In Turkey yesterday, an ethnic Armenian journalist was gunned down, apparently by a teenager, outside his office in Istanbul. Hrant Dink, editor of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was considered a traitor by many in Turkey for daring to call the killing of Armenians by the Turks from 1915 to 1917 a “genocide”. He had faced trial several times for ‘violating laws against insulting the Turkish state and Turkish identity by referring to ethnic purity and genocide’.
No doubt this ugly incident will be used as further ammunition by those who would oppose Turkey’s accession to the EU for human rights reasons. Certainly, Turkey has an atrocious human rights record. No country whose body of law includes the following:
- A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
- A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
could possibly be called ‘progressive’, ‘democratic’ or – if you are inclined to use the word – ‘civilised’. Indeed, Hrant Dink had himself been tried and convicted under the above law (Article 301), serving a six month sentence.
Another high-profile case of civil rights abuse in Turkey is that of Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist (and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006) who faced trial in 2005 for the crime of “insulting Turkishness”. The charges were dropped after an international outcry, but similar cases continue today.
In 1991, Leyla Zana, a Kurdish-Turkish politician, dared to speak Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament. At her inauguration, she took the oath of loyalty in Turkish, as required, and then added in Kurdish:
“I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework.”
The nationalists were outraged, but she was protected by parliamentary immunity for three years, until she joined the Democracy Party in 1994. The party was then banned by the authorities and she was charged with and put on trial for treason, later reduced to membership in the illegal Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). She was convicted in what Amnesty International called a “flagrantly unfair trial” based on testimonies from “witnesses who themselves faced prosecution or who later retracted their statements, which they said were extracted under torture”. She was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, and was only released in 2004.
According to Amnesty International, “[t]orture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officials continued to be reported” in 2006, with “detainees allegedly being beaten; stripped naked and threatened with death; deprived of food, water and sleep during detention; and beaten during arrest or in places of unofficial detention.”
There can be no real dispute, then, about the state of Turkey’s human rights record. However, to attempt to deny Turkey membership in the EU on this basis is hypocritical in the extreme. Turkey’s use of torture has, for example, been a major stumbling block in its application. But only yesterday, British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett admitted the UK had knowledge of the United States’ global network of secret CIA “black sites” prior to President Bush’s official acknowledgement of their existence last September. According to Amnesty International, “[r]enditions involve multiple layers of human rights violations”:
“Most victims of rendition were arrested and detained illegally in the first place: some were abducted; others were denied access to any legal process, including the ability to challenge the decision to transfer them because of the risk of torture. There is also a close link between renditions and enforced disappearances. Many of those who have been illegally detained in one country and illegally transported to another have subsequently “disappeared”, including dozens who have “disappeared” in US custody. Every one of the victims of rendition interviewed by Amnesty International has described incidents of torture and other ill-treatment.”
Amnesty reports that “[t]here is little doubt that transfers are intended to facilitate…abusive interrogation”, and quotes the former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Centre, Vincent Cannistraro, who described the “interrogation” of one detainee who was “renditioned” to Egypt:
“They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started telling things”.
The UK government actively hindered attempts by MPs and activists to gain information about the rendition flights and Britain’s role in them, cooperated (.pdf) in the CIA abduction of two British citizens by providing false intelligence about them and permitted American planes used for rendition to refuel at British airports. In December 2006, a draft European Parliament report “deplore[d] the way the British government…cooperated” with investigations into European collusion with rendition.
In other words, Britain is complicit in torture. Yet, strangely, there are no calls to expel the UK from the EU. In 2005, according to Amnesty International, the British government,
“continued to erode fundamental human rights, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, including by persisting with attempts to undermine the ban on torture at home and abroad, and by enacting and seeking to enact legislation inconsistent with domestic and international human rights law…Measures purporting to counter terrorism led to serious human rights violations, and concern was widespread about the impact of these measures on Muslims and other minority communities.”
In the same year, a court in Germany – another EU member – ruled that “evidence that could have been extracted under torture or ill-treatment was admissible in legal proceedings”, in “breach of the absolute ban on torture under international human rights law”. Also in 2005, Italy expelled more than 1,425 migrants to Libya, in “defiance of international refugee law”, whilst failing once again to make torture a specific crime within its penal code.
