Guest Post: Are Turks And Americans Friends?

May 17, 2013 § 3 Comments

Today’s post comes from the great mind of Alexander Slater, who aside from being a close friend and one of my all-time favorite intellectual sparring partners is also a counsel at O’Melveny & Myers, where he works in the White Collar and Corporate Investigations practice. He has degrees from Yale, Harvard, and Oxford, is a former foreign policy adviser to Chuck Schumer, and is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Young Atlanticist Network. He and I were in Turkey together in March, and as Prime Minister Erdoğan is visiting DC this week, it is a good opportunity for Ally to expound on the gap between the constant rhetoric from the U.S. and Turkish governments about the friendship between the two countries on the one hand and the reality of the public opinion numbers on the other.

When the Obama Administration originally announced yesterday’s White House meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it explained that “[t]he Prime Minister’s visit underscores the close friendship between the United States and Turkey.” But are Turkey and the United States really friends?

This is not an idle question. As the United States’ close relations with Canada and the United Kingdom show, genuine friendships among states, as opposed to alliances based on the coincidence of national interests, can be powerful strategic assets. Especially in electoral democracies, relationships based on a mutual admiration among their people, not merely their governments, can endure beyond momentary, or even lasting, differences in foreign policies. (Canada’s refusal to join the coalition of states participating in the Iraq War is a case in point.)

Given the importance that Turkey and the United States place on their bilateral relations, then, the White House’s statement should be seen as more than polite diplomatic speak. Unfortunately, it also appears to be wrong, at least if the results from Pew Research’s 2012 Global Attitudes Survey are to be believed.

According to the survey, only 15 percent of Turks have a favorable opinion of the United States. Even fewer —only 13 percent—indicated they have a “favorable view of the American people.” (This was the lowest score of people from any of the twenty-one countries surveyed. By contrast, 32 percent of Egyptians and 39 percent of Chinese—nationals of countries with arguably more contentious relations with the United States than Turkey—had a favorable view of Americans.) These results are surprising because many people from both countries have a lot in common, even if their historical, religious, and cultural backgrounds differ.

I know this because in March I spent two weeks in Turkey as a participant in the third installment of the Young Turkey, Young America program, an intercultural exchange run jointly by the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, and Sabanci University’s Istanbul Policy Center. As part of the program, fifteen Turks and fifteen Americans, all young professionals, spent a month together traveling across the two countries, meeting with officials from their commercial, political and civil society communities. The Pew survey results paint a very different picture than what I saw and heard during our travels.

For instance, according to the Pew survey, only 14 percent of Turks said they “like[d] . . . American ways of doing business.” (Like the results discussed above, this was the lowest score of people from any of the twenty-one countries surveyed.) And yet, while in Turkey, I saw officials and executives promote commerce and conduct business in ways similar to Americans: The Izmir Chamber of Commerce advertised how the region was a great place for investment; a government official in Ankara proclaimed that Turkey would inspire other countries as a modern economic power where markets and debtors could be trusted; and, while in Istanbul, an executive at one of Turkey’s leading conglomerates sought our ideas on using social media to promote brand development.

There seems to be a similar dynamic at play on political issues. According to the Pew survey, only 13 percent of Turks said they “like[d] . . . American ideas about democracy.” (This was the second-lowest rating, ahead of only Pakistan.) However, what I observed of the practice of politics in Turkey reminded me of these activities in America. At a meeting with an AK Party official, we saw a savvy integration of public relations and religious overtones that could have come straight out of the political handbook of Karl Rove. And almost every day during the trip, newspapers carried stories about Prime Minister Erdogan’s efforts to resolve the Kurdish conflict, including a push for constitutional reform that recognizes Kurds’ minority rights, which would make Turkey’s democracy will look more, rather than less, like its American counterpart.

