Are Israel And Turkey On Thin Ice, With Proxy War Ahead? Or Is It All Smoke And Mirrors?

Israel and Washington are throwing mud at Turkey’s top spy official, saying he’s in bed with Iran’s Ayatollahs. Whether or not this is true can’t be verified at this point. U.S. and Israeli officials are having their well-trained pets in the press throw their mud for them, and Turkish officials have yet to forcefully respond to the accusations.

Read the following two articles.

An excerpt from, “Who’s Out to Get Turkey’s Spymaster?” by Semih Idiz (Al Monitor, October 18):

The second story, written by David Ignatius, appeared a week later, on Oct. 16, in The Washington Post. Ignatius was the moderator during the Davos International Forum panel in January 2009, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, incensed over Israel’s bloody Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, told Israeli President Shimon Peres to his face that his country “knew how to kill well.” Citing unnamed Israeli and US official sources, Ignatius also claimed that Fidan had tipped-off Tehran about an Israeli spy ring in Turkey comprised of Iranians. He said this “effort to slap the Israelis” had resulted in a “significant” loss of intelligence.

It is no secret, of course, that Fidan’s appointment as head of MIT in May 2010 caused consternation in Israel. Turkish-Israeli ties, already tense because of the Davos exchange, went into a tailspin a few days after Fidan’s assignment when Israeli commandos raided the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marmara as it headed for Gaza to try to break the Israeli blockade. Nine Turks were killed at point-blank range in the operation.

An excerpt from, “Israeli-Turkish Ties Sink to New Low” by Ben Caspit (Al Monitor, October 18):

The Oct. 16 report in The Washington Post that Turkish intelligence blew the cover on an Israeli spy ring in Iran and exposed it to the local authorities is just the tip of a big, evil iceberg that looms over Israel and Turkey’s defense establishments. For dozens of years, Israel and Turkey, like close allies, cooperated in all areas of intelligence and security. Intelligence cooperation was close-knit and accurate. There was great trust between the parties, which yielded many mutually beneficial fruits. No more. The conciliation between Israel and Turkey, which was brokered by US President Barack Obama after immense efforts, is merely a veneer. In essence, there is no change.

High-ranking Israeli security officials contend that the 45-year-old Hakan Fidan, who used to serve as special assistant to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a radical Islamist who maintains very close ties with Iran. His appointment as chief of intelligence was a watershed that marked Erdogan and his party’s full seizure of the country’s defense establishment. At first, Israel was unaware of this appointment. It was only in the wake of the Mavi Marmara flotilla events in 2010 that its intelligence services became aware of the fact that Fidan was heading Turkey’s intelligence services. Until that point, the working assumption in Israel was that Turkey’s intelligence and military remained independent and that a certain degree of cooperation could be maintained, even when Ankara was being hostile or standoffish.

Propaganda directed against Turkey by the United States and Israel is always hard to get a feel for, because they are still allies, and in any future attack on Iran, both the US and Israel will need Turkey’s cooperation. So there is a fine line here that American and Israeli officials understand very well.

The idea that Turkey is going behind their backs to advance an Islamic agenda is a conspiracy theory that’s been served up in Washington and Jerusalem.

Everything Turkey is doing is strengthening Israel, such as its support for regime change in Syria. If we judge nations by their actions then it is very clear that Turkey is more Zionist than Islamic.

“The Turks don’t want conciliation. All they want is to bring Israel down to its knees. They cooperate fully with the Iranians and have an Islamic agenda.” Those are the words of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman.

Obviously, his remarks are absurd. Turkey is not a Muslim nation, nor does it have an Islamic agenda. A Turkish Muslim guru is connected to the CIA, and is living in Pennsylvania.

The recent publicized claims that Turkey’s version of James Jesus Angleton is giving secret information to Iran sounds too good to be true from the perspective of a Muslim. It looks like the U.S. and Israel are doing the discredited Erdogan government a huge favour by boosting its image in Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond.

Erdogan has discredited himself by aligning with Obama and al-Qaeda against Assad.

The Erdogan government has played a crucial role in the rebirth of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda was dead in the water. Then along came Erdogan and Obama, who resurrected al-Qaeda to topple Assad.

Turkey’s love affair with the Jihadist terrorist gangs that are killing religious and ethnic minorities in Syria is hard to ignore. The only person who is more friendly with al-Qaeda terrorists than Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan is Senator John McCain. They could very well name a brigade after him like the Jihad McCain Brigade, or the Martyr McCain Battalion.

VIDEO: “By what right are you criticizing Israel? . . . Mr. Erdogan, you have the nerve, the nerve to lecture Israel?” said an angry Netanyahu to Erdogan.