Behind The Scenes

The Washington Post has excerpts of an interview with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the recent incident at Davos where he stormed off the stage during a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres over the Israelis' recent military incursion into Gaza. There are some surprising revelations in the interview including the fact that Turkey was mediating talks between Israel and Syria before the Israelis took military action and that Erdogan felt they were on the brink of a major breaththrough perhaps even securing the release of the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas. It definitely changes the dynamic of the discussion I would think for most reasonable people. Two answers in my opinion are the key to the whole interview:

Why do you have such a close relationship with Hamas, which is an arm of Iran and is run by Khaled Meshal, who lives in Damascus?

First of all, Hamas is not an arm of Iran. Hamas entered the elections as a political party. If the whole world had given them the chance of becoming a political player, maybe they would not be in a situation like this after the elections that they won. The world has not respected the political will of the Palestinian people. On the one hand, we defend democracy and we try our best to keep democracy in the Middle East, but on the other hand we do not respect the outcome of . . . the ballot box. Palestine today is an open-air prison. Hamas, as much as they tried, could not change the situation. Just imagine, you imprison the speaker of a country as well as some ministers of its government and members of its parliament. And then you expect them to sit obediently?

Now please remember that Turkey is basically an ally of the United States. Yet their prime minister directly refutes what damn near all of our Congressmen and women said in the aftermath of the Israeli military actions.

It sounds like you and Prime Minister Olmert were on the eve of an actual breakthrough between Israel and Syria.

I'm sharing my excitement with you.

The Israelis have been frustrated that they couldn't talk directly to the Syrians.

We were trying to be their hope. Olmert's last sentence [as he left] was, "As soon as I get back I will consult with my colleagues and get back to you." As I waited for his response, . . . on December 27, bombs started falling on Gaza. There had not been any casualties in Israel since the cease-fire of June 2008. The Israelis claim that missiles were being sent [from Gaza]. I asked Prime Minister Olmert, how many people died as a result of those missiles? Since December 27 there have been almost 1,300 dead, 6,000 injured, no infrastructure left, no buildings left, everything is damaged, Gaza is a total wreck. It's all closed, under total siege. The United Nations Security Council makes a decision, and Israel announces it does not recognize the decision. I'm not saying that Hamas is a good organization and makes no mistakes. They have made mistakes. But I am evaluating the end result.

So on the very precipice of a breakthrough on negotiations Israel decided to drop bombs all over the Gaza Strip. This isn't some random blogger telling you this and it isn't some anti war hippie. Its the Prime Minister of Turkey giving every indications that Israel's actions were not neccessary and in point of fact they were pretty much working in bad faith. When are we going to hear the truth from our elected leaders? Honestly if we don't start being more evenhanded in this situation there is no way there will ever be a lasting peace in the middle east.