Arabs Find A Hero

The new hero of the Arab street is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A short while ago, it was U.S. archenemy Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president who recently expelled the Israeli ambassador.

More than 5,000 people, many waving Palestinian and Turkish flags, greeted Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his airplane touched down in Istanbul on Friday. A few hours earlier, the Turkish Prime Minister had stunned the audience in Davos, Switzerland when he walked out of a televised debate with Israeli president Shimon Peres after the moderator refused to allow him to rebut Peres' justification about Israel's war on Gaza. Before storming out, Erdogan told Shimon Peres: "You are killing people (in Gaza)."

During the past 24 hours, Arab satellite television networks have been abuzz with this story, as if other issues presented at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland did not matter. Arab masses have been looking for a champion since the fracture between Arab countries over convening a summit on Gaza and the disconnect between them and their leaders who they believe failed to react to Israel's fiercest attacks on the mostly civilian population in Gaza. The conflict in Gaza underscored the Arab divide between those allied with Egypt and Saudi Arabia on one side and with Syria and Qatar on the other.

In contrast, since the war on Gaza began, Erdogan has openly and strongly blasted Israel. He called on it to be barred from the UN, accused it of using white phosphorus against Gaza civilians, and charged it with other "inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction."

"Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents," he said.

Israel's president Shimon Peres told reporters at a press conference in Davos that there is "no conflict" and "we respect" Turkey, Israel's closest Muslim ally in the Middle East. He said bilateral relations with Turkey "will remain as they are" and that Turkey offers a moderate alternative in the Muslim world. However, relations between Turkey and Israel have soured. Istanbul has witnessed one of the largest anti-Israel demonstrations in the world, and Israeli media, most notably, the Jerusalem Post, has accused Erdogan of encouraging expressions of anti-Semitic sentiments in his country.

Meanwhile, it's been almost two weeks since Israel has withdrawn its forces from Gaza, and Arab countries are still squabbling over aid to Gaza. Hamas has been calling for an alternative leadership to the Palestinian cause, the people in Gaza are suffering from a humanitarian crisis...but amidst all this, Arabs have found a new hero, at least for a week or two.

Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV

Comments

[4MARLA]

WE GIVE ISRAEL $10 MILLION A DAY (NOT BECAUST THEY NEED TO STIMULATE THEIR ECONOMY).....NO.....WE GIVE IT TO ENABLE THEM TO BUILD ILLEGAL WALLS, SETTLEMENTS, WATER GRABS AND THE WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINE...ENOUGH!

[sarale23]

Let's see who has become Palestinian darling hero in recent years:

Saddam Husein - when he fired missiles at Israel population centers in 1991, even though there was no war between the two countries;

The 9/11 bombers - remember the rejoicing crowds on the Palestinian streets?

Now Erdogan. But Erdogan left Davos not because of his dispute with Peres, but rather because of his dispute with the moderator.

Big heroes, all of the above.

[cohen238765]

This is bullsh*t!

Guess who has become Israeli hero in recent years:

Baruch Goldstein
Mei Kahane
George Bush
Bernard Madoff

[Usama]

Citing how Muslim regimes repress their own people demostrates the delegitimacy of their rule and their dependency on America. Its well known that King Hussein signed a secret security pact with Israel decades ago and ruled with oppression and authoritarianism. king Hussein was fawned over by the American media when he signed a peace treaty with Rabin eventhough his regime tortures. Jordan still recieves billions from America which go to reenforcing the monarchy's suppression of its people.
And the Jordanian monarchy was established by the British colonial empire, which shows to whom its allegiances were.

The Syrian Baathist regime was brought to power by the CIA. It was deemed as a viable alternative to a communist back ed Syrian general. The Baathist party rules with oppression and authoritarianism, which includes torture. America and others have extradited to Syria for torture for some time. Hafez al Asad's massacre was silently supported by Israel and Washington DC as him doing their bidding eventhough he was not well liked.

The Egyptian regime has ruled by emergency martial law for almost 30 years. Sadat and Abdul Nasser were members of the Free Officers Movement (FOM). The FOM was brought to power by the CIA also.
America has been giving billions to Egypt which have gone to reenforce the military elites who have controlled Egypt for decadesf.

All of this can be confirmed in such books as Michael Oren's Faith, Fantasy and Power, a history of American involvement in the Middle East.

