Turkish army blames Erdogan for setbacks against rebels

As he took off for the G20 summit opening in Toronto Saturday, June 26, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan came under an exceptionally acerbic US rebuke for a NATO member. He was accused of alienating the US and the West and told he needed to demonstrate Ankara's commitment to their (NATO) partnership by Philip Gordon, top US diplomat on European affairs, in a clear rejection of the Turkish prime minister's assertion in parliament Tuesday June 15: "There's no shift in Turkey's axis. Turkey is not a city state, it's not a state on which agendas are imposed," he said.

Taking Turkey to task for opposing the new UN sanctions on Iran and its anti-Israel rhetoric over the pro-Palestinian flotilla incident, the US official pointed out: "There are people asking questions about it in a way that is new, and that in itself is a bad thing that makes it harder for the United States to support some of the things that Turkey would like to see us support."

The Turkish prime minister is also in hot water at home, according to our military sources. Before he flew to Canada, his generals, led by chief of staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, demanded that he publicly disavow his insinuations that Israel had a hand in the new Kurdish rebel offensive against the Turkish military. His campaign against Israel, they charged, had caused him to neglect the front against the Kurdish PKK rebels, as a result of which Turkish military deaths were rising. Since June 19, 18 soldiers and several civilians had died in eastern Turkey and Istanbul and 50 in the last two months.

Erdogan promised to consider issuing this disavowal but had not done so before his departure even though high-placed sources in Washington say it would have improved his prospects of seeing the US president and helped ease the frictions between Ankara and Jerusalem. Instead, he was treated to a cold shower from a high-placed US official over Ankara's turn towards Tehran and its allies and campaign against Israel, instead of the certain prospect of a meeting with US President Barack Obama in Toronto.
Following his tour of the Kurdish-Iraqi front lines Sunday, June 20, the General Staff announced on Friday, June 25, that it will "professionalize the operational military forces serving at the borders in parallel with the process of professionalizing six commando brigades to counter terrorism."
During that tour, Turkish military leaders warned their prime minister that by snidely accusing Israel - "We all know who is behind PKK attacks" - he is helping the rebel Kurdish Workers Party's (PKK) cause and encouraging them to redouble their attacks on Turkish troops from their havens in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan

They stressed that no intelligence data bore out this accusation and, by dragging Israel into the conflict, Erdogan encouraged the Iraqi Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani to strengthen his military and intelligence ties with Israel and the PKK at the expense of relations with Turkey, when his main objective should be to persuade Barzani to stop giving them sanctuary.
Pressed again, the Turkish prime minister promised to clear the air. His aides then promised a retraction to ward of pressure from another quarter, Washington, over his deepening ties with Tehran, Syria and Hizballah, in response to concerns voiced by the visiting US State Department's first special representative to the Muslim Communities, Farah Pandith.

The invitation Erdogan extended to Hizballah's Hassan Nasrallah to pay an official visit to Ankara (which debkafile first revealed on June 22) had alarmed the Obama administration. In the event, the visit was called off - though not by Ankara but by the Hizballah leader who feared that no security service could promise him a safe return home.
Beset by rising acrimony from Washington, charges of neglecting national security at home and the Turkish armed forces' inability to contend with the PKK's onslaught, Erdogan has temporarily shelved his threatened operations against Israel.

Since the pro-Palestinian flotilla led by the Turkish Mavi Marmara was intercepted and redirected to Israeli Ashdod on May 31 - leaving nine Turkish activists dead - no further attempts have been made to break Israel's Gaza blockade, whether by Turkey, Iran or Lebanon. Iran, reluctant to carry the can on its own, announced Friday its "aid ship" was delayed by "restrictions from the occupying Zionist regime," while the Turkish prime minister decided to heed a confidential appeal from Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri not to allow Lebanese craft to set out from Turkey, or ports from Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus, after Israel warned they would be treated as "enemy vessels."

The Turkish leader has set aside some of his more provocative actions for the time being, but debkafile's Ankara sources stress he has not given up on his dream to raise his country to the pinnacle of a new Muslim Middle East bloc - in the first instance, by throwing in Turkey's lot with the most radical Middle East forces dedicated to Israel's destruction. Erdogan, Iran and other pro-Palestinian elements are expected to redeploy for another go at the Gaza blockade.