A sharp critic might respond that these observations are based only on visits to the urban areas of Izmir, Ankara, and Istanbul—places where one would expect there to be convergence with Western commerce and political practice. This is true. However, together, these three regions represent approximately 30 percent of Turkey’s population and 70 percent of Turks overall are city dwellers, with more moving in every day. These places are increasingly representative of what Turkey is all about.

The issue seems to be that, among large portions of the Turkish public, there are substantial misperceptions of Americans. While recent political differences over the Syrian conflict and the Iraq War may contribute to Turks’ overall negative view of the United States, these policy problems seem unrelated to their apparently unfavorable view of American ways of doing business and democracy. This negativity is all the more surprising given that President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Erdogan reportedly have a deep personal relationship.

As the survey data shows, however, a connection between leaders, no matter how popular they are, is not enough to create friendship among peoples: if the two administrations are intent on forming an American-Turkish alliance built on more than a coincidence of interests, they must also devote effort to building up its foundations. One place to start would be to add to a future agenda the development of a bilateral strategy to emphasize domestically what Turks and Americans have in common.

Why The Chinese Plan For Mideast Peace Matters

May 13, 2013 § 2 Comments

The most consequential development for the long term prospects of a more stable and peaceful Middle East that took place this week was not John Kerry’s effort to move Russia closer to the American position on Syria and take steps toward negotiating a political transition, nor was it the news that Israel has quietly implemented a freeze on new settlement construction in the West Bank that may lead to new negotiations with the Palestinians. Rather, it was the lightly scoffed and derided announcement of a Chinese plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace that covered no new ground and relied on the tired formula that has been in place now for decades. The Chinese plan, presented to Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing while Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was being feted in Shanghai, recycles the ideas that are generally recognized to be the eventual key to a settlement – an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital, an affirmation of Israel’s right to exist and genuine need for security, an emphasis on land for peace and the need for any resolution to the conflict to be a negotiated one, and calls for greater international involvement in bringing both sides to the table. In essence, the Chinese plan is the equivalent of a blue-ribbon commission report that calls for the same measures as the previous blue-ribbon commission report on the same subject. The plan was dismissed by some as not mentioning anything new, and was dismissed by others as being too tilted in the Palestinians’ favor, and the widely held assumption is that this brief Chinese foray into the peace process will soon be forgotten.

While it is true that China’s four-point peace plan covers no new ground and has no greater chance at being implemented or moving the needle on negotiations than any previous U.S., European, or Quartet initiatives to date, the fact that China has even waded into these waters is monumentally significant. The Chinese peace plan is much greater than the sum of its parts, as it indicates a real willingness on China’s part to be an actual stakeholder in the international system and to begin using its status to solve problems and be a force for stability. That China has chosen to step forward on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute speaks volumes given the symbolism of this particular issue.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the Rolls Royce of international problems; it is very big and shiny and everyone wants to be seen riding in it. Not only has it lasted for decades, it is enormously high profile and solving it has been the dream of too many American presidents and U.N. secretaries general to count. Despite the fact that everyone knows how it will eventually be resolved, it plays an outsize role in diplomacy given its salience to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people in the West and the Middle East, and it elicits strong opinions from people who have no direct connection to it other than what they see and read in the news. By choosing to offer its own plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, no matter how overworn and unoriginal, China is signaling that it understands its international responsibilities as the world’s most populous country, largest military, and second largest economy. The details of the peace plan do not particularly matter; what does matter is that China is making an effort.  It is no accident of history that the Quartet tasked with solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is made up of the U.S., U.N., European Union, and Russia, but does not include China, as China has never indicated any willingness to be involved. As a country with a reputation for caring only about its quest for natural resources while sitting on the sidelines and generally obstructing any constructive efforts to solve global problems, the fact that China is trying to be proactive in the most high-profile global problem of all is a good sign.

