"Muslim Jerusalem": Turkey's Message of "Peace" to Israel

by Uzay Bulut • March 17, 2016 at 5:00 am

Turkey's attempts at "normalizing relations with Israel" apparently do not actually aim to normalize the relations.
"We do not forget Gaza and Palestine even in our dreams, let alone in negotiations. ... Whatever is wrong for Palestine is also wrong for us. We discussed these issues in detail during our meetings with my dear friend, Khaled Mashaal [leader of Hamas]. This is the main objective behind the talks of normalizing ties with Israel." – Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey.
Do Turkish government representatives also tell their Israeli colleagues that Khaled Mashaal is their "dear friend"? Do they also divulge that the only aim of the negotiations is to get compensation for the Mavi Marmara incident and to remove the "blockade" on Gaza, possibly again so that weapons to be used against Israel can come in?

Cozying up to Hamas: Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu poses with Khaled Mashaal, Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau (left). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan poses with Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh (right).

Turkey's attempts at "normalizing relations with Israel" apparently do not actually aim to normalize the relations.

As often happens in the Middle East, there are two sound-tracks going on -- one perhaps in English to Israel, and one in Turkish to Turkey's citizens. Both sound-tracks cannot be right.

On July 1, 2010, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu addressed his parliament:

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ISIS Massacre of Christians Not "Genocide," Obama Administration Insists

by Raymond Ibrahim • March 17, 2016 at 4:30 am

According to the Obama administration, the Islamic State is committing genocide against certain religious minority groups — excluding Christian minorities. But ISIS is on record saying that its eradication of Christians is due to their religious identity.
The Obama administration's rejection of the word "genocide" fits a familiar pattern.
When asked about the plight of Christians under ISIS, Colonel Steve Warren said "We've seen no specific evidence of a specific targeting toward Christians."
Although Christians number 10% of Syria's population, only 2% of refugees accepted into the U.S. from there are Christian. (The majority — almost 98% — are Sunni Muslims, the same sect to which ISIS belongs and thus are not persecuted.)

The Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem in Mosul, Iraq, before it was captured by the Islamic State (left), and after.

According to the Obama administration, the Islamic State is committing genocide against certain religious minority groups — excluding Christian minorities. During a February 29 press briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest was asked: "Is the Islamic State carrying out a campaign of genocide against Syria's Christians?" He replied:

Well, we have long expressed our concerns with the tendency of -- well, not a tendency -- a tactic employed by ISIL to slaughter religious minorities in Iraq and in Syria. You'll recall at the very beginning of the military campaign against ISIL that some of the first actions that were ordered by President Obama, by the United States military, were to protect Yazidi religious minorities that were essentially cornered on Mt. Sinjar by ISIL fighters. We took those strikes to clear a path so that those religious minorities could be rescued.

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