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Photo by: AP

Is Israel arming in Saudi Arabia?
By BENJAMIN JOFFE-WALT
06/27/2010 01:19

Reports claim IAF helicopters were preparing an attack on Iran
Israel Air Force aircraft dropped off large quantities of military gear at a Saudi Arabian military base a week ago, in preparation for a potential attack on Iran, a number of Iranian and Israeli news outlets have reported.

The unconfirmed report, first published by the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars and the Islam Times Web site, claimed that on June 18 and 19, Israeli helicopters unloaded military equipment and built a base just over 8 km. outside the northwestern city of Tabuk, the closest Saudi city to Israel, located just south of Jordan. All civilian flights into and out of the city were said to have been canceled during the Israeli drop-off, and passengers were reportedly compensated by the Saudi authorities and accommodated in nearby hotels.

The claim follows a report two weeks ago in the London Times Magazine that Saudi Arabia had given Israel permission to fly through a narrow corridor of airspace in northern Saudi Arabia so as to shorten the flight time required for Israeli jets to reach Iran. The Times said that Saudi Arabia had adjusted its missile defense systems to ensure that Israeli jets are not shot down while passing through Saudi airspace on the way to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Citing an anonymous American defense official, the report claimed that Mossad director Meir Dagan had been in contact with Saudi officials and briefed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the plans.

Saudi Arabia has adamantly denied it will allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran.

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf told the London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that it would be "illogical to allow the Israeli occupying force, with whom Saudi Arabia has no relations whatsoever, to use its land and airspace."

Earlier last week, Arab media outlets reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had canceled a series of military cooperation agreements with Israel after Israel's assault on a flotilla of Gazabound ships, which ended in the death of nine Turkish activists. The military agreements would have allowed Israeli jets to fly through Turkish airspace to Georgia and on to Iran.

Also last week, Egyptian sources told London-based Al- Quds Al-Arabi that an American fleet consisting of 11 frigates and an aircraft carrier, believed to be the nuclearpowered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, passed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Eyewitnesses told the paper that an Israeli frigate was among the passing ships and that Egyptian authorities had suspended all commercial boat traffic in the canal for several hours to enable the fleet to pass. Thousands of Egyptian soldiers and two helicopters were reportedly deployed to the area during the passage.

"Obviously there is much fear in the Arab world, and a clear understanding in Saudi Arabia as well as in Israel that a nuclear Iran is a great threat," said Dr. Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin- Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Ramat Gan.

"This brings us together on a strategic level in that we have common interests.

Since the Arab world and Saudi Arabia understand that President Obama is a weak person, maybe they decided to facilitate this happening," Inbar said.

"That said, I don't think the Saudis want to burden themselves with this type of cooperation with Israel," he said.

"They are afraid of Iran and if the Israeli action is not successful they would be vulnerable to Iranian retaliation."

"It's interesting that the news first came from Iran," Inbar added. "Maybe it's a warning to Saudi that we know what you are doing and we are not happy about it. It's also possible that Saudi Arabia let the news out as a warning to America that if you don't do something, we will."

Dr. Eldad Pardo, an expert on Iran at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem's Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, argued that there was growing support in the Arab world for an Israeli attack on Iran.

"If there is military collaboration between the Israelis and countries that are officially in conflict with Israel, both sides would be sure to keep it secret," Pardo said. "However, as the Iranian nuclear project becomes more dangerous and the regime becomes less tolerant, more and more people across the Middle East are ready to collaborate their efforts to block this project.

"That makes Israel just one player in a much larger military, economic and political effort," he continued. "There are clearly an intensifying set of signals towards Iran that it's not just Israel that means business. We saw it in the sanctions, which the United Arab Emirates just joined, in the quick reaction to the Turkish offer to act as a gobetween to resolve the nuclear dispute, in the Russian decision not to sell the S-300 missiles to Iran and the fact that Arab countries have not come out against reports of a new Israeli satellite and new Israeli military equipment."

While many regional military and geopolitical analysts believe the reports of secret Israeli-Saudi military cooperation, others view such claims with intense skepticism.

"Everything is a bluff," said Dr. Guy Bechor, head of the Middle East program at Herzliya's Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.

