As I normally request when publishing an exciting article by Sinem Tezyapar, if all you have to contribute is that she shouldn’t be trusted for whatever reason—kindly keep that to yourself. I encourage our educated readers to argue with and even shoot down anything Sinem offers, but, please, respect my personal guarantee, based on a fairly long relationship with her and her movement, that she absolutely means what she says.

Yori Yanover, Editor

Over the last few years, I have been often asked: is Turkey leaving the West? Is Turkey’s axis shifting? Is Turkey turning its back on the West?

The simple answer is no. Turkey is a democratic, free and secular country with a majority Muslim population, a friend of the West, and this will stay as it is. However, Turkey has realized her responsibilities as the natural leader in the Turkic Islamic world. Turkey as a “soft power,” like an elder brother, can and will be a unifying entity, a model to the Islamic countries to inspire a new vision where people can see that Islam does not conflict with democracy, fundamental freedoms and human rights. What’s more, it can initiate key solutions to end conflicts in the region by bringing these countries under the same umbrella with a new spirit of brotherhood.

Let me tell you how.

Imagine a union among the countries of the Middle East, the Caucasus and North Africa; not a materialistic or economic union like the European Union, not the kind of unity where they want to get rid of you when you are in trouble or weak, but a spiritual union, ready to serve, to help, with a consciousness of self-sacrifice in which one nation will not sleep in comfort when her neighbor has a problem. Imagine living with open borders, traveling between countries as you travel among cities. No visa procedures, no passports.

In fact, it is quite natural to expect a union between the Turkic countries and the Islamic countries, because they share so much in common. Indeed, the division among them is unnatural. But what is more important and unique about this unity is that it will include Israel and Armenia, and even Russia in the later stages. In the same way that a family is made strong and healthy by its members helping one another, this unity will constitute a family.

The immediate establishment of this Union is essential for the entire region. This Union does not imply any racial superiority, nor will it impose any religion. It will rather be one that treats Muslims, Christians, Jews and all others with great affection, and recognizes their right to exist as first class citizens.

The ones who would benefit most from this would be non-Muslims: Armenians, Greeks, Jews. It will constitute a social role model with a democratic and secular structure that attaches the proper value to human rights and fundamental liberties. Not only monotheistic believers, but also Buddhists, Zoroastrians, atheists—in short everyone— will be free to express their opinions and live as they choose in a new climate of freedom.

One important characteristic of this Union is that member states preserve their national identities as sovereign nation states. No one will interfere in anyone’s foreign or domestic affairs. So we are not talking about a repressive or despotic regime. There will be nothing about it that damages or interferes in the internal affairs of the states. Member states will preserve their own governments and will be guaranteed their sovereign status.

This model may cause one to immediately think of the Ottoman Empire, but it is not an attempt to resurrect that concept. What I am talking about is something else. We do not regard the Ottoman era as perfect; we know they had defects and made mistakes. Since this will be a union of brotherhood, a union of love, not a concept of racial superiority or the classic model of an empire built on military conquest, the radical voices will have to behave themselves.

This great unity will also be a deterrent force and the radical elements will be deterred from pursuing their extravagant and nefarious goals. There will therefore be no terror and anarchy in the region. All the money currently spent for the military will instead be directed to people’s comfort, and will be spent on ensuring a high quality of life for all. It will help the region to get rid of the scourges of terror, economic troubles or of the torment of confinement, and it will provide economic support, by enriching them through the sharing of natural resources.

President Shimon Peres and the head of the Barcelona soccer club announced on Thursday a special soccer match for peace that will include players from the Palestinian Authority.

President Peres told club president Sandro Rosell at a press conference, “I am delighted that we will have the opportunity to launch this project together. Your club motto is “Mes Que un club” and it’s true. Barca is ‘more than a club. It is a message. A message of togetherness. A message of friendship…

“A soccer club is also a school. It is educational; it teaches our children to play together despite their differences.”

He then turned to his vision of peace and stated, “Real peace is between people and not just between governments and as our children love Barcelona, so, too, do children in the Palestinian Authority.