Many EU members, including Britain and France (which has its own unflattering history of torture), are guilty of human rights abuses committed in 1999, when NATO launched an illegal war on Serbia. According to Amnesty International (.pdf), NATO forces “failed to take necessary precautions to minimise civilian casualties”, committed “serious violations of the laws of war leading…to the unlawful killing of civilians” and, in the case of the bombing of Radio Television of Serbia network headquarters in Belgrade (which killed 16 civilians), perpetrated a “war crime”.
In 2003, many EU members participated in the illegal invasion of Iraq, including the UK, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Holland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Estonia, Romania and Slovakia. They are all complicit in numerous violations of human rights, for example the criminal assault on Fallujah, and are all guilty of waging a war of aggression, the “supreme international crime”.
And so on and so on. In the light of the above, can anyone seriously maintain that Turkey is not “civilised” enough to join the EU? The fact that many people do illustrates an important point: most people still view the EU (and the West generally) as somehow more “civilised”, “democratic” and “virtuous” than the rest of the world. Many in Western Europe share an underlying assumption that, fundamentally, countries like Britain, France, Spain and Germany are benign. The result of this deluded self-image is that when the governments of these countries try to persuade their people to support a war by citing “humanitarian” or “security” reasons (as with the wars on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and, in the case of Britain and Spain, Iraq), the public is pre-disposed to believe them. The consequences of this can be counted in bodies.
Filed under: European Union, Iraq, News and politics, Torture, UK | 32 Comments
Tags: EU, Human Rights, International & Foreign Policy, Turkey
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Good point, argued well. It’ll be intereseting to see if the protests over Dink’s death lead to a change in the admittedly pretty despotic Turkish laws. Once Turkey actually lives up to the double standards we have set, what excuse will we come with? Oh yeah, Cyprus. I bet the Turks lose interest with EU before long – I’d soon get sick of applying to a club where I was made to feel unwelcome.
Thanks. Turkey’s application to the EU has in fact lead to some progressive reforms. In this sense, insistence on an improvement in Turkey’s human rights record in order to join the EU is a good thing. That’s why I’m not here arguing that Turkey should be allowed to join the EU; I’m just illustrating the hypocrisy of denying membership based on human rights.
Jamie, it sounds like Turkey fits in nicely in the EU club. Its time to grant them full membership immediately!
By the way, excellent post on the political repression and the Turkishness nonsense.
What the Turks have done to the Armenians and the Kurds is nothing short of genocide and your post does a very good job of showing that “Turkishness” has a lot to do with their arrogance and propensity toward violence toward non-Turks.
Thanks. Of course, throughout Turkey’s atrocities against the Kurds they recieved massive amounts of US aid and remained a NATO partner. In 1997, U.S. arms sales (which made up about 80% of Turkey’s military equipment) to Turkey exceeded the total amount delivered from 1950-83. Indeed, they were given a leading role in NATO’s war on Yugoslavia, as a symbol of our support for its “counter-terrorist” operations. By 1999, to quote Noam Chomsky,
Hello There,
I’m from Turkey and was just gazing through wordpress.com and saw this post you’ve written. You’ve written just like an article that seems to be well organized and well searched.
But in order to judge how a country is “civilised” or “mature” enough, I think you should know about the culture and the historical events more. Maybe you should visit Turkey some day and see it for yourself. Although your post seems to be well researched, some things that doesn’t gather the worlds attention occurs all around the world.
As a Turkish citizen, I’m really confused about joining EU or not but I think we shall join. Let me say a few things about Turkey.
1) Turkish Government has just declared to the rest of the World that they can open the historical archieves just to see what happened at the days that everybody thinks a “genocide” happened. But the Armenian government rejected this offer and continued with the lobby efforts to charge Turkey for what they have done. But in the mean time, several Turkish people (maybe equal ?) have been killed by the Armenian people. But it’s really not disgussed. Or does it ?
2) To join EU, Turkey started to change its laws to suit EU. The main thing is, the EU laws are really not suitable for Turkey since there’s some different kinds of crimes over here. We really have some law problems these days that release the persons who have committed some serious crimes and kill more people let’s say. For example, some people started using young people (that are younger than 18) to commit crime and they generally don’t get punished. But you can’t see something like that really in EU. I think this is something related with the education of people and maybe the parts of Turkey which are still developing.
