons while they were taking Oil-for-Food kickbacks from Saddam.

But despite the fact that PM Cameron is "appalled" by things Mr. Obama has called "unacceptable," the President and various American officials have recently offered a host of reasons no one should expect us to do anything about them.

  • The US needs "permission" from the UN and the Arab League, along with NATO agreement (though perhaps not the agreement of Congress)
  • It would take 75,000 soldiers to contain Syria's chemical arsenal
  • There could be a civil war. [In support of Mr. Obama, the French government added yesterday that, "If we give arms to a certain faction of the Syrian opposition, we would make a civil war among Christians, Alawites, Sunnis and Shiites."]
  • Al-Qaeda is part of the Syrian opposition
  • Russian-supplied Syrian air defenses are formidable.

Most of those points are debatable (there's already a civil war and no proof of al-Qaeda involvement). All are largely irrelevant if, indeed, there is a responsibility to stop the perpetrators of what, by most accounts, amounts to war crimes. The United States and our British ally have to determine whether R2P (Responsibility to Protect) is actually only R2PATF (Responsibility to Punish after the Fact).

There is something to be said for the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Ratko Mladich after the Bosnia war, and the 92 indictments that followed the Rwanda massacres. There is less to commend the indictment of Omar Bashir of Sudan, who remains in charge of Sudan after the depredations in Darfur, Nuba, South Sudan and the Beja people in the east. And there is nothing that helps the victims of any of the above.

The administration should want al-Asad and other despotic leaders – not to mention our friends – to believe that the United States and its allies in the West mean what they say. At the moment, the bad guys, at least, have no reason to.

In the wake of charges against American pro-democracy workers in Egypt and revocation of their exit visas, Congress determined to withhold U.S. aid until the State Department certified that the country was "making progress in basic freedoms and human rights." Although one would be hard-pressed to see progress, The Washington Post reports that Secretary of State Clinton is close to announcing that she will bypass Congress and hand over $1.5 billion in mostly military aid.

She will, according to sources in the article, claim "national security" grounds, fearing that continuing to withhold the money will make the military junta and the Muslim Brotherhood even angrier with the U.S. than they already are. That, and most of the money is tied up in existing defense contracts with U.S. firms.

So, U.S. aid no longer serves the goals of U.S. foreign policy may have, it is a) a blackmail payoff against further Egyptian anti-Americanism and b) a "shovel ready" jobs program. Neither shows American backbone.

If Syria and Egypt have nothing to fear from the President of the United States, what will Iranian fear? Still standing with Mr. Cameron, President Obama followed up on his determination not to inconvenience al-Asad with what The Washington Post called a "stern warning" that Tehran "must meet its international obligations or face the consequences."

Yeah, right.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center. She was previously Senior Director of JINSA and author of JINSA Reports form 1995-2011.

Related Topics: Shoshana Bryen


PKK Encryption Team Caught in Northern Iraq
And more from the Turkish Press

by AK Group
March 19, 2012 at 3:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2954/pkk-encryption-team-caught-in-northern-iraq

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Turkish security forces captured five encryption specialists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, during a cross-border raid about 10 kilometers over the border with northern Iraq on March 11.

Turkish forces tracked the militants for nearly six months before catching them inside a cave in northern Iraq, in an operation assisted by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The militants initially fired back at the troops, but later surrendered, according to reports.

Militants Azat E., Adil E., Ayhan E., Neçirvan B. and Rojbin T. have confessed to being the organization's encryption experts and to relaying encoded messages from Mount Kandil in northern Iraq to militants in the countryside and urban cells inside Turkey. The militants were also involved two separate incidents in which they relayed commands from Mount Kandil during PKK raids in southeastern Turkey.

The first raid, in Diyarbakır's Silvan district on July 14, resulted in the deaths of 13 Turkish troops, and the second attack killed 14 troops in Hakkari's Çukurca district on Aug. 17. The operation also marks the first time that special operations police units have crossed the border into northern Iraq.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/pkk-encryption-team-caught-in-northern-iraq.aspx?pageID=238&nID=16135&NewsCatID=338

Journalists Handed Over to Syrian Intel

Two Turkish journalists missing in Syria have been handed over to Syrian intelligence by pro-regime militia, Deputy Foreign Minister Bülent Arınç told reporters Thursday.

"We have learned that they are alive and in the hands of Syrian officials. The Foreign Ministry will handle their return," Arınç said.

Syrian intelligence units moved the journalists from the village of Al-Fua near the rebel stronghold of Idlib in two armored vehicles, the Anatolia News Agency reported, adding that their whereabouts are now unknown.

Cameraman Hamit Coşkun was injured and may have been tortured, Anatolia quoted local sources as saying. Coşkun and Adem Özköse, from the Milat newspaper, traveled to the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib near the Turkish border earlier this month, to cover the regime's repression of the uprising there. They have been missing for five days.

