Like I said Friday, the fuse has been lit. I think it’s too late for Assad to put it out without a major blow up.
Now the Arab League, in an unprecedented move, has imposed economic sanctions on Syria, including travel bans on senior officials and other measures which will make it...
It’s all about the natural gas and Erdogan’s ego:
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described offshore gas drilling by estranged ally Israel and Cyprus as “madness” on Wednesday, raising the stakes in a confrontation over potentially huge deposits in the eastern Mediterranean….
“The Greek Cypriot administration and Israel are engaging in oil exploration...
Turkish Prime Minsister Erdogan’s agitation show no signs of letting up.
He’s back to threats of military confrontation with Israel:
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Israel could not do whatever it wanted in...
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, having threated to have warships escort ships seeking to break the Gaza blockade, has walked back those comments, claiming he was taken out...
What is going on in Egypt was all foreseeable to those of us who did not harbor the romantic view of the Arab Spring, which in many places was just a venting of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel which had been suppressed by dictatorial rulers. Just ask Lara Logan, who was sexually abused in...
I wasn’t sure Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan really would follow through on threats of a military confrontation with Israel over the Gaza blockade, but the recent U.N. panel decision upholding the legality of the blockade over Turkish protests seems to have sent Erdogan off the rails.
Turkey just announced that...
I posted yesterday about a U.N. report finding that Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza is legal under international law, that Israel had a right to board and search...
I have posted about this U.N. report before, and Turkey’s attempts to prevent its release or at least modify the findings.
Considering that this is a U.N. report, and the U.N. almost never is fair to Israel, the findings are astounding. As reported by The NY Times:
A United Nations review has found...
Among the stories I neglected because of the focus on the debt ceiling debate is the continuing slide of Turkey, once a secular pro-Western country which also maintained good relations with Israel.
As I have noted since January 2009, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been slowly destroying Turkey’s secular foundation,...
I’ll be updating links and reports about the Gaza Flotilla 2 throughout the day, although if someone just happened to fall off one of the ships, maybe I’ll do a separate post. Feel free to add in links in the comments.
Although the precise date is not clear, calls have gone out for anti-Israel activists to converge on Israel on or about June 8, in anticipation of a large flotilla of ships trying to break the military sea blockade of Gaza later in June, and additional attempts to crash through Israel’s borders.
And the Kurdish State.
Via Israel Matzav,
Spain to recognize ‘Palestine’ on the ’1967 lines’
The Palestinian Authority announced on Thursday that Spain has decided to recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines before September. A spanish diplomat told Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath that Spain would support making the state...
Turkey is threatening unspecified intervention if Israel again
uses military action to prevent a flotilla, organized in part
by Turkish Islamist groups, from reaching Gaza. Via
AFP:
Turkey on Saturday warned Israel against another act of bloodshed in international waters after activists announced plans to send a new aid flotilla to the blockaded...
Actually, I’d rather watch sausage being made.
International humanitarian law, while it sounds nice, often is
nothing more than power politics. Witness Turkey’s attempt to
manipulate and influence a draft U.N. report on last summer’s
Gaza flotilla, sponsored in substantial part by Turkish Islamist
organizations:
The first draft of the panel’s report, which...
During the so-called Gaza flotilla last summer, I pointed out that the main goal was to bust the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, in which ship heading for Gaza would be inspected for weapons, to open up sea lanes for shipping large quantities of weapons to Gaza.
There is a long history...