"What war with Iran? Do you believe every little report you read? It's all a bluff."

"These reports are just pure fantasy and have no foundation," said Dr. Mustafa Alani, director of security and defense studies at the Dubaibased Gulf Research Center.

"The Saudis will never be part of a military action against Iran, never mind an Israeli attack on Iran.

"You have to remember that the Saudis made lots of protects when Israel used their airspace to attack the Iraqi reactor," Alani said. "Since then the Saudis have enhanced their capabilities to defend their airspace.

"Furthermore, the Saudis are not needed and there would be no technical military reason for such cooperation," he claimed. "The Americans can attack Iran without embarrassing all these Gulf states, not just Saudi Arabia."

Shafeeq Ghabra, an expert on Gulf geopolitics, a professor of political science at Kuwait University and the founding president of the American University of Kuwait, argued that an attack on Iran was not in Saudi interests.

"It would be impossible for the Saudis to allow an Israeli attack on Iran," he said. "For Saudi to cooperate with a regime that is occupying Jerusalem, laying siege to Gaza and building settlements in the West Bank would undermine justice in the way the Saudis see it. It would also basically be allowing one nuclear power to attack another country that wants to be nuclear.

"Saudi Arabia will not stand for a military showdown because more than anyone else they know that this will bring chaos to the region, increase radicalization and terrorist activity," Ghabra said.

"That is not in Saudi Arabia's interest and quite frankly it's not in Israel's interest either."

The IDF and the Foreign Ministry both declined to comment on the reports.

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Iran Calls Off Gaza Flotilla over 'Israeli Threats'

by Maayana Miskin
Organizers of an Iranian flotilla to Gaza announced Thursday that they would not set sail due to "Israeli threats." The flotilla was to launch on Sunday.

Two Iranian ships said they planned to challenge Israel at sea with the help of volunteer marines. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had expressed hope that the marines would "teach Israelis a lesson."

The cancellation follows reports that Egypt allowed Israeli and American warships to pass through the Suez Canal. The armada's passage was seen as a possible warning to Iran.

Former Iranian ambassador to Syria Hussein, Sheikh al-Islam, said the flotilla had originally been postponed "because of hurdles put up by the Zionist regime regarding the impossibility of getting some of the goods ." The goods will be sent by air or land instead, he said.

Israel allows all goods to enter Gaza through its crossings with the exception of weapons and weapons-making materials. Goods sent by sea are rerouted to the Ashdod port and inspected, then sent to Gaza by land.

While the planned flotilla has been called off, a different Iranian boat is scheduled to set sail from Turkey, avoiding the Suez canal. Its passengers will include four Iranian lawmakers.

Several flotillas have set sail to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-run region. In late May, Turkish passengers on one boat attacked Israeli commandos as they attempted to reroute the boat to Ashdod, and a skirmish broke out in which nine passengers were killed.

The United States State Department criticized the flotilla phenomenon on Thursday. "Mechanisms exist for the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza... Direct delivery by sea is neither appropriate nor responsible, and certainly not effective, under the circumstances," officials said. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Shin Bet Agent Breaks Cover in US for 'Son of Hamas'

by Hana Levi Julian
A Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent has broken his cover in an attempt to help his former fellow agent avoid deportation from the United States.

Gonen Ben-Yitzchak, who left the service four years ago, worked for 10 years as one of the handlers of Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of the book "Son of Hamas."

Yousef is the eldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder of Hamas, and for a decade was also an informant for the Jewish State. The team was responsible for preventing countless terrorist attacks, among them assassination attempts on the life of President Shimon Peres and Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Yousef subsequently emigrated to the United States, and converted to Christianity. But he now faces what might be a life-threatening situation, having revealed his identity to the American authorities in an application for asylum. The former agent said he did not realize that publishing the details of his life in his autobiography might jeopardize his chances of remaining there, rather than prove his intent to sabotage Hamas.

Ben-Yitzchak has avoided cameras up to this point and was known in the organization as "Captain Loai" or "G." However, early last week he traveled to the United States to testify on his former protege's behalf at an immigration hearing. The intelligence operative will appear before a judge in San Diego on June 30.

