OK folks, I know it is unusual for me to post an article more than once a week. However, I have been inundated with questions about what is happening in Israel. Hopefully you saw and read my first article this week explaining the history of the conflict and who the players are. Unfortunately, it appears new players have now joined in and I think a little more history is in order. Especially when it comes to Turkey and Syria. So here goes. Let’s start with Turkey.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkish-education-official-tells-israels-netanyahu-you-will-die
Turkish education official tells Israel’s Netanyahu ‘you will die’
A top official within Turkey’s Ministry of National Education has posted a message on X telling Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “One day they will shoot you too” and “You will die.”
The inflammatory remarks by Nazif Yilmaz, a married father of three and deputy minister of the Turkish agency, was posted in response to a video Netanyahu shared on his account Tuesday appearing to show the Israeli military carrying out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
The same day, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan raised concerns about the U.S. moving a carrier strike group closer to Israel following Hamas’ attacks on the country.
“What will the aircraft carrier of the U.S. do near Israel, why do they come? What will boats around and aircraft on it will do? They will hit Gaza and around, and take steps for serious massacres there,” Erdogan said, according to Reuters.
A U.S. military official had told Fox News over the weekend that the U.S. Navy is moving warships and aircraft closer to Israel as a result of the unprecedented assault.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told Fox News in a statement that he directed the movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea following detailed discussions with President Biden.
The warships include U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60), as well as Arleigh-Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116), USS Ramage (DDG 61), USS Carney (DDG 64) and USS Roosevelt (DDG 80).
“In addition, the United States government will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions,” Austin said. “The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days.”
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that the aircraft carrier strike group’s movements “sends a very strong message of support for Israel.
“But it’s also to send a strong message of deterrence to contain broadening this particular conflict,” he added, according to Reuters.
So what do we know about Turkey?
Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but entered the closing stages of the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945.
On 26 June 1945, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations.
Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947.
The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in large-scale U.S. military and economic support.
Both countries were included in the Marshall Plan for rebuilding European economies in 1948.
After participating with the United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean.
Turkey invaded Cyprus on 20 July 1974. Nine years later the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey, was established.
The single-party period ended in 1945. It was followed by a tumultuous transition to multiparty democracy over the next few decades, which was interrupted by military coups d’état in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997.
In 1984, the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group, began an insurgency campaign against the Turkish government, which to date has claimed over 40,000 lives
In 2013, widespread protests erupted in many Turkish provinces, sparked by a plan to demolish Gezi Park but growing into general anti-government dissent.
Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. Turkey’s constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state.
The President of the Republic is the head of state and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. Abdullah Gül was elected as president on 28 August 2007, by a popular parliament round of votes.
Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers which make up the government, while the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
The prime minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in the government and is most often the head of the party having the most seats in parliament. The current prime minister is the former mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In 2004, there were 50 registered political parties in the country.
Supporters of political reforms are called Kemalists, as distinguished from Islamists, representing two extremes on a continuum of beliefs about the proper role of religion in public life.
The Kemalist position generally combines a kind of authoritarian democracy with a westernized secular lifestyle, while supporting state intervention in the economy.
Since the 1980s, a rise in income inequality and class distinction has given rise to Islamic populism, a movement that in theory supports obligation to authority, communal solidarity and social justice, though it is contested what it entails in practice.
Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005.
Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945).
On 17 October 2008, Turkey was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
The other defining aspect of Turkey’s foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Based on the common threat posed by the Soviet Union, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, ensuring close bilateral relations with Washington throughout the Cold War.
In the post–Cold War environment, Turkey’s geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans. In return, Turkey has benefited from the United States’ political, economic and diplomatic support, including in key issues such as the country’s bid to join the European Union.
The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with which Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia, thus enabling the completion of a multi-billion-dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey.
The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with an estimated strength of 495,000 deployable forces, according to a 2011 NATO estimate. According to SIPRI, Turkish military expenditures in 2012 amounted to $18.2 billion, the 15th highest in the world, representing 2.3% of GDP, down from 3.4% in 2003.
Every fit male Turkish citizen otherwise not barred is required to serve in the military for a period ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, dependent on education and job location. Turkey does not recognize conscientious objection and does not offer a civilian alternative to military service.
Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, but their use requires the approval of NATO.
In 1998, Turkey announced a modernization program worth US$160 billion over a twenty-year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles. Turkey is a Level 3 contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.
Turkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War.
Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in Northern Cyprus, though their presence is controversial.
Turkey has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the United States stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001.
Since 2003, Turkey contributes military personnel to Eurocorps and takes part in the EU Battlegroups. Since 2006, Turkish troops are also part of an expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
The last official census was in 2000 and recorded a total country population of 67,803,927 inhabitants.
Turkey is a secular state with no official state religion; the Turkish Constitution provides for freedom of religion and conscience.
Islam is the dominant religion of Turkey; it exceeds 99% if secular people of Muslim background are included, with the most popular sect being the Hanafite school of Sunni Islam.
