Since late May 2010, when Israeli forces intercepted and boarded the “freedom flotilla,” which included the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara aid ship and resulted in the deaths of nine Turks, Turkey has been fuming.
Although the flotilla was destined to breach Israel’s maritime closure of the Gaza Strip – a violation no other sovereign nation would allow – Israel was condemned as the aggressor for enforcing the blockade. Even now, Turkey is warning that it will not allow Israel to board the flotilla when it sails toward Gaza again.
(Turkey plans to send warships to escort the next flotilla, as a means a guaranteeing that it will be able to sail into waters which Israel has blocked heretofore.)
Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is pushing Stimulus Part II, playing golf, shaking hands with union-thug bosses, and sending not-so mixed messages to the Palestinians. The one thing he’s not doing is standing up for Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East.
Were Obama to stand with Israel, Turkey wouldn’t publicize their plans to violate Israel’s blockade (and Iranian leaders would think twice before regurgitating their threats to wipe Israel of the map).
Instead, Obama has spent his time as President currying favor with the Palestinians. He did this first, in his Cairo Speech to the Muslim World (June 2009), by equating the pain Jews endured in the Holocaust to the “humiliations” Palestinians have allegedly received via Israel. Just a few months later, while reading another speech off a teleprompter, he told the U.N. that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.” And most recently, he called on Israel to realign themselves with Palestinian demands and comport with borders reminiscent of 1967. (He has since taken that back, but he was for it before he was against it).
And Mr. Obama has shown his disdain for Israel in many other ways not outlined here, but my short list should suffice in giving you a taste of how he has literally abandoned the strong ties with Israel maintained by American presidents to this point.
Now push has come to shove. There will be another “freedom flotilla” and Turkey is going to send warships unless Obama does a one-eighty.
We have to understand that Israel’s enemies are our enemies. (And that those who say they wish to wipe Israel off the map are working up the courage to say they’d like to do the same to us.)
Someone in Mr. Obama’s inner circle needs to tell him he can’t stand with Israel if he’s sitting with the Palestinians.
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