3) Kurdish people are hated more and more every day over here in Turkey. And ironically there are so many Kurdish people in all over Turkey maybe equal to Turkish people. We have lived in a country with peace for so many years but it’s getting worse these days. They want to gather land from Turkey with includes the southern part of Turkey and the northern part of Iraq. Although they have a Terror organization called PKK which we’re in a war for maybe more than 20 years. This is one of the biggest problems in Turkey since they kill our soldiers each day. I don’t know if you can imagine how it’s to lose a son for just “nothing” but to protect the country. According to the numbers, ~46.000 terror events occured in Turkey for the last 22 years. Because of the terror, we have lost 36.628 of our citizens. 4626 of them soldier and police, 1330 village protector, 448 public attendant, 5219 citizens just living there. 508 of them are children and 519 of women.
5 M citizens had to move out from where they live because of PKK. The cost (or say damage?) of this actions is more than 100M $ to Turkey Republic. With extra costs it’s ~300M $. It means 7 barrage projects like GAP in Turkey, 30.000 km autobahn, 5.000.000 schools, 350 Bosphorus Bridges and it’s equil to the Turkey’s health expence for 83 years. Now imagine why all this hate ?
4) No other country have this much attempts to take down the Republic regime. We have fanatic people who are so addicted to religion and try to take down the Republic at the same time. To protect the country, what other choices do you have ?
Turkey is going the change its constitution I guess.. And all that clauses will be gone.
As far as I know (i’ve been in USA/California in 2000, in Bulgaria in 2000 and in Germany in 2006) we’re equally the same but of course differ a little bit because of the cultural things.
Any way; I wrote too much. But I just wanted to tell that judging a country just with these claims is very wrong. If you take the things you’ve told about Turkey into account, USA must be the number 1 of wild and “not civilised” countries in the world.
Hi Alper, thanks for your comment.
The purpose of this post wasn’t to judge Turkey. You’ll notice I put “civilised” in scare quotes. I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy of those who claim Turkey is not civilised enough to join the EU, by mentioning just a few of the human rights abuses EU member states have committed in recent years.
Leaving aside the question of the Armenian genocide, what matters here is that Turkey has made it illegal to call it by that name. That is an obscene violation of human rights, specifically the right to freedom of speech. In Britain, if I went around saying that the NATO war on Kosovo was a genocide, I would be wrong and people would disagree with me, but I wouldn’t get locked up for it. Likewise, in Turkey it is illegal to “insult Ataturk’s memory” under law 5816. Such laws are absurd, and fly in the face of human rights and civil liberties.
Yes, some Kurds want a state of their own (shock! horror!). For some reason, Turkish nationalism is OK, but Kurdish nationalism isn’t. Actually, most Kurds in Turkey are not separatist – indeed Kurdish support for the PKK is only around 33% overall – and many who support the PKK do so because they want equal political and cultural rights for Kurds (which seems fair). The Turkish government has consistently blocked attempts by the Kurds to organise politically, and members of Kurdish parties (the ones that are not closed down) are constantly harassed. The government has also witheld funds and development from the Kurdish regions, focusing mainly on the north and western regions. Finally, after many decades of repression and injustice, an armed separatist movement (the PKK) formed and in 1984 began using terrorism as a tactic. Terrorism can never, of course, be justified, even if the cause is. The PKK committed atrocities against both Turkish and Kurdish civilians (the majority of the victims of PKK crimes have been Kurdish), and was condemned accordingly by the international human rights organisations. Turkey is responsible for burning some 3,000 Kurdish villages, inducing mass ethnic cleansing – around two million people were displaced. The way in which Turkey crushed the seperatist movements was just brutal, with no respect for the law or for basic human rights. To quote from Human Rights Watch:
In short, then, the political and cultural rights of the Kurds have been frustrated and violated for decades (and this continues today), whilst development in the Kurdish regions was lacking. In such a situation, an armed struggle is inevitable.
I don’t know where you get your figures from. From what I can see, 30,000 people in total were killed in that war – at least 18,500 of them were civilians killed by the Turkish military and paramilitary forces which, according to Human Rights Watch, “committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including torture, extrajudicial killings, and indsicriminate fire”.
Firstly, nothing justifies the kind of wide-scale state terrorism, ethnic cleansing and systematic atrocities Turkey inflicted upon the Kurds. Secondly, most Kurds are simply struggling for cultural and political equality which has been unfairly denied to them for decades, ever since Ataturk himself drew up the Constitution, decreeing:
Even Saddam Hussein’s constitution recognised the existence of the Kurds. Turkey, on the other hand, has relentlessly pursued a form of cultural genocide, aiming to wipe Kurdish language and ‘identity’ from the face of the Earth. Any Kurd who resists this is labelled a “seperatist”, and any “seperatist” is considered treasonous, a traitor and, often, a terrorist.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention all of this in your list of what doesn’t get reported much in the media.