[4MARLA]

HOW ABOUT THE STACKED DECK?? I THOUGHT DAVID IGNATIUS WAS GOING TO KISS PERES HOW WAS THAT SET UP....WHY DO WE HAVE PROSTITUTES LIKE IGNATIUS MANIPULATING THE WORLD WITH WHAT WE IN AMERICA GET AS NEWS NIGHTLY. WE ARE BEING GOVERNED BY THE ISRAELI KNESSET....WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT...BETTER START SOON...WE WILL BE BLAMED WHEN ISRAEL BOMBS IRAN WITH OUR ARMS AND HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS

[thruthseeker]

I realize that Mitchell will not be able to work his magic this time around..

Israel has reached a point of no return..Nethanyahu will be the next prime minister.
Barak and livni were the moderates who launched this war.
I can only imagine what a hardliner like Benjamin is going to do.
Gird your loins.. We might be in for a sequel.

[chaos4700]

What magic? For all intents and purposes, Israel is making demands on Mitchell, and he's showing no spine as of yet. We might as well have left Condi in charge, for all it's going to be worth.

[jad114]

For all intensive purposes, Israel is not interested in peace, so-called moderates or consevatives.

The only time Israel is willing to withdraw from land it occupies is when it becomes costly for it. Peace with Egypt was made possible when Egyptians proved that they could deliver a painful blow to Israel in Yom Kipur War. Also, Israel withdrew from Lebanon twice after receiving heavy blows from Hezbollah. Similarly, Gaza has always proven to be problematic and costly to Israel that the late Israeli PM Rabin once said that he wished he would wake up one day and find out that Gaza has disappeared in the sea.

[skialethia]

And this is just the beginning. If Net an yahu wins the elections or forms a coalition with the other rad ical party on the right in Is r ae l, things are going to get much uglier and spin way out of control.

Again I must repeat. Mitchell must realize if he hasn't already that this situation is very different from I r e land. Is r a el is not the U.K. The boundaries are also completely different. The circumstances are very different.

This is more like Kosovo; this is more like South Africa and therefore its going to take a global movement, it's going to take global intervention; it's going to take severe sanctions against Israel. If this is not done soon; this situation will bring misery and tragedy for the region and eventually the entire world.

I hope someone is reading this for God's sakes who sees what I see!

[sam49]

"the Jerusalem Post, has accused Erdogan of encouraging expressions of anti-Semitic sentiments in his country."


"In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical "Shem", Hebrew: שם, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya among others."

Source: Wikipedia

I guess this makes Palestinians Semitic as well.

[chaos4700]

The designation "Semitic" would be another thing Israelis have tried to steal from Palestinians and make exclusively theirs.

[JacksonJones]

People who don't know how the term Anti-Semitc came into being make some pretty ignorant remarks.

[Garvagh]

Bravo, Erdogan. The periodic murderous Israeli rampages (Lebanon 2006, Gaza recently) are fostering hatred of the Jewish state. Turkey sees the need for Israel to get out of the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and to stop murdering Muslim women, children and male non-combatants.

[Together4Peace]

Agree. I was at a rally, there was a woman holding a sign "Israel wants peace", another "Israel has the right to defend itself", then a car passed by and someone yelled ......
"Nuke all the Palestinians"
The entire pro-Israel group cheered. I looked directly at these two women, they both cheered and gave thumbs up to the passing car!

[JacksonJones]

Unless the big talking Arab/Muslim pols are going to talk about what they intend to do about ending the war that's been waged on Israel for 60 years, the protests they sanctimoniously spout about Israel are hollow. Hafez Assad slaughtered 20,000 Palestinians in Hama when they got too problematic for him, and nary a peep was heard in the Arab world. Today, Arabs offer little protest for the killing on non-Arabs in Darfur by Arabs. In neither of those circumstances were the perpetrators of such attacks threatened in the way the Israel has been threatend and attacked.

[justice2008]

And Israelis are angels? Why don't you read Ilan Pappe's book
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LEN20070207&articleId=4715

[JacksonJones]

Why do the Israelis need to be angels for Israeli civilians to not be getting shot at by rockets?
Why don't you google "PLO phased plan" and read the Hamas charter, google "Three Noes of Khartoum". It was the Arabs that marched to throw the Jews into the sea in 1948, not the other way 'round.

[thruthseeker]

How about "Black tuesday" when the king of Jordan killed 10.000 palestinians In ONE day..

[leonardox1]

How about "Dei Yassein" when Jewish Haganah massacred inhabitants of an entire village?

[1liberalconspirator]

Armenian massacre?

[MajorKong]

Both sides are so deep into the attack-revenge-repeat cycle that there's no shortage of blame to go around.

