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In this mailing:
by Burak Bekdil
• January 3, 2015 at 5:00 am
Erdogan
can be very sure of himself when he claims that Turkey has the world's
freest press. But then there are facts.
Police
detained a 16-year-old boy for "insult," with the prosecutors
asking for up to four years in prison. He allegedly said that he
considered Erdogan as "the leader of corruption, bribery and
theft."
A
Turkish journalist and anchorwoman, Sedef Kabas, was detained after a
tweet in which she called on citizens not to forget the name of the judge
who dropped, apparently under government pressure, a high-profile
corruption probe against Erdogan, his four cabinet ministers at the time,
their sons and a shady businessman.
Pinar
Turenç, head of Turkey's Press Council, portrayed the "world's
freest country" as: "Censorship, self-censorship... injuries,
use of tear gas, batons, journalists... who are being tried under or
without arrest, and bans of media publications.... a really serious
picture for law and democracy."
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Activists from Amnesty International-Turkey protest
limits on freedom of expression. (Image source: Amnesty
International-Turkey)
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Apparently, there are lies, statistics -- and Turkish lies.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan thinks that he can claim the
world is flat and everybody will believe him. He has little idea how he
ridicules his own country when he sounds like former North Korean and
Iranian presidents Kim Jong-il ("If I am being talked about, I must
be doing the right things.") and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ("In Iran,
we don't have homosexuals.")
"We used to think that he [Erdogan] resorts to such rhetoric
for domestic consumption. Now we tend to think that he lives in a
make-believe world, a kind of parallel universe," a European
ambassador told this author over another jaw-dropping Erdogan speech.
by Steven J. Rosen
• January 3, 2015 at 4:00 am
Most
Israelis do not think the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS makes this a
great time to sign an agreement requiring the Israel Defense Force to
leave the West Bank.
When
Israel's former Prime Minister pulled every soldier and every settler out
of Gaza in 2005, what happened after that withdrawal was the opposite of
"land for peace."
It
does not inspire confidence that just signing a piece of paper will bring
real peace.
The
theory that friction will weaken Netanyahu is unproven; the reverse could
happen.
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Let's pretend to like each other... President Barack
Obama walks across the tarmac with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel, March 20,
2013. (Image source: White House/Pete Souza)
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This is the first time since 2009 that the Obama Administration may
think it has a credible opportunity to replace Benjamin Netanyahu with an
Israeli government prepared to make more concessions to the Palestinians.
The idea that Obama could have a more compliant partner in Jerusalem for
the final eighteen months of his presidency has to excite his closest
aides as they reach for achievements to crown the President's legacy.
This new perception, that Netanyahu can be toppled, has emerged
suddenly as the subject of audible whispers in Europe as well as
Washington.
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