The cynical take on this is that China is only now getting involved in an effort to curry favor with oil-rich Gulf Arab countries, curry favor with Israel now that it has massive natural gas fields coming online, or both. Yet even if this is the case, a greater Chinese effort to take ownership of this issue will cause greater Chinese involvement on a host of global governance issues whether China wants it or not. Once China becomes involved in the Israeli-Palestinian scene, it will be harder to walk away from other areas in which China does not have an obvious stake. China might actually even be able to break a deadlock on the Israeli-Palestinian front despite having nothing new to say just by virtue of being a new party with some credibility on both sides, and a larger role in other regional issues for China that do not have an obvious impact on Chinese economic interests, even if it is being done to counter American power in the Middle East, will mean that China is at least accepting that to be a world power means not letting international problems fester.

One of the big picture problems in international relations over the past decade has been how to get China to be a responsible stakeholder in world affairs and use its influence in a way that benefits the entire globe. To the extent that China begins to insert itself into other thorny problems in the Middle East, such as the Iranian nuclear standoff or the Syrian civil war, it will hopefully portend a positive trend for tamping down upheaval in the region. As much hard and soft power the U.S. brings to bear on regional issues, it clearly cannot solve problems alone, and having another major outside power exert a responsible influence – as China seems to be doing now with North Korea – can help alleviate some of the burden on the U.S. and add another powerful impetus for warring parties to come to agreements to end conflicts. China’s particular solution for a lasting peace in the Holy Land might seem like a small and unimportant story, but the bigger story here is what its foray into peacemaking means for its larger role in the world.

Not All Interventions In Syria Are Created Equal

May 6, 2013 § 7 Comments

Israel’s massive strike on military targets near Damascus early Sunday morning paired with its earlier strike on surface-to-surface missiles at the airport on Friday that were presumably destined for transfer to Hizballah has reopened a furious debate in Washington over U.S. intervention in Syria. Proponents of intervention, such as Senator John McCain, are pointing to the seeming ease with which Israel has been able to hit Syrian targets as an argument that the U.S. should be intervening in Syria and at minimum setting up a no-fly zone. The logic employed is that if Israel can use American-made weapons to penetrate Syrian air defenses seemingly at will, it shows the ineptitude of Syrian air defenses and eliminates the argument that setting up a no-fly zone will be dangerous or stretch U.S. capabilities. I am certainly no expert on the relative efficacy of Syrian military capabilities so I will not deign to wade into the argument over whether or not the Syrian army would present a legitimate military threat to setting up a no-fly zone, although I am as confident as I can be that any Syrian air defenses, no matter how robust, aren’t anything that the U.S. military can’t handle. We are talking about the most formidable fighting force with the best technology in the history of mankind, and as Steven Cook has pointed out, the difference in U.S. military resources vs. Syrian military resources is laughable, so I don’t think anyone serious is making an argument about U.S. military capabilities in warning against setting up a no-fly zone. Rather, the opposition to a no-fly zone that centers on the dangers of maintaining one is concerned with the costs of doing so and not arguing that setting one up is an impossibility. In this vein, I’d like to make a few points on why what Israel has just done over the past few days holds very few lessons for a hypothetical U.S. intervention in the form of a no-fly zone over Syrian airspace.

First, the types of strikes are different. Israel has now conducted three one-off strikes in Syria since the conflict between Assad and the rebels began, and each has been an independent operation aimed at keeping what Israel terms “game changing” conventional weaponry out of Hizballah’s hands. A no-fly zone, in contrast, would consist of constant daily sorties along a predictable schedule and route. Dan Trombly this morning has done a much better job than I could ever hope to do of laying out exactly what a sustained no-fly zone would entail so rather than attempting to get into the specifics of it, just go and read his post instead. That is not to say that the U.S. cannot do so; we maintained a no-fly zone over Iraq for more than a decade. My point is that holding up three Israeli strikes, one of which happened in January and two of which happened two days apart last week, as definitive proof that a Syrian no-fly zone would present absolutely no logistical quandaries seems premature to me.