Perhaps, and that’s exactly the point of this article: I was not trying to decide whether Turkey is “civilised” or not. I was highlighting the hypocrisy of those EU states who criticise Turkey’s human rights record without acknowledging their own very real failings in the same regard.
Leaving aside the question of the Armenian genocide, what matters here is that Turkey has made it illegal to call it by that name. That is an obscene violation of human rights, specifically the right to freedom of speech.
– In France, you would commit a crime if you would say that there’s no genocide..
So let’s take France out of EU.. shall we ?
– In 1994, there was genocide in Rwanda and nobody cared about them since 2004.. Even Kofi Annan admits it.
– What USA does in Iraq and in all over the world (as we know, they have secret facilities to torture to prisoners around and they do it on planes too) is against everything you tell.
I mean these things happen all the time with or without any reason. I don’t really admit what we have done earlier. But everything has a reason.
“No other language than Turkish shall be taught as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens at any institutions of training or education.”
– This is because of that especially in southern Turkey, Arabish and other languages were spoken and Turkish is not. And Turkish was a new language at that time which was created by Atatürk himself. Today maybe it’s not really a necessary clause, but today even if there’s a clause in there, the people in Mardin let’s say speak Arabish and Kurdish and most of them doesn’t even know Turkish.
You’re right about the southern part but the things the government build were simply taken down by the terrorism just to damage. The cities there were at a different level called OHAL which I can translate you as “Extraordinary Situations..” It was even not possible to build things there.
I also believe that Kurdish or anyother language should be allowed and everyone freely express themselves. But things change slowly. And believe or not, it really not that simple to do this immediately. At least, I can say that those days are close..
———-
“I was highlighting the hypocrisy of those EU states who criticise Turkey’s human rights record without acknowledging their own very real failings in the same regard.”
– Agree..
The “terrorist phase” of the PKK campaign started in 1984. But why did Kurds have to resort to terrorism? Why did the tactics of PKK enjoy the support that they did? Because for decades Kurds had suffered great cultural and financial injustice, and were not allowed to organise politically to try and improve things. If you have a group of people that share grievances against you and then you forbid them from participating politically to address them, what you are effectively doing is leaving them two choices: to accept their lot or find other, more violent ways to improve it. Evidently, the PKK chose the latter.
I’m glad you did not disagree with my brief description of the atrocities Turkey perpetrated against the Kurds.
That’s exactly my point. Thank you for providing a further illustration of it.
I’ve just been in Turkey myself a couple of months ago and I seriously recommend Turkey not to join the EU. Such a nice country and way of life would be seriously endangered should they joined the EU. Hey, that’s a joke, but it’s got some serious things to consider about it.
Turkey reminded me of Spain 25 years ago, before all european laws that came after joining the EU made our nice, easygoing, laidback, kinda chaotic live and let live approach to life suffer serious damage.
It’s something to be considered. Nowadays, either you go to Paris, London, Berlin, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona or Amsterdam, you are gonna find the same damn things and laws everywhere (whoever the f**k allowed a Starbucks and a KFC just in front the Sagrada Familia should be hanged); the common european laws we all share have levelled things out and there aren’t almost no differences between countries anymore. It’s nice to feel more “together” with our fellow europeans, but I miss something. It’s kinda sad after I’ve been to Turkey and saw something really different, a warm, mediterranean country where people come across friendly and still talk calmly to the shop assistant when shopping, waiters treat you like a person and not a pest they have to put up with, where people laugh and enjoy life and themselves in a sound and healthy way. I seriously considered settling down there for good and never coming back to the damn EU.
Most of the turkish guys and girls (nice, educated people and fun to party with) I worked with while there where willing to join the EU for one thing: so they can travel and work all around europe. I think it should be a good thing to let them join “us”, as it would be a breath of fresh air. Cultured people, from a country with such a strong load of european history all over it. We cant ignore that. Either we like it or not, Turkey has written a great deal of the best pages of European (and world!) history.
All countries have those ugly things everybody blames Turkey of. All of them.
As for you, Turkish people reading this: Tessekuler!!! I’ll be back soon, no doubt, to purify myself and breath some freedom. (That’s exactly how I felt in Turkey: Free).
I’ve supported the Turkish bid since their parliament showed the balls necessary to stand up to intense US pressure to help them bomb Iraq. If only the same could be said for Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain and Italy….
