Yesterday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi testified before the Turkel commission investigating the Gaza flotilla incident. Judge Turkel asked him why the IDF was so completely unprepared for the murderous attacks against our soldiers by members of the IHH, the Turkish radical Islamist group that organized the flotilla. (The soldiers, who were "armed" with paintball guns, were obviously not told to expect any serious opposition.) Here is Ashkenazi's answer:
"The level of knowledge we had on the [IHH] was not like the level of information we have on Hamas. We did not investigate the organization. It was not on our list of our priorities, because it was not listed as a terrorist organization and was located in Turkey, which is not an enemy state -- and I hope it never will be."Incredibly, even after hearing all the rabid, extremist diatribes against Israel spewed forth on an almost daily basis by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and even after watching Turkey openly forge alliances with Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah, Ashkenazi -- and the Israeli government -- still have not grasped the simple and obvious fact that Turkey has become our enemy.
[Sources: JPost, Haaretz]
As for the IHH, if the folks at IDF Intelligence had bothered to do even a couple minutes of googling, they would have quicky discovered ample material clearly showing the organization's fanatical jihadist nature, such as this 2009 speech in Gaza by the head of the IHH, in which he called for martyrdom through attacks on Israel:
Regarding Turkey's imagined status as a "non-enemy" of Israel: News reports appearing on the very same day as Ashkenazi's testimony revealed that Turkey has arranged, in close cooperation with Iran and Syria, to provide Hizbullah with advanced weaponry, including rockets:
'Turkey to give Hizbullah weapons'
Israel, meanwhile, is actually continuing to sell advanced weapons systems to the Turkish military, and to train them in their use. One wonders why Israel doesn't simply eliminate the middleman, and just ship weapons directly to Hizbullah.
Poor PM Erdogan must be extremely perplexed and frustrated: He has done just about everything feasible within his power to demonstate clearly that he is a bona fide, full-fledged, fierce enemy of Israel: He has viciously denounced Israel as a criminal, terrorist state on every possible occasion, he has sent a ship filled with armed men who attempted to murder Israeli soldiers, and now he is supplying Hizbullah with guns and rockets. Yet with all this, Israel still stubbornly refuses to recognize him as an enemy. Erdogan must be banging his head against the wall, wondering what else he can possibly do to get the message across to those incredibly dense Israelis.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד
4 comments:
"Erdogan must be banging his head against the wall, wondering what else he can possibly do to get the message across to those incredibly dense Israelis."-lurker
more likely, erdogan is celebrating the strength of israeli/turkish military/business ties, which allow him to play the clown and garner islamist political support at home at no cost to his country- so far- except for israeli tourist shekels.
The Israeli army seems to be stuck in the past. Before the Islamists won power, the army acted as the secular guardians of Turkey's culture. If Islamists tried to bring religion into the public sphere they would stage a coup, make the Islamists "disappear" and put a new secular government in place.
Erdogan and his thugs countered this by neutering the army, wiping out its secular upper echelons and Islamisizing it. Tzahal hasn't seemed to figure that out yet and probably still hopes that the army will rise up and toss Erdogan into outer Armenia
Gabi Ashkenazi is going to walk out of the door soon anyway. What an incredibly stupid man! I'd want someone like him cashiered for not preparing soldiers properly for what they might encounter.
Good riddance!
Norman, please save your comments until either you or your close ones have served in the IDF. Gabi Ashkenazi completely revived and rejuvenated the army after the disastrous term of Dan Halutz and the 2nd Lebanon fiasco.
Ashkenazi is probably one of the only men who deserve to be Chief of Staff, and who should remain in that position until the Iranian threat is clarified.
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