Ben-Yitzchak allowed himself to be photographed on Wednesday at a Washington dinner honoring Yousef and others. The honorees received the Endowment for Middle East Truth's Rays of Light in the Darkness Award.

"He risked his life every day in order to prevent" terrorism," Ben-Yitzchak said of Yousef. "The truth is Mosab always prevented killings. Mosab is not a terrorist!"

In his book, Yousef noted that many Shin Bet operations were canceled "because of [Ben-Yitzchak's] command" in order to avoid endangering his life. Numerous advocates for the former agent have said that his life would be endangered if he is deported to Judea and Samaria.

The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, has declined to comment on the case. Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO), another honoree at the dinner, said he had sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano also requesting that Yousef not be deported. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Sen. Kerry in Israel: Praise for Israel, Worried over Iran

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
U.S. Senator John Kerry, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Sunday and said, "Iran has not left anybody very much choice but to move down the road that we are going." He refrerred to tougher sanctions on Iran but did not mention the military option.

"No one in the United States underestimates or mistakes the challenge that Iran is posing to the region," Sen. Kerry added. "We have put some tough sanctions into place… and in the Senate; we just went further last week."

The sanctions that the Democratic-controlled Congress wants has placed it at odds with U.S. President Barack Obama, who faces increasing criticism for failing to push harsher measures through the United Nations Security Council.

The senator's visit is viewed as a warm-up for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's upcoming visit to the White House next month, one week after King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will travel to Washington. The Arab world has held out for Israel to accept the Saudi 2002 Initiative, demanding a surrender of all of the land restored to the Jewish State in the 1967 Six-Day War as well as allowing the immigration to Israel of approximately five million Arabs claiming to be descendants of former residents of Israel.

"President Obama, I know, is very much looking forward to the meeting with the Prime Minister," Sen. Kerry stated. "Let me begin by congratulating you." Referring to Israel's relaxing the partial land embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza, he added, "I think everyone in Congress, and in the administration, and in our country was pleased and excited by the steps that Israel has taken now. We are very sympathetic to your right to defend yourself… I personally visited Sderot, I know the problem of the rockets coming in, and how many have come in, this needs to change, and that's what we are all working on."

He used the opportunity to promote the American-mediated "proximity talks" under the leadership of U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell. " Senator Mitchell will be back here continuing to work on it… I think time is the enemy for all of us here. We need to get this moving because the patience of people who have been waiting a long time on both sides, on all sides, has been tried."

Sen. Kerry previously has visited Syria and Gaza in an effort to win backing for a regional peace summit, even though the United States considers Syria a country that supports terrorism.

President Peres told Kerry, "I do not believe that we can move without the leadership of the United States.… We are very grateful to the United States for its strong support of Israel. It is important to raise the level of discussion between Israel and the Palestinians from proximity talks to direct talks. It is also necessary to have a secret channel, because everything made public is no longer negotiations, but rather public relations." (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Turkish Rally for Flotilla Raises Flag with Nazi Symbol

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Turkish supporters for flotillas aimed at breaking Israel's maritime embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza recently raised the Nazi flag with an expression of gratitude. The Turkish language slogan on the flag is a common expression of gratitude, according to the Religion for Peace.com website.

Turkey was not allied with the Nazi regime but retained important trade agreements that allowed Nazi Germany to import key materials until the pact was broken one year before the end of World War II.

The web site states that Muslim jihadists have committed 15,533 attacks around the world since the September 11, 2001 aerial suicide bombings on the United States.

Turkey and the terrorist-linked IHH organization organized the last flotilla May 31, when IHH members, many of them with training by terrorist groups, attacked Israeli Navy commandos who prevented the Mavi Mamara ship from continuing on course to Gaza.

The clash sparked another crisis in Turkish Israeli relations, which have rapidly deteriorated since last year's three-week Operation Cast Lead war against the Hamas terrorist infrastructure.

"For a sovereign state, giving up on a matter like this requires giving up on its statehood," a senior government official told journalists, as reported by Turkey's Today's Zayman. "Turkish-Israeli ties appeared headed for a collapse if Israel refuses, as it does now, to offer a formal apology," for the clash.

The official also alleged that the Mavi Mamara was headed for Egypt's El-Arish port and not to Gaza. (IsraelNationalNews.com