Rosell announced, “Tomorrow, Friday, we are going to Ramallah to meet his excellency Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority. We would like, with the Palestinian and Israeli leadership, to promote the idea of a football match for peace. We understand that peace will only be possible if we build confidence, respect and understanding between the two peoples. We believe with all our heart that a match involving Barca, with the collaboration of Israelis and Palestinians, can contribute to reestablish those links which are indispensable for people to live together peacefully.”

At the end of the statements President Peres and Rosell exchanged shirts, with President Peres receiving an FC Barcelona shirt with his name on the back and Rosell receiving a shirt with his name on the back from the PeresCenter for Peace.

On Saturday night, Israel’s President Shimon Peres formally tasked Prime Minister Netanyahu with the job of forming the next government for the 19th Knesset.

Netanyahu received endorsement from Likud-Beytenu (31), Yesh Atid (19), HaBayit Hayehudi (12), Shas (11), UTJ (7), and Kadima (2) for the role of Prime Minister.

Labor (15), Meretz (6), HaTnua (6), Ra’am-Tal (4), Hadash (4) and Balad (3) did not give Netanyahu their endorsement.

Official negotiations are set to begin on Sunday.

According to Eli Yishai, Shas believes that they will most likely be sitting in the opposition, and it is generally assumed that UTJ will be there too.

That would leave Netanyahu with no choice but to bring HaBayit HaYehudi into the coalition, something that rumors before the election said Netanyahu did not want to do.

Netanyahu stated that his goals for this term are stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, peace negotiations with the Palestinians, possibly as a nod towards Tzipi Livni, to get her to join the coalition, equalizing the national burden, while notably adding, “without tearing the nation apart”, a rather obvious message to Shas, quoting back to them Rav Ovadia Yosef’s letter to Peres, perhaps as an indication that their joining the coalition should not be ruled out.

Netanyahu also said he will work to create more jobs, and fix the electoral system.

Netanyahu stated that he wants to create the widest possible national unity government.

…is the truth of what they feel.

We signed a peace agreement with Egypt; we evacuated towns and homes to give the Sinai desert back to Egypt after the wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973. In each war, we defeated their armies; decimated their defense lines. We’ll do it again if we have to. But we don’t want to – we don’t want to fight and so peace was agreed upon. But the peace with Egypt has always been a cold one – perhaps on both sides…certainly on theirs.

Will the peace hold? It will – so long as the Egyptians believe that we are strong enough and well trained enough to defeat them again. But there will likely never be real peace – the peace we dreamed about when Sadat came to Jerusalem. It didn’t happen under Mubarak and it is clear it won’t happen under Morsi.

This is a man fueled by hatred but the most unforgiving part of it all is that he would have us give his hatred to the generations to come, fed to them as their mothers nurse them. Not my words and certainly not the words of a peace partner.

Kudos to MEMRI for translating and making the videos of Morsi’s 2010 statements available – someday I hope the western world (and that idiot in the White House) will learn that what they say in English is not the language of their hearts. For that, Obama, you need to listen to them in Arabic.

Guess what? They can’t stand you any more than they tolerate us.

Visit A Soldier’s Mother.

A spokesperson for Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi responded to reports about the President’s diatribes against Israel and Jews in 2010 as released by MEMRI, saying that the remarks were taken out of context.

The New York Times’ report:

Yasser Ali, the Morsi spokesman, said on Wednesday night at a news conference that Mr. Morsi had told the delegation that the comments were meant as criticism of the “racist” policies of the Israeli government, not as insults to Jews.

“President Morsi assured the delegation that the broadcast comments were taken out of an address against the Israeli aggression against Gaza,” Mr. Ali said, according to The Associated Press. In what context is it appropriate to call on people “to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews”? Or to call Israelis/Zionists/Jews,”these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.” As part of one of his diatribes, Morsi said that if Israel does not give in to every Palestinian demand the Arab world should wage war on Israel in every way possible. There is no appropriate context.

