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In this mailing:
- Bassam Tawil: The Palestinian
Peace Plan
- Uzay Bulut: Turkish
Diplomacy: Take Hostages
by Bassam Tawil • March 13, 2018
at 5:00 am
- Opposing a peace
initiative because you do not like its content is one thing.
Opposing a peace initiative designed to improve the lives of
your people is another thing entirely.
- Palestinian leaders
do not care about their own people, so why should they care
about peace with Jews?
- They will never
accept another plan, even if it comes from Prophet Muhammad.
Not only
are Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas wholly shirking their responsibility to
their people, they also are prepared to foil any attempt by
outsiders, in this case the US, to work towards ending the crisis
in the Gaza Strip. Pictured: Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian
Authority. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
It is easy to see why Palestinians would be opposed
to the US administration's upcoming plan for peace in the Middle
East. The Palestinians do not like what they are hearing about the
plan, which has not yet been made public.
Opposing a peace initiative because you do not like
its content is one thing. Opposing a peace initiative designed to
improve the lives of your people is another thing entirely. The
latter defies logic and reveals the disappointing aspects of human
nature.
Palestinian hatred of the US administration and
President Donald Trump is so intense that the Palestinians are
prepared to prolong the misery of their people.
Palestinian leaders care nothing for their people's
ongoing suffering. Give those leaders jobs, money and power, and
their people be damned.
Once again, the two million Palestinians living in
the Gaza Strip have fallen victim to their leaders' greed,
carelessness and idiocy.
by Uzay Bulut • March 13, 2018 at
4:00 am
- Ankara's detention
of the two Greek soldiers appears to be the latest instance of
what has come to be called Turkey's "hostage-taking
diplomacy." Other examples include a German-Turkish
journalist, Deniz Yücel; a French journalist Loup Bureau, and
an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, among others. All were
imprisoned in Turkey on trumped-up terrorism-related charges.
Pastor Brunson has been behind bars since October 2016, but
the Turkish judiciary has yet to produce an indictment
spelling out the charges against him.
- According to Freedom
House project director "Turkish hostage-taking has become
one of the most pressing problems in relations between Ankara
and its Western allies. It is something that everyone knows is
happening, but political leaders and diplomats are reluctant
to call it by its name." -- Nate Schenkkan, project
director, Freedom House.
- It is high time the
West had a serious discussion about whether Turkey's
aggressive and illegal actions in the region really comply
with the principles of NATO and the EU.
American
Pastor Andrew Brunson, pictured with his wife Norine, has been
jailed in Turkey since October 2016 on spurious charges of
"being a member of an armed terrorist organization". The
Turkish judiciary has yet to produce an indictment spelling out the
charges against him. "He is being held simply because of his
Christian beliefs and is facing grave danger in a Turkish
prison," according to the American Center for Law and Justice.
Turkey's arrest on March 2 of two Greek soldiers on
suspicion of espionage, after the pair entered a "prohibited
military zone" along the border, should be cause for alarm in
the West. When they were arrested – in the small space between
Turkish and Greek guard posts -- Angelos Mitretodis and Dimitris
Kouklatzis explained that they had simply strayed by a few meters
in the thick forest, due to the poor weather conditions. They had
difficulty seeing where they were going, and so followed tracks in
the snow.
Their lawyers' plea for their release was rejected
by a court in Edirne, on the grounds that "images were found
in the cell phones of the soldiers, who intended to send the
footage to their superiors."
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