Furthermore, it is unclear whether Israel even penetrated Syrian airspace. The strike on the airport on Friday apparently took place from Lebanese territory with guided missiles that can skim along the ground for miles after being fired before reaching their intended to target, so the question of whether Syrian air defenses presented a challenge or not is moot. As of this writing, I have not seen any definitive statement as to whether the much larger strike in the wee hours of Sunday morning also came from Lebanese airspace or not. Even if it did not, I would surmise that it took the Syrian regime by surprise given that Israel has not been conducting constant strikes in Syria by any means and that Israel had already struck targets two days before. In any event, assuming that Israeli planes flew over Syria for the second strike, a solitary sortie again does not provide the evidence needed to draw any firm conclusions about Syrian air defenses against a long-term no-fly zone.

Third, even if Israel did launch the second strike from Syria itself, keep in mind that Syria has a long history of not responding to Israeli incursions while not extending the same courtesy to other countries. Israel flew eight planes in and out of Syria to destroy its nuclear reactor and extract its commandos on the ground in September 2007 without a shot being fired. Israel also conducted a strike in Syria through Syrian airspace in January, as noted above, and possibly again this past weekend, all without running into any resistance at all. In contrast, Turkey had its F-4 downed over Syria last summer, and whether it was brought down by Syria or – as has been widely rumored – by a Russian anti-aircraft battery, the fact remains that Syria generally keeps its head down when Israel is involved. In fact, a former Syrian air force major now with the rebels has claimed that Syrian air defenses were actively ordered to stand down during the Israeli raid on the al-Kibbar reactor once the planes were detected and it became clear that it was an Israeli operation. The reason might be that Israel has a carefully cultivated reputation for responding to provocations with overwhelming and even disproportionate force, which smartly deters retaliatory action. If Syria thinks that Israel will bomb it back to the Stone Age if it shoots at Israeli planes, it has every reason to stand down. Indeed, if the reports of the massive explosions in Damascus on Sunday are to be believed, Israel is still making sure to employ its own version of shock and awe. I am not sure that the U.S. reputation in the region is quite the same as Israel’s, and so extrapolating from Syria’s turning a blind eye to Israeli incursions that it will also ignore sustained U.S. incursions is, in my view, a bridge too far.

Finally, and most importantly, Israel has a clearly defined and limited goal in mind when it strikes Syrian targets. As Brent Sasley emphasized today, Israel is engaging in finite operations specifically designed to avoid reprisals by only targeting a specific category of weaponry that is in danger of being transferred to outside parties. The U.S., on the other hand, is dealing with a very different kettle of fish. If the U.S. sets up a no-fly zone, what is the objective? Is it to remove Assad? Even the playing field to give the rebels a better chance? Protect civilians without putting our thumb on the scale on behalf of one side? Israel can more easily carry out its objectives in Syria because they are simple – prevent chemical weapons or new missile technology being given to Hizballah. The U.S.’s objectives will be murkier, particularly since President Obama’s “red line” comment was apparently unplanned. When you don’t have a sense of what exactly you hope to accomplish, nor how long it will actually take to accomplish this hazy objective, taking lessons from a country that has an actually clear red line and knows that it does not have to commit many resources to enforce it may not be the best idea. If we have learned anything from our excursion in Iraq, surely it should be that predictions of a cakewalk should be cast aside in favor of a strategy that hopes for the best and plans for the worst.

Again, none of this is to say that the U.S. is not up to the job, or that the Syrian military is an awesomely fearsome fighting force, or that our capabilities are anything short of allowing us to do pretty much whatever we set out to do. What I am saying is that pointing to what Israel has just done and using that as definitive proof of anything related to a potential U.S. no-fly zone is taking the wrong frame of reference as a lesson.