The role of religion has been a controversial debate over the years since the formation of Islamist parties. The wearing of the Hijab is banned in universities and public or government buildings as some view it as a symbol of Islam – though there have been efforts to lift the ban.
Now to Syria.
Following World War I, France acquired a mandate over the northern portion of the former Ottoman Empire province of Syria. The French administered the area as Syria until granting it independence in 1946.
The new country lacked political stability, however, and experienced a series of military coups during its first decades.
Syria united with Egypt in February 1958 to form the United Arab Republic. In September 1961, the two entities separated, and the Syrian Arab Republic was reestablished.
In November 1970, Hafiz al-ASAD, a member of the Socialist Ba’th Party and the minority Alawi sect, seized power in a bloodless coup and brought political stability to the country. In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel.
Following the death of President al-ASAD, his son, Bashar al-ASAD, was approved as president by popular referendum in July 2000.
During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on behalf of its ally Hizballah. In May 2007 Bashar al-ASAD was elected to his second term as president.
Influenced by major uprisings that began elsewhere in the region, antigovernment protests broke out in the southern province of Dar’a in March 2011 with protesters calling for the repeal of the restrictive Emergency Law allowing arrests without charge, the legalization of political parties, and the removal of corrupt local officials.
Since then, demonstrations and unrest have spread to nearly every city in Syria, but the size and intensity of protests have fluctuated over time.
However, the government’s response has failed to meet opposition demands for ASAD to step down, and the government’s ongoing security operations to quell unrest and widespread armed opposition activity have led to violent clashes between government forces and oppositionists.
The Syrian conflict has triggered something more fundamental than a difference of opinion over intervention, something more than an argument about whether the Security Council should authorize the use of force.
Syria is the moment in which the West should see that the world has truly broken into two.
A loose alliance of struggling capitalist democracies now finds itself face to face with two authoritarian despotisms—Russia and China—something new in the annals of political science: kleptocracies that mix the market economy and the police state. These regimes will support tyrannies like Syria wherever it is in their interest to do so.
The situation in Syria has mutated from an uprising in a few outlying cities into a full-scale civil war. Now it has mutated again into a proxy war between the Great Powers.
The Russians have been arming the regime—it was a Russian air defense system that shot down the Turkish F-4 Phantom jet—and the West is now arming the rebels.
The Saudis and the Gulf states are funneling weapons straight to the Sunnis, especially to anyone with Islamic radical credentials.
Arms are trickling across the borders with Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan; the CIA has been given the difficult task of ensuring that at least the Turkish weapons are channeled to the right people. Who the right people are is anybody’s guess. In a village war, not even the CIA can be sure.
To the extent that there is a strategy on the Western side—and that’s a big assumption—it seems to be to tip the military balance inside Syria, without backing the US and NATO into a direct confrontation with Bashar al Assad’s protectors in Moscow.
Slowly, this strategy, such as it is, may be turning the momentum in the rebels’ favor. A rag tag bunch of village insurgents and army defectors is slowly coming together as a fighting force.
The videos they upload onto YouTube are now showing not only the pounding they’ve endured but the damage they’ve inflicted on Assad’s forces. More and more villages and towns have slipped out of the regime’s control, at least by night.
The war for Syria is likely to end only when the flames engulf Assad’s palace.
While the rebels are gaining momentum inside Syria, the exile leadership of the Syrian opposition is frittering it away outside. When opposition leaders were placed in hotel rooms in Cairo and told, by the Arab League and other foreign diplomats, to get their act together, the meeting degenerated into chaos.
The Syrian Kurds, for example, emboldened by the successes of their Iraqi cousins, sought recognition of their national identity in a post-Assad Syria, but other opposition groups weren’t ready to grant it.
Divisions of clan, tribe, ethnicity, and religion would make a united front difficult at the best of times. But it’s become clear that the Assads, father and son, were more skillful than Libya’s Qaddafi at keeping their outside opposition weak and divided.
So why has this tension between Sunnis and Shiites resurfaced in the Middle East at this particular moment?
There are several contributing factors. The first is regional power rivalry, especially between Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and Iran (Shiite).
The Sunni powers of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, want to check Iran’s rise as a regional power.
To that end, Turkey (Sunni) recently agreed to allow NATO to install a missile early warning system on Turkish soil (a move that angered the Iranians (Shiites).
Saudi Arabia has been vocal in expressing its concerns about the prospect of Iran developing a “Shiite” nuclear bomb.
Recently, the all-Sunni, all-Arab member states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE — have been moving towards some kind of political, economic and military union or federation aimed at countering Iranian influence and encircling the Gulf’s Shiites.
So, there you have it folks. As if things aren’t already bad enough, Israel now faces new threats from Syria and Turkey, two highly unstable regimes to their north.
Don’t forget Russia, China, and Iran and the role each of those nations plays in all of this.
The United States? Who knows?