Obama’s Middle East Visit Has Nothing to Do With Ramallah and Everything to Do with Tehran and Ankara

President Obama had another apology tour in his Middle East circuit. This time on his visit to the Middle East, President Obama helped broker the Israeli apology to Turkey. No doubt that President Obama put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. On the President’s first visit to the Middle East in 2009, he criticized US policies in the region, saying that the US cannot dictate what nations should do. However, the President failed to understand that America did not dictate, but rather liberated Iraq from dictators. Perhaps President Obama does not understand or does not care how deeply Muslims or Erdogan hate Israel.

That’s why only two nations in the Middle East appreciate what President Bush did for them. The precarious Kurdistan and Israel are not welcomed Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria Muslims countries in the region. Under the Bush administration the Kurds got their autonomous status. However, today Israelis and the Kurdish people have been abandoned because President Obama has a new trusted ally in the region, Prime Minister Erdogan.

So why did Israel apologize to Turkey? The issue began when several ships were sent to break the Israeli sanctions on the Gaza strip in May 2010. Israel put these sanctions on Egypt before the Arab Spring when President Husni Mubarak was still in charge, with the intent of placing restrictions against the radical Islamist regime in the Gaza Strip that does not recognize the peace with Israel, preferring to use violence and even being willing to eliminate Israel.

The key role of the flotilla was to help the Palestinian Hamas that took control of the territory in 2007 and does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Turkish government supported the flotilla. President Obama has failed to understand that the issue was not the cause of the problem in Turkey–Israel relations, because their soured relationship goes beyond that single incident. The real basis of the problem was the election of an Islamic government that replaced the secular government of Turkey.

It is known that Prime Minister Erdogan and Muslims in general did not want their common hatred for Israel to be seen as responsible for any breakdown in the relations. So Israel’s navy intercepted the ships repeatedly signaling warnings, but when the Israeli naval personnel boarded the ship, some of the radical Muslims preferred to fight with guns and light weapons. The Israeli soldiers opened fire and eight or nine Turkish citizens were killed. If the demonstrators had not attacked the Israeli soldiers but instead had let them inspect the ships, none of the Turkish citizens would have died. Actually, Prime Minister Erdogan should be blamed for the loss of innocent people, not the Israeli government.

Will President Obama put pressure on his most trusted ally Erdogan to apologize to the Israeli people for calling Zionism “a crime against humanity”? Perhaps they will not because Turks will not swallow what they spit; they are too proud to do that. So now this apology leaves the door open for the Turkish government to ship more supplies to Gaza including weapons.

The Turkish government made three demands: Israel must apologize, pay reparations, and drop the embargo against the Gaza Strip. The compromise, reached with the help of President Obama, restored normal relations with Israel. Israel’s apology also shows that Israel is searching for peace even if it means swallowing its national pride in favor of national interests. Turkey needs Israel’s help to deal with Iran and Syria. The longer Assad stays in power, the worse for Turkey. Turkey and Israel need to fight together against Assad. The other goal was for President Obama to persuade the Israelis that Israeli can trust his administration to take care of Iran. He also wanted them to give more time to diplomacy to deal with the nuclear issue.

His message was that Israel does not need to worry about Iran or to take any unilateral action against this enemy. Perhaps President Obama promised Israel and Turkey to unite against Assad and then next to go after Tehran. The President might have agreed to launch air strikes against Syria in order to prevent conventional missiles from being transferred from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This new agreement will change the political balance of the region and will have implications on cases like Syria, Iran, Lebanon, the Kurds, and Iraq. The main purpose of this trip is to hasten the collapse of the Assad regime, to win the public perception, and to correct some of his past mistakes.

The Israeli Prime Minister says Syria’s chemical weapons are the main reason for apologizing to Turkey, since democracy is a great weapon to use to topple regimes now days. Let’s not forget that in the American elections last fall, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu supported Obama’s opponent Mitt Romney. When Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel in 2010, Israel issued permits for settlement building, a step clearly against the US administrations aspirations.

President Obama is trying to convince the powerful Jewish lobby that he is a friend of Israel and his support for the State of Israel is unshakeable. In his Cairo Speech in 2009, he pointed to the Holocaust as the legitimate ground for the state of Israel. This raised concerns for the Jewish people. Especially the people’s historic ties with the land of Israel goes well beyond the Holocaust, so the Jewish people are concerned that President Obama does not understand the history of the Jews.

This time in order to correct his mistake President Obama visited the Dead Sea Scrolls and the tomb of Theodor Herzl, an educated nineteenth century activist who started the movement for a Jewish state. Also, the President praised the founding fathers of Israel as patriots and heroes who helped them to be free people in their land. President Obama had already said that he was not coming to the region to start a new peace plan. However, he did say during his speech that both sides should find a new formula to deal with the issue, thereby recusing the US from the process.

Even though the President tried to bridge the gap that prevents the Palestinians and the Israelis from resuming talks, he met with leaders of the Palestinian authority in the West Bank City of Ramallah. However, the main issue was all about Syria, Iran, and the unrest in the Middle East.

Dr. Aland Mizell is with the University of Mindanao School of Social Science, President of the MCI and a regular contributor to The Kurdistan Tribune, Kurdishaspect.com, Mindanao Times and Kurdish Media. You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com.

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