One last related note: to those who incessantly insist that Israel is of absolutely no strategic worth to American interests and is nothing but an albatross around the neck of the U.S., I’d submit that having the Israeli military around to prevent transfers of Iranian-furnished weapons to Hizballah and to make sure that Assad’s delivery systems for chemical weapons also stay right where they are, all while battlefield-testing American weapons in the process, is pretty useful right about now. Just sayin’…

Freedom House’s Funhouse Definition Of Israeli Press Freedom

May 2, 2013 § 2 Comments

Freedom House released its annual “Freedom of the Press” report yesterday, in which it analyzes global press freedom and ranks countries by their levels of press freedom. Much like it does with its widely cited measure of freedom in the world, countries are given a designation of Free, Partly Free, and Not Free, and this year’s press freedom report contained at least one surprise, which is that Israel has been downgraded from Free to Partly Free when it comes to press freedom. For anyone who follows Israel and is a consumer of Israeli media, this comes as a head-scratching development, as Israel has four major newspapers that are evenly divided across the political spectrum, does not have any issues of jailing or intimidating journalists, and the press regularly investigates and criticizes the government for offenses big and small. Yet, Israel’s score for 2013 moved from a 30 to a 31, changing its overall press freedom status.

In the country report on Israel, Freedom House explains that Israel’s status was changed because of Ha’aretz journalist Uri Blau’s indictment for possession of state secrets, concerns surrounding Channel 10′s license renewal, and Israel Hayom’s market dominance in the newspaper sector threatening the viability of other papers. On the other hand, as the report notes, “Legal protections for freedom of the press are robust, and the rights of journalists are generally respected in practice. The country’s Basic Law does not specifically address the issue, but the Supreme Court has affirmed that freedom of expression is an essential component of human dignity. The legal standing of press freedom has also been reinforced by court rulings citing principles laid out in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.”

Some further perusal of the Freedom House section on Israel reveals the depths of the absurdity of the designation of the Israeli press as Partly Free. Every piece of evidence in the report for declining press freedom is immediately followed by the equivalent of a small print disclaimer letting the reader know that the alarmist claims are either not quite so alarmist or have not actually occurred. Freedom House lets us know that the media “continue to face the threat of libel suits” and then admits that no such suit has actually been brought without being withdrawn. Blau was indicted on charges of espionage for holding thousands of classified documents, but this was the first time the law had been used against a journalist in decades and Blau cut a plea deal in which he is serving – the horror, the horror! – four whole months of community service. The Knesset has debated a number of draft laws that would limit press freedom of expression and raise the statutory compensation amounts in libel suits, yet not one of these bills was actually passed so nothing has actually changed. Israel Hayom has captured 40% of the newspaper market and put pressure on other papers, so much so that Ma’ariv almost had to close, but in the end Ma’ariv was bought and is not closing, and just as Israel had two major rightwing papers and two major leftwing papers in 2012, the exact same lineup remains in 2013. I could go on, but you get the picture. The Freedom House report reads as if the designation of Israeli press freedom as Partly Free was made ahead of time, and then someone went hunting for facts to back it up but couldn’t even find the clear and unfettered evidence they were looking for. Doing some really top notch reporting in the Times of Israel, Haviv Rettig Gur talked to “Freedom of the Press” project director Karin Karlekar, who admitted that the issue of libel suits was not about how they are handled in Israel specifically but because Freedom House generally opposes libel suits, that the issue with Blau isn’t even over the Blau case per se but that Freedom House is worried that this will be the beginning of a trend – despite the fact that this is literally the only instance of this law being used in decades – and that despite Israel Hayom’s market dominance Israel’s media is “very diverse.” So basically, Freedom House doesn’t have much of a problem with press freedom in Israel now, but what Israeli press freedom might look like in the future should a number of things go wrong.

In case you are wondering why Israel and its supporters constantly decry double standards and Israel being unfairly singled out for criticism, here is Exhibit A. Nobody claims that Israel is perfect, least of all me, but there’s no shortage of Israeli missteps to criticize without making new ones up. The idea that Israel’s press is not completely free is ridiculous, particularly to anyone who has spent even five minutes reading Israeli newspapers or watching Israel television, and if Freedom House wants to credibly assert differently, it’s going to have to come up with something better than a bunch of “yes, but” speculation.

