Following the Money Trail Amid Traps
The continuing attacks by analyst Soner Çağaptay, who has rehashed the same old arguments and baseless claims against the ongoing Ergenekon trial, in which dozens of military officers have been charged with plotting to topple the democratically elected civilian government in Turkey, were repeated again last week in an opinion piece posted on the Foreign Policy magazine’s Web site.
Though his arguments are far from convincing, as usual -- and the piece is full of weak points and unsubstantiated claims, as Today’s Zaman detailed in a report published in Sunday’s edition -- it revealed something else, a more subtle yet more dangerous, though not completely unexpected, tactic employed by the pro-Israeli establishment in the United States in light of the recent flare-up in tensions between Turkey and Israel.
Simply follow the money trail, and you find the rabbit hole easily. The unscholarly and utterly misleading article penned by Çağaptay shows how his view on developments in Turkey is very much shaped by who pays him. In this case it is the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which was established by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
In a piece last year titled “Talking Turkey about Israel,” Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, a contributing editor for The American Conservative and a member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance, argued that “a review of Cağaptay’s writings reveals that he is AIPAC’s go-to guy for any argument that Turkey is becoming more anti-Western and religious.”
Giraldi was responding to arguments raised by Çağaptay in an op-ed piece titled “Turkey’s Turn From the West,” published in the Washington Post just four days after the Davos spat during which Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan harshly criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres for Israel’s Gaza onslaught. Ironically the forum was moderated by David Ignatius, from the same newspaper. Giraldi said, “AIPAC’s Turkey expert might be surprised to learn that most of the world, which saw the images of dying Palestinian children on nightly television, would probably agree with Erdoğan.”
Giraldi ended his piece by saying, “Israel’s attempt to portray itself as always the victim of a global anti-Semitic, anti-Western conspiracy just will not stand any more, no matter how many Soner Cağaptays are paid by AIPAC to write for the Washington Post.” The Gaza onslaught alone left thousands dead, including many women and children, and many more wounded as the UN-backed Goldstone report unequivocally found.
Giraldi also warned that “attempts to label [Erdoğan] anti-Semitic and to denigrate the Turks in general will certainly have some impact, most certainly on the US Congress, which will rapidly fall into line and comply with AIPAC’s instructions on an appropriate punishment.”
The million-dollar question is what the appropriate punishment would be.
We might have an answer to that. In an excellent piece published today in Today’s Zaman, Desmond Butler hinted at what that might be. Talking about the Armenian genocide bill now on the agenda of the House Foreign Relations Committee, he said the following: “The committee is strongly pro-Israel, and prospects for passage could be affected by rising tensions between Turkey and Israel, as well as Turkey’s relatively warm relationship with Iran. In the past, Turkey and Israel had friendlier relations and Israel had quietly lobbied against the resolution.”
Though the bill may eventually find its way to the floor, it is highly unlikely that it will get the endorsement of the full Congress after pressure from the White House. The Obama administration would not want to risk US national interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Turkey plays a crucial role in supporting US missions, and will certainly rally against the bill eventually.
Nevertheless, it would give credence to claims that the Israeli state and the pro-Israeli lobby want to exact revenge on Turkey’s increasingly vocal opposition to Israeli policies in the region. The Armenian genocide bill is just one theater they would like to exploit, and there are many other theaters where the Israeli government is advancing its agenda against Turkish national interests in order to punish Erdoğan’s government. We all remember the report about the involvement of Israeli intelligence and military operatives, disguised as businessmen, training peshmerga troops in northern Iraq and providing them with equipment, which irked officials in Ankara.
Even in the Ergenekon case, which Çağaptay unsuccessfully tries to portray as a witch hunt, some analysts in Turkey have started to question whether Israeli spy agency Mossad may have had a role in a dozen unsolved high-profile assassinations. Şamil Tayyar, a columnist and author of a best-selling book on the Ergenekon case, said in his column in the Star daily that the spy agency is actually the external arm of the Ergenekon terror octopus. Whether that allegation would hold any water in the court of law remains to be seen.
But the perception alone has started to take its toll, and Turkish public opinion has been swayed against Israel. The staged humiliation of the Turkish ambassador to Israel by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon recently added fuel to the controversy and outraged Turks across the country. In a January Jerusalem Post piece titled “Offending the Turks,” Çağaptay tried to avert the crisis by suggesting that Israeli officials single out the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as a target and avoid attacking Turkish pride, as if the two were mutually exclusive. He seemed to have forgotten that the party received one in every two votes in the last national elections and still enjoys a huge popular mandate.
He repeated similar nonsense once again in his recent Foreign Policy piece by attacking Fethullah Gülen’s faith-based civic movement, which enjoys remarkably high respect not only in Turkey but abroad as well. By staging a character assassination assault against Fethullah Gülen, whom he claimed is behind the Ergenekon trial, he has shown how desperate he is. The claims against Fethullah Gülen he cited were refuted in a court of law, and Fethullah Gülen was acquitted of all charges.
If the cooler heads in AIPAC need to listen to anybody, I would suggest Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whom I had a chance to speak with at the Israeli ambassador’s residence during his visit to repair relations with Turkey. He said on Friday at WINEP’s office in Washington, “I still believe that we do not need to create a new rival in Turkey.” Instead of listening to the hysteria uttered by WINEP analyst Çağaptay, our Israeli friends should pay attention to Barak, who made more sense when saying Israel would be better off to “have a partner, understanding the limitation of this partnership.” (Today's Zaman)
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