"There is no official information yet on the missing journalists," a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told reporters.

In an attempt to discover the whereabouts and guarantee the safe return of the journalists, Turkey has asked Iran for help. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had a phone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Wednesday and raised the issue, a Turkish official told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Turkey had previously mediated with Syria for the release of kidnapped Iranian pilgrims, resulting in the Free Syrian Army's release of 11 Iranians. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will visit Iran on March 27, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Selçuk Ünal told reporters.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/journalists-handed-over-to-syrian-intel.aspx?pageID=238&nID=16157&NewsCatID=359

Erdogan Slams Greediness, Wild Capitalism

Wild capitalism and the rapacious drive for profits that is driven merely by personal interests and material gains is not a sustainable economic model, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan said Thursday.

"I find it helpful to relate here that famous Native Indian proverb: 'Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will the white men realize we cannot eat money.' This is the case [now]," ErdoÄŸan said during a speech at the Competition Authority's 15th anniversary in Ankara. "Before the world becomes an uninhabitable place, all of humanity should understand that money is not edible and take measures accordingly and implement them urgently."

ErdoÄŸan and his party, however, have been roundly criticized for their aggressive privatization of public institutions and drive to build hydroelectric plants despite local opposition.

"Today's world is not sustainable," he said. "The world cannot keep up with such greed, such endless insanity of consumption. What we face today is the early signs [of such an end. Such shockwaves are being felt in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United States."

Freedom, justice, the equality of opportunity and law are not concepts belonging to the West, ErdoÄŸan said.

"These are concepts that belong to us and, today, we have to protect them. We have to improve, grow and rise without oppressing the week, violating the poor, stepping on each other and by keeping the eye on the truth.

"When you exactly copy the institutions, lifestyles and systems of the modern world and impose them on the country, success cannot be achieved and [so it was in Turkey]. … Lasting changes are realized where external and domestic dynamics intersect and as much as a society accepts and are in accord with them," the prime minister said.

Turkey is a nation that values gratefulness, protecting the poor and other traits, he said, adding: "We are members of a civilization that does not separate the economy and morals but places morality in the foundation of economy."

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-erdogan-slams-greediness-and-wild-capitalism.aspx?pageID=238&nID=16150&NewsCatID=344

Turkish Government Mulling Buffer Zone at Syrian Border

Amid a new wave of refugees from Syria, Turkey is mulling whether to set up a buffer zone on its southern border to handle the influx.

The Turkish government is making preparations for a further exodus from Syria, as the number of people fleeing to Turkey has risen sharply due to Syrian army rampages in the restive neighborhood of Baba Amr in Homs and in the rebel stronghold Idlib. The number of Syrians currently staying in Turkey rose to 14,700 Thursday.

According to the course of developments, the establishment of a buffer zone at the border could be considered, Deputy Prime Minister BeÅŸir Atalay said in a televised interview.

Asked if Turkey was considering a corridor or buffer zone at the Turkish-Syrian border, Atalay said the issue was a common problem across the region, recalling that there had also been an influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon.Considering the efforts of the international community, including the Arab League, Turkey was studying its strategy with all dimensions, Atalay said, adding that the Syrian army was militarily interfering in any attempt by the Syrian people trying to flee the unrest.

"The Syrian administration has been planting mines, taking measures not to allow refugees to flee to the other side of the border," he said. Around 1,000 Syrian refugees, including a general, have fled to Turkey in the last 24 hours, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has estimated.

"The number of Syrians currently staying in Turkey climbed to 14,700 today," spokesperson Selçuk Ünal told reporters Thursday.Some 14,200 of those Syrian refugees are staying in camps in Hatay province, and the 500 Syrian refugees sheltering in Reyhanlı are being taken to a new camp in Gaziantep.

A defecting general is also among the latest wave of Syrian refugees, Ãœnal said.

Turkey is to open a new refugee camp near the southern town of Kilis next month to host a further 10,000 Syrians. Work has also begun on a camp near the eastern end of the border at Ceylanpınar for 20,000 people. That would bring the total capacity in Turkey for Syrian refugees to 45,000.

Turkey has not yet sent the invitations for the "Friends of Syria" group meeting that will take place in Ä°stanbul, Ãœnal said, adding that an invitation for France was still being considered.Despite the strain between Turkey and France, the gathering would be a multi-party meeting, the spokesperson said.

On the other hand, Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu has said that a "neutral actor" should take over responsibility for security in Syria to open the door for a settlement.

"By saying 'neutral' I don't mean someone from abroad, but someone who would have the people's trust," DavutoÄŸlu said on TGRT television. He played down the May general elections, saying it was already too late for the al-Assad regime.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-government-readies-for-syria-buffer-zone-amid-flow.aspx?pageID=238&nID=16146&NewsCatID=338

President Says Light Yet to be Shed on Sivas Massacre

President Abdullah Gül has added his voice to a recent wave of outrage over a court decision to drop the Sivas case, which concerns the deaths of 33 intellectuals as well as two assailants and two hotel workers in a hotel fire set by an angry mob, complaining that light has not yet been shed on the incident.