The Other Dark Side Of Energy Independence

May 1, 2013 § 7 Comments

Ben Alter (who has done yeoman’s work editing the last couple of pieces I’ve written for Foreign Affairs) and Ed Fishman wrote an insightful op-ed for the New York Times this past Sunday in which they argued that American energy independence – which may be a reality by the end of the next decade – will have a downside too, which is that it will lead to massive destabilization in states that rely on high global energy prices. States like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain depend on revenues from oil and natural gas to maintain to dole out patronage and co-opt the opposition, but the introduction of U.S. shale gas into the global marketplace will lower energy prices worldwide, and Alter and Fishman argue that it will create domestic unrest and even regime change in petrostates, which will in turn put shipping lanes in harm’s way, endanger counterterrorism cooperation and efforts to deal with Iran between the U.S. and Arab Gulf monarchies, and force Russia into a more aggressive and territorial foreign policy. The upshot here is that energy independence will not allow the U.S. to withdraw from the world as it is no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil producing states, but rather the U.S. will still have to act as the liberal hegemon guaranteeing the safety of global trade, maintaining great power stability, and working to spread democracy so that the international system remains relatively stable.

Writing in Forbes in response, Christopher Helman says that Alter and Fishman baked a faulty assumption into their argument since the price of oil will never get as low as $50 a barrel (and he accuses them of taking liberties with the report that they presumably cite), and that even if the global price did hit that floor, it wouldn’t remain there as unrest in petrostates would cause global prices to skyrocket once more. Another scenario is that OPEC states would cut their production in order to inflate prices back up to $90-$100 per barrel in order to maintain their current levels of government spending. While this criticism may be accurate, Helman is misreading the important takeaway from Alter and Fishman’s piece, which is that there are unintended consequences that emanate from even what appear to be the rosiest of scenarios. In short, U.S. energy independence and lower energy prices will be a great development for the U.S. in many respects, but it will also create a host of negative externalities that will require the U.S. to stay on its toes.

While reading the Alter/Fishman piece, I couldn’t help but think about how their argument applies to Iran and the question of whether a nuclear arms race in the Middle East will ensue should Iran achieve nuclear status. There is a wide-ranging debate over whether this scenario is a realistic one, with no less than President Obama (and thus presumably the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies) warning that a nuclear Iran will set off a regional nuclear arms race, and analysts such as my close friend Steven Cook arguing that nuclear dominoes will not fall in the Middle East as Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia either don’t have the scientific capability and infrastructure or the cash on hand to build their own bombs. I do not claim to have any expertise in this area at all, and Steven certainly knows his stuff, but let’s assume for a moment that of these three candidates, Saudi Arabia could conceivably go nuclear given that the Saudis have the cash to buy the technology and build the infrastructure they would need in a hurry. Let’s also assume that Alter and Fishman’s predictions unfold, and U.S. energy independence destabilizes Saudi Arabia in fifteen years and leads to the fall of the ruling family and the government. Isn’t this in many ways the ultimate nightmare scenario – not that the current governments in the Middle East will become nuclear powers, but that whomever or whatever replaces them will be nuclear powers?

Anyone who knows anything about U.S. foreign and defense policy knows that the most pressing problem facing the U.S. right now is not the rise of China or the fight against al-Qaida. It is the possibility that the Pakistani government will fall and that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will be taken over by extremists. Only slightly less worrisome is that the lax command and control structure that exists for Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile – and for those who don’t pay close attention to these things, it turns out that the Pakistani government moves its nukes in and out of traffic in barely guarded civilian vans so that we won’t steal them – will lead to a nuke being stolen or even accidentally launched. This is the reason that the U.S. keeps on propping up the Pakistani government and throwing money into a Pakistani black hole despite mountains of evidence that Pakistan is not our ally and actually works to undermine the U.S. in Afghanistan and other places.