Remember, this is not the nomination of someone for a position in the cabinet, from whom Senators need to hear policy clarifications before they vote in favor. This is the President of the country that has led the Arab world time and again in wars to obliterate Israel.

Morsi’s rants in the two separate clips (shown together in one video by MEMRI) were natural. They were not carefully prepared statements. One does not go on and on as Morsi did without having deep-seeded hatred towards Israel (and Israel is both the Jewish state and the homeland of approximately half of all Jews, so let’s stop pretending that one can talk about Zionists and not Jews).

These are not things that context can fix or policy positions that can be changed. These rant is evidence of Morsi’s beliefs and world views and what he feels state power – which he now controls – should be used for. And these are only the latest in a long line of evidence that under Islamist control, Egyptian power will be directed against Israel.

Yet, what is the U.S. doing with all this information? Continuing to lend a hand to that future.

The Times reports that a delegation of U.S. Senators confronted Morsi’s spokesperson about Morsi’s remarks. After hearing the spokesperson’s response, the Times reports that

the senators declined to characterize Mr. Morsi’s response. But they appeared to feel he had addressed the issue. The senators emphasized their support for Egypt’s transition to democracy. They also said they would press Congress to provide badly needed financial aid and urge American businesses to invest in Egypt, although they also said that Mr. Morsi’s inflammatory statements in 2010 made both requests tougher to sell.

“The Egyptian people are going to have to showcase your best behavior,” said another senator in the delegation, Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.
Thus, as predicted here, Mori’s anti-Israel rants will have no affect on U.S. policy of aiding Egypt’s transition to an Islamist democracy-dictatorship. For the Senators, it would only make American aid “tougher to sell” to Congress.

When Elie’s unit was moved south and put in position near Gaza before the Cast Lead War in 2008, I experienced about a month of unbelievable fear and all sorts of other things (I won’t even attempt to summarize it all here, but it’s available if you want to click back to late December 2008/January 2009). I also, amazingly enough, had a blog whose readership soared into the tens of thousands a day. It is, on the one hand, the dream of many bloggers (and the reality of a select few). The only problem was – I was too distracted to “enjoy” it.

And for some reason, I read the ones that were so nasty too. The ones that wished such horrible things on my country, my family, my son and these made me angry…and sometimes they made me cry too. Some I deleted, some I put through. Some I turned into posts called Comments on Comments and responded.

When the war was over and Elie was back home, a few weeks went by and I noticed my blog was back to its normal daily rates – nope, not 10,000+ a day, but just fine for me. I was back with my friends, back to normal. And I was happy.

A few weeks ago, Israel was again being shelled by hundreds of rockets – sometimes in a single day, certainly within each week. We moved to the edges of war – Israel and our sons, my son. Our air force flew into action hitting over 1,500 important MILITARY targets that needed to be taken out. Elie was there – again and I balanced my fears with work, blogging, and worrying about Elie’s wife (who was amazing and comforting and worrying about me).

Once again, my blog stats showed a surge – not to the level of tens of thousands but still, a really hefty increase per day. I got a few nasty comments, not nearly as many as last time and not nearly as vicious.

And then the cease-fire was declared and Elie came home…for a while, I would hear a sound and stop to listen to see if it was a siren; I would check the news to see if a rocket had been fired. Friends in the south told me how their children were having a hard time getting back to school. They were afraid.

I’ve stopped hearing sirens in my head; stopped thinking that a revved up motorcycle is the beginning of a siren. I’ve stopped checking some news sites; check others less often. And my blog stats have gone down – still above normal, but a nice above normal.

We’re settling back to the flat of the roller coaster – Israel and I, settling back to quiet. I don’t know how long it will last; you can go crazy if you even attempt to calculate it. Oh, I’m sure there will be more rockets (hey, there was even one on Sunday that was fired, but it fell short and was mostly ignored with the hope that it was nothing more than one idiot with a missile and a match…do you use a match to launch a missile…probably not). I have little doubt that there will be another war with Gaza, maybe even one with Lebanon. With the upheaval in Syria – at some point they are going to realize attacking Israel might save them and then, again, we might be facing war.

