The Phone Call Really Didn’t Solve The Problem

On Saturday, the New York Times remarked that President Obama’s talent for arm twisting to get things accomplished was wonderful. They were referring to the phone call placed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey that was supposed to have healed the rift between the two countries. (The Times noted that this kind of successful deal making has eluded the President when dealing with Congressional Republicans.) Well, as usual, not so fast.

Commentary Magazine posted an article yesterday stating:

But apparently the hosannas about the president’s achievement are a little premature. Less than a day after the supposed reconciliation Erdoğan was already backtracking, saying that the resumption of normal relations, let alone the old alliance between the two countries, was still on hold. It is to be hoped that a dose of reality will cool the ardor of those, like Kay, who believe Obama’s “much mocked faith in diplomacy and human rationality” has been vindicated.

 Erdoğan’s double dealing on normalization even after Netanyahu’s call is hardly surprising. This is, after all, the same person who recently compared Zionism to fascism and whose regime has encouraged anti-Semitism as it transformed a secular republic into an Islamist regime in all but name. The Mavi Marmara incident, in which a flotilla of ships sponsored by Turkey attempted to run the Israeli blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, was intended to provoke an Israeli attack. While, as Netanyahu admitted, the raid on the ship appears to have been botched by Israeli forces, Ankara’s purpose was to create a pretext for a complete break. This was the end of a process begun years earlier by Erdoğan, not a spontaneous reaction to anything Israel had done.

I believe that most of the world would love to see peace come to the Middle East, but there are some pretty big obstacles to peace in that region. The Islamic countries surrounding Israel do not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist–they want to drive Israel into the sea. That philosophy does not lend itself to peace. The children in Gaza are being trained for war from the time they are toddlers.

Watch the video below posted on YouTube to understand the problem:

Until the children spouting this garbage are taught that it is garbage, we can expect to see war–not peace in the Middle East.

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