Now let’s replicate this situation in Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or any other slightly shaky Middle Eastern state that may be inclined to try and acquire nuclear weapons in response to Iran, and that later falls due to the instability unleashed by the Arab Spring or the instability unleashed by falling oil prices. Or imagine the nightmare that we would be dealing with right now in Syria if Israel had not bombed the Syrian reactor a few years ago and Syria had somehow made a successful mad dash for a nuke, and that instead of worrying about missing Syrian chemical weapons, we were worrying about missing Syrian nuclear weapons. I am not someone who worries about the current Iranian regime actually using a nuke should it develop the capability to build one – although I do worry about the cascade effects of Iran having the bomb and thus making its support for international terrorism and groups like Hizballah largely untouchable – but I certainly worry enormously about what would happen to an Iranian nuke in the chaos following the current regime falling, or a Saudi nuke in the chaos of the monarchy falling. Maybe I have missed the conversation on this issue, which would be understandable since I am not a nuclear policy person, but shouldn’t the conversation surrounding Iran and its nuclear program be a little more focused on the Pakistanization of this problem in a regional context when energy prices fall rather than solely on whether the Iranian regime can be trusted not to nuke Tel Aviv?

Guest Post: Actually, Israel Is Unique

April 22, 2013 § 4 Comments

Last week I argued that supporters of Israel – myself included – would be better off dropping the “pro-Israel” terminology, and that one of the reasons that Israel is not viewed as a normal state is because Israel’s supporters create a Manichean dichotomy that inadvertently keeps Israel a state apart. My brilliant and talented Israel Institute colleague Margaret Weiss, who holds degrees from Princeton and Georgetown and was formerly a Research Associate at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, disagrees with me, and so today I hand over the reins of O&Z to her so that she can explain why I am wrong:

I agree wholeheartedly that the pro-, anti- terminology that is inevitable in any discussion about Israel does Israel more harm than good.  I also agree that it is not very meaningful for one to reduce one’s thoughts about a country which, like all countries, is multi-faceted and complex, to the terminology of “liking” or “disliking” it.

But I think Michael is incorrect in pinning the blame for this categorization more heavily on the pro-Israel camp.  He writes that “Israel is virtually the only country in the world in which its supporters press people to loudly declare this support,” but it is in response to the pervasive demonization of Israel in the world that Israel supporters have adopted the pro-Israel categorization.  Through no fault of its supporters, the Jewish State is perpetually in the spotlight, to a degree that far exceeds the country’s size and influence in the world.

Michael also argues that “the pro-Israel delineation unnecessarily defines support for Israel according to an extremely high standard and creates a threshold that keeps people out who wouldn’t otherwise necessarily be so situated.” In discussions with people who label themselves pro-Israel over the years, I can recall very few, if any, instances in which the individual had no criticism of the Jewish State. Nor do Israel’s supporters unthinkingly and blindly agree with everything that Israel does.  Israel’s supporters understand that the label does not obviate criticism.  At the same time, it is also clear that some, for political reasons, adopt the pro-Israel label while indicating through their words and actions that Israel would do well to remove itself from the map.

I also disagree that it is the fault of Israel’s supporters that Israel is not viewed as a normal state.  Michael cites the expectation on the part of Israel’s supporters that the US should protect Israel at the UN with its veto power. But this expectation does not reflect the belief that there is never room to criticize Israel. Rather, Israel’s supporters know that even as dictators worldwide further restrict their people and people all over the world endure war crimes, torture and genocide, the UN focuses its attention on Israel.  In 2012, for example, the UN General Assembly adopted 22 resolutions targeting Israel and just 4 on the entire rest of the world despite the crimes of the Assad regime against its people, to offer just one example.  And this figure is representative of a trend in that body, dating back to the Zionism is Racism resolution of 1975.  If there were any hope of the UN acting in a fair and unbiased manner, Israel’s supporters would not adopt such a black-and-white approach.