The word “bravery” is pranced around way too frequently these days, but a young Arab, in a country struggling to free itself from the yoke of tyranny – who defiantly promotes the causes of democracy, tolerance and peace between Arabs and Israelis deserves such recognition.

Liberal Egyptian blogger, human rights dissident, and peace advocate Maikel Nabil spent over 302 days in prison for criticizing the Egyptian Military after it took power in early 2011. Before he was released on Jan. 24, 2012 - after a “Free Maikel” Twitter campaign captured the support of millions worldwide, and after his 130-day hunger strike – Nabil was subjected to beatings, torture and other cruel forms of abuse.

I met Nabil, one of the genuine heroes of Tahir Square, briefly today in Jerusalem while he was on a peace tour of the Jewish state – where he’s delivering lectures, meeting with leading public figures and peace activists, and visiting the disputed territories – and it was clear while speaking to him that he’s as passionately patriotic towards Egypt as he is sincere in his benevolence towards both Palestinians and Israelis.

Nabil believes there is a much greater degree of goodwill on behalf of Egyptians towards Israelis than what the media is reporting, and it would be fair to characterize his trip to Israel and the territories (sponsored by UN Watch) as a genuine “peace mission” aimed at dispelling myths about both Egyptians and Israelis – all of which makes the disruption of his speech at Hebrew University yesterday, by “pro-Palestinian activists” almost inexplicable.

Israelis who advocate on behalf of Palestinians – either Arabs or Jews – should, it seems, be heartened by a genuine human rights activist who’s working to bring about a peaceful, democratic Middle East where the rights of all in the region are respected.

However, undeterred by such criticism, Nabil is remarkably optimistic.

Nabil believes that the Muslim Brotherhood-led government is indeed a step backwards for Egyptian democracy (and for Egyptian-Israeli relations), but he expressed confidence that the truly liberal values of the revolution will ultimately prevail.

“It might take 3 or 4 years”, he told me, but a democratic Egypt which respects the human rights of all its citizens, secular and religious, will, he fervently believes, eventually emerge.

In one blog post, written while he was in prison, Nabil reiterated his refusal to engage with the military’s interrogators, and – evoking the courageous resistance of Natan Sharansky during his imprisonment in the Soviet gulags vividly described in ‘Fear No Evil‘ – wrote “I don’t beg for my freedom from a group of killers and homeland-stealers.” He added:

The military council is the one that has to apologize for my imprisonment, my torture, silencing my mouth, spying on my life, my relatives and my friends,” he wrote. “The military council is the one that has to apologize [for] its crimes of killing, torturing and unlawful prosecutions.

Finally, I’d highly recommend reading Nabil’s blog post about Israel, also written while in an Egyptian prison, titled “Why am I pro-Israel“, which provides a fascinating insight into the mind of the truly liberal activist, and should offer a glimmer of hope even to the most cynical among us.

Visit CifWatch.

Egyptian blogger, Maikel Nabil Sanad, was shouted down today during his visit to Israel… by Arab students studying at Hebrew University. The protesters were screaming, “Shame on you”.

Sanad is visiting Israel on a trip organized by UNWatch.

Sanad was the first blogger arrested in Egypt after Mubarak’s fall. He was arrested by the military, and held in prison for 10 months, where he held a 120 day hunger strike, demanding his release.

Sanad, born into an Christian Copt family, is a liberal secularist and  doesn’t believe that Egyptians have had the opportunity to hold free elections, since the atmosphere created by the Muslim Brotherhood does not permit an environment where the actual will of the Egyptian people can be expressed.

He is very fearful about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and compares what they’re going to do, to what Hamas did in Gaza, particularly regarding the oppression of women.

Oh, and he also admires and supports Israel , which would explain the shout-down.

But what would explain the Arab (“Palestinian”) protesters’ hypocrisy? After all, they’re the ones studying at the Hebrew University.