[Hasur]

Rubbish...

Not sure how 20000 palestinians made it to Hama... do you even know where Hama is? It's north of lebanon. Try looking at a map of Syria.
In 1982 the massacre in hama was against the muslim brotherhood who are syrian citizens. Only jordan has given palestinians citizenship in teh arab world.

It's absolutely attrocious that the arab regimes do very little against what goes on in Darfur, but they don't, and rarely, have represented their people in any way. The sabre-rattling of some against Israel and the US is just that... militarily they are totally ineffective. The most 'powerful' of them are directly in the US's sphere of influence and the US does very little to foster democracy.

I find your anti-arab and anti-muslim generalizations unacceptable, uneducated and of the most irresponsible sort taht should NOT be used against any religious, cultural or demographic group.

[newsjunkie5]

I think this is GREAT! Why is it so wrong for Arabs, especially Palestinians, to have a hero? To have a positive figure to look up to?

[jad114]

What about Hassan Nasrallah? Don't Arabs consider him a hero?

[Jamesdean]

Yes, he is a hero for many, many people, but when a person holding the top position in the country speaks the truth than it is something totally different. I am happy that finally someone spoke out.

[majormoderate]

I agree. This is a very positive sign. Its nice to see a relatively moderate Arab leader with such popularity in the middle east.

[balrog221]

turks are not arabs

[thruthseeker]

When the turks give the Kurds their Nation Kurdistan and stop killing innocent civilians , maybe they can start moralizing. Until that time evrything else is hypocrisy at the highest order.

[stateMachine]

Erdogan's administration is spending 12 Billion dollars on the development of the impoverished, mainly kurdish south east of Turkey. Indeed, Erdogan's outreach to Turkey's Kurdish community is in large part the reason why he is the Turkish Prime Minister.

In fact, Erdogan's precisely the man to talk to Peres- Turkey is currently enjoying the fruits of fully enfranchising the Kurds: so much so that Kurds in Turkey largely saw the activities of Kurdish guerillas on the Northern Iraqi border as mettlesome and counterproductive.

Israel could enjoy such dividends if it's statesmen could see past the foment of popular jingoism to contemplate the longview.

[MajorKong]

So the Palestinians, who we happen not to like, don't deserve a state. The Kurds, who we happen to like, are somehow deserving of a state. How convenient.

The Turks would claim that the PKK are "terrorists" and that they have the same right to respond to PKK attacks as the Israelis do to Hamas.

[Goefel]

Peres shouted louder and had the final word, as the US moderator [David Ignatius] underperformed as moderator in this forum.
But the Arab League Representative, Ban-Ki Moon and Mr. Erdogan of Turkey, all made the same points that a humanitarian crisis was occurring. All Perez could do was beat his chest and cry we are the victim.
It seems that power wins over honesty in this instance.

Watch the video on CPSAN. It is very revealing, even if you understand little of what is happening.

[cohen238765]

I agree this David Ignatius allowed Peres to rant for 15+ minutes and tried to cut off Erdogan on the pretext that they needed to go to dinner!?What a stupid excuse!

[leonardox1]

I thought that this was supposed to be a conference to solve the global crisis instead it turns into a circus between Israel and Turkey. Here is one thing, since we are so freaking broke...do we still have to send 4 billion dollars to Israel?

[joz22]

Absolutely! God forbid Israelis do not get their national health insurance.

[newsjunkie5]

Imagine that...what would they do?

[justice2008]

Arab leaders have failed Palestinians for decades. Erdogan is establishing himself a the Palestinian champion to fill the void. He is also cementing the Islamists hold on Turkey.

[joz22]

It's pathetic that Arabs look towards non-Arabs to save the Palestinians like Chavez and Erdogan. Instead they should boot out their dictators starting with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi monarch.

[newsjunkie5]

It's not that they are looking towards non-Arabs to save Palestinians. He just came out and spoke his mind...what a concept...a leader finally spoke his mind and told the TRUTH. I really think most leaders are thinking the same thing, but are just too cowardly to say anything at all.

[piul05]

"Instead they should boot out their dictators starting with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi monarch."

They do try – they protest, and get arrested, and get beaten up, and get harassed, and get threatened; but you don't hear any of it on MSM because their governments are US allies and, being a good friend, turns a blind eye to its pet despots and their actions.

[majormoderate]

What about the Arabs in Darfur who've been slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands? Arab leaders haven't done anyhting for them, yet I don't hear much complaints about that.