The difference between Israel and a country like the U.K. is that even Argentinians who hate the U.K. and want them to leave the Falkland Islands, don’t expect or want the U.K. to leave the U.K.  The same cannot be said of Israel.  In the unique case of Israel, some of its detractors believe the state should not exist, period.

More On Ambassador Ricciardone and Fazıl Say

April 18, 2013 § 1 Comment

Yesterday I wrote a post taking the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Francis Ricciardone, to task for his comments on Fazıl Say as reported by Hürriyet Daily News. According to HDN, when asked by reporters to comment on Say – who was sentenced to a 10 month suspended prison sentence for comments deemed to be insulting to religious beliefs – Ricciardone quoted his brother as saying, “A very bad piano player hit the wrong key.” I interpreted this comment to mean that Ricciardone believes that Say was out of line and that the Turkish court system acted appropriately in prosecuting and convicting him, and I was accordingly unsparing in my criticism of the ambassador. Since the piece quoting Ricciardone was published in HDN, which is an English language newspaper, the Turkish language version of the same paper – Hürriyet – has run a one paragraph article in which the quote attributed to the ambassador is slightly different. Hürriyet relates the line as, “Çok fena, piyanist yanlış tuşa bastı,” which translated means, “Too bad, the pianist pressed the wrong key.” To me, there is no substantial difference between this iteration and the original iteration, as I interpret this second version in the same way; the clearest and most obvious reading is that Ricciardone is making a joke about the Say case and implying that Say got himself into trouble for saying the wrong thing.

As I noted yesterday, Ricciardone has gotten into hot water with the Turkish government for being critical of crackdowns on journalists, the army, and general violations of freedom of speech. Indeed, I wrote in the last paragraph of my post, “kudos to him for his previous efforts to highlight abuses of democracy by the Erdoğan government.” That element is what makes this situation such an odd one, as given the entirety of his track record, I am surprised that our ambassador would say something so seemingly callous about the Say case and give cover to the Turkish government to defend Say’s verdict. Nevertheless, the quote as reported appeared to stand for itself, which is why I did not hesitate to be harsh with my criticism.

After I posted yesterday’s blog, it was suggested to me both publicly over Twitter and privately that Ricciardone’s comments could be interpreted in another way, which is that he was criticizing the decision rather than Say. In this reading, his reference to the bad piano player or the pianist means the court, and it is the court that hit the bad note. I think this is a stretch based on the actual comment, but I certainly cannot rule it out, particularly given Ricciardone’s recent history of trying to draw attention to Turkey’s more egregious behavior when it comes to violating freedom of expression. I consequently reached out to the ambassador in an effort to see if he was accurately quoted and whether he would like to clarify his comments, since as readers of this blog hopefully have seen, I am not a flamethrower and I do not harbor an ideological agenda but try to be the best and most accurate analyst I can be. I am not a journalist so I am reliant on what is reported by other but if I got this wrong, I wanted to be able to clarify, correct, and apologize for any mistakes I may have made. Following my reaching out, an embassy spokesperson got back to me today and said, ” The ambassador’s remarks were taken out of context.”

Now, is it possible that Ambassador Ricciardone was criticizing the court’s decision and expressing sympathy for Say, and that he did it in a clumsy manner that got misinterpreted? It certainly cannot be ruled out, and as I said, it would make sense based on the sum total of what we know that he would come down on Say’s side rather than the court’s side. On the other hand, interpreting the line that way requires some mental gymnastics, and the claimed missing context to the comments has not been provided, and most importantly the quote itself has not yet been disputed. So those are all the facts as I know them, and I will leave it up to my readers to decide what Ambassador Ricciardone intended when he commented on the Say case. I will say for myself that if Ambassador Ricciardone intended to express his support for Say and to criticize his conviction, then I unreservedly and without hesitation retract my strident and harsh comments from yesterday and personally apologize for maligning the ambassador, although I am not entirely sure that I am convinced of this interpretation of events quite yet. If there’s more on this to come, I will keep you all posted.

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