A Turkish Muslim human-rights group protests Barak's upcoming visit
In the continuing expose of Israel's diplomatic incompetence, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon warned today that Israel might expel the Turkish Ambassador if another fictional TV episode is aired that denigrates the Israeli defense forces. Abba Eban must be turning over in his grave.
Turkey doesn't respond well to criticism, much less to threats. Ayalon couldn't have a found a faster way to poison the Turkish public's feelings towards Israel. Surely, Israel is also thinned-skin, but behind all this Middle Eastern machismo, someone needs to remind Ayalon that Israel has a lot more to lose than Turkey does from a collapse in relations.
Part of this is debacle is due to factional politics in Israel-- Avigdor Lieberman is an ultranationalist brute thrusted into control of Israel's foreign affairs by parliamentary horsetrading, not because he represents the will of the Israeli electorate. He is more interested in massaging his tough-guy image than in conducting effective diplomacy. Ayalon belongs to Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beitenu, which panders mostly to the right-wing Russian immigrants who came to Israel in the 1990s.
Barak, who has to go to Turkey to clean up the mess that the Lieberman-Ayalon axis made, is on the complete opposite end of political spectrum from Lieberman (and Netanyahu). The relatively dovish head of the Labor party, Barak engineered the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon and nearly conceded to every Palestinian demand at Camp David in 1999. He has an incredibly difficult task ahead of him.
Turkey doesn't respond well to criticism, much less to threats. Ayalon couldn't have a found a faster way to poison the Turkish public's feelings towards Israel. Surely, Israel is also thinned-skin, but behind all this Middle Eastern machismo, someone needs to remind Ayalon that Israel has a lot more to lose than Turkey does from a collapse in relations.
Part of this is debacle is due to factional politics in Israel-- Avigdor Lieberman is an ultranationalist brute thrusted into control of Israel's foreign affairs by parliamentary horsetrading, not because he represents the will of the Israeli electorate. He is more interested in massaging his tough-guy image than in conducting effective diplomacy. Ayalon belongs to Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beitenu, which panders mostly to the right-wing Russian immigrants who came to Israel in the 1990s.
Barak, who has to go to Turkey to clean up the mess that the Lieberman-Ayalon axis made, is on the complete opposite end of political spectrum from Lieberman (and Netanyahu). The relatively dovish head of the Labor party, Barak engineered the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon and nearly conceded to every Palestinian demand at Camp David in 1999. He has an incredibly difficult task ahead of him.