"This is one of the most tragic incidents in our political history. Light has not been shed on this incident. Light should be shed on this case and all its aspects," Gül said on Thursday during a joint press conference in Ankara with visiting Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa Delgado. He added that the trial has not yet been completed, referring to the ongoing appeals process.

Thirty-seven people were killed on July 2, 1993, at the Madımak Hotel in Sivas, when an angry mob set the building on fire. Seven of the suspects are still at large, and two of them, Cafer Erçakmak and Yılmaz Bağ, have been confirmed dead. Another five walked free on Tuesday when the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court decided to drop the case on the grounds that too much time had passed, triggering national condemnation.

Opposition Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, leader Devlet Bahçeli also released a written a statement on Thursday, voicing strong criticism of the case being dropped due to the statute of limitations, saying, "values of humanity were trampled" with the court's decision.

"Regardless of the court decision, the bloody hands involved in this chaos have been convicted in the hearts of the people," Bahçeli said.

The MHP leader warned against provocations in the wake of the decision and called for common sense.

"Any moves that could harm social peace by taking advantage of the court decision and spreading separatist feelings of animosity would not benefit anyone. In the past, Turkey has been shaken by many similar unfortunate and dangerous incidents and lost its way in the deep waters of polarization," Bahçeli warned.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir BozdaÄŸ responded to questions from the press on Thursday regarding a judicial reform package concerning the removal of statutes of limitations in some cases, saying any changes will be non-retroactive.

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-274374-president-says-light-yet-to-be-shed-on-sivas-massacre.html

Armenian Patriarchate Files Suit in Turkey for Property Return

The Armenian Patriarchate has filed a landmark suit in Ankara for the return of the historical Sansaryan School in the eastern province of Erzurum that was the site of the 1919 Erzurum Congress, an assembly by modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

"Some other foundations belong to [minority] communities, but the Sansaryan Foundation was granted to the patriarchate by philanthropist Mıgırdiç Sansaryan in the 1800s. The administration and management of the Sansaryan Foundation legally belongs to the patriarchate," lawyer Ali Elbeyoğlu, who represents the Turkish-Armenian Patriarchate in court, told the Hürriyet Daily News Thursday.

The patriarchate also demanded the return of other properties in the Central Anatolian province of Sivas, formerly owned by the Sansaryan Foundation in the lawsuit it filed March 14.

"We are not going to content ourselves with the mere return of historical buildings. We are also going to demand compensation from the Foundations General Directorate for all material losses incurred by the patriarchate since 1936," ElbeyoÄŸlu said.

Upon the government's request, Turkey's minority groups in 1936 gave the government declarations detailing their real property. Over the years, however, many of these properties did not remain registered under the minority foundations' names, and some were even sold to third parties.

Turkey's Foundations General Directorate expropriated the Sansaryan Foundation citing the 1936 Declaration, according to Elbeyoğlu.The Turkish-Armenian Patriarchate also filed another suit against the Foundations Directorate General in recent months demanding that the Sansaryan Shopping Center in Istanbul's Eminönü district be returned to the patriarchate. However, the head of Turkey's Foundations Directorate General has said it will not be returned, despite a ruling by an Istanbul court to impose an interim injunction over the building.

"This runs counter to all international legal [norms], as well as the Treaty of Lausanne. The Patriarchate is still in possession of the title deed," ElbeyoÄŸlu said.

The Armenian community currently owns three small foundations across the whole of Anatolia. If the patriarchate wins its lawsuit, it will mark the first time that Turkey's Armenian community has regained control of a foundation in Anatolia.

"If the Armenian community had not hesitated for various reasons, they could have filed this suit in 1936, as they are legally in the right. There is a case dated to 1936, and its files indicate that the patriarchate officially owns Sansaryan. Our research shows that the best-preserved archival documents are located at the Land Registry Cadastre," ElbeyoÄŸlu said.

ElbeyoÄŸlu also dismissed suggestions indicating a link between the lawsuit and the Foundations Law that recently came into effect. The Turkish government enacted a measure that went into effect on Aug. 27, 2011, to return properties seized from minority foundations through the 1936 Declaration.

The Foundations Directorate General still classifies Sansaryan as a property left without a manager and whose ownership consequently passed onto the Foundation Directorate General, but for that definition to hold up in court, it would require there to be no citizens of Armenian descent in Turkey, according to ElbeyoÄŸlu.

The Sansaryan Foundation was established by Mıgırdiç Sansaryan, a Russian-Armenian philanthropist. The police used the Sansaryan Shopping Center in Istanbul for a long period during which torture was widespread.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/armenian-patriarchate-files-suit-in-turkey-for-property-return.aspx?pageID=238&nID=16134&NewsCatID=339

Related Topics: AK Group


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