C. De Castro, thanks for your honest comments.. I’m still following the comments.. I really am surprised how you think about Turkey.. 3-5 years before, I would have spoken with other people without knowing anything about here and even where Turkey places in a map. They usually think us as an Arabisch country or simply think us as same as Iraq or Iran.
The way you take the cases into hand is really different then I’ve seen before. Thank you guys..
I forgot to say… I must also say: “Teşekkürler..!!!”
C. De Castro: Thanks for your comment.
In what way would joining the EU endanger the Turkish way of life? I haven’t been to Turkey myself, but my uncle described the people and lifestyle in similarly glowing terms. Why do you think joining the EU would put a stop to this?
Corporate globalisation inveitably leads to some homogenisaton – the prevalence of Starbucks and McDonalds is a good symbol of this (they even have a Starbucks inside China’s Forbidden City). But I don’t think that by remaining outside of the EU Turkey will be immune from this. You are likely going to find Starbucks in Turkey whether it joins the EU or not.
Well, I’m not sure about that. Certainly, some countries have better human rights records than Turkey, just as some have worse. The citizens of the advanced capitalist economies, like Britain and France, certainly enjoy greater civil liberties and freedom than their counterparts in Turkey. Turkey’s recent and, to an extent, ongoing oppression and aggression against its Kurdish population is likewise not comparable with the actions of many other countries (e.g. Sweden).
But in general, I agree that it would be hypocritical for most EU member states to refuse entry to Turkey based on its human rights records. Indeed, that is why I wrote the article.
David:
Turkey cooperated in the invasion of Iraq by permitting U.S. and Coalition military aircraft use its air space for operations against Iraq.
Turkey is unquestionably a U.S. client state – that’s why both Britain and the U.S. are so keen for it to join the EU (and the reason it in NATO). It’s also why the U.S. supported so wholeheartedly the Turkish crimes against the Kurds during the 80’s and 90’s.
Germany and France did refuse to cooperate in the invasion, and got labelled “Old Europe” as a result.
Alper/Castro: what does “Teşekkürler” mean?
Oh by the way, I made a mistake: Dink did not serve a six month sentence. Rather, he was convicted under Article 301 and setenced to a suspended six month sentence, which means he would not have to serve it unless he repeated the offence (of “insulting Turkishness”).
Hi folks, very interesting discussion. Concerning the Turkey’ bid to the EU and EU law etc. in Turkey: Turkey is already a part of the internal market of the EU. Following the custom union with the EU Turkey has already incorporated a huge amount of the EU law in the Turkish law. De facto Turkey is on the way to become an EU country (in terms of laws) without a political power in Brussels. What does Turkey gain from this? Probably full market-access to the EU and huge trade deficit with the EU. Turkish officials hope also to attract FDI from the EU. The real challange for Turkey is it’s economy and sustainable development. However, I am sad to say just in Turkey “security issues” dominate the agenda. I would recommend you to check http://www.turkishpolitix.com for deep information on Turkish politics.
Thanks for the link; will certainly check it out.
The superficial reforms in the government mean nothing when the people are ultra-nationalistic. Insulting turkishness MIGHT not be a crime anymore soon in turkey (though unlikely)but then again it will not be the law you have to be scared of. The person who killed Dink is one of many who share the same ideology. These people don’t care about laws like freedom of speech when they feel they have a right to gun down people who insult turkishness. It is easy to make some superficial reforms and expect acceptance into the E.U. it is another thing to make people born and raised to hate integrate in the European society and culture.
It’s certainly true that a de jure change does not always and immediately lead to a de facto change, but it’s still important. So in the U.S., for example, when segregation became illegal it still took years for the racist attitudes of whites to blacks to change. But the Supreme Court case (Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled racial segregation to be illegal) was nevertheless a critical step in the fight for civil rights.
– Is EU “Civilised” Enough? –
I want to correct some of the points here:
- In Turkey, Turks do not hate Kurds and Kurds do not hate Turks; we don’t even ask each other whether someone is Turk, Kurd or whatever.
- The people who say “I am Kurdish” are about 5% of the population according to recent research/surveys, not half of the population, only 9% the people in the surveys say “they aren’t Turkish”.
- There are people in Turkey who can’t speak Turkish, but they are far less than Kurds who can’t speak Kurdish.
- Only minorities in Turkey are Jews, Greeks and Armenians.
- People can learn Kurdish in private course programs if they want, they can record and buy Kurdish songs, etc., anyone can vote or be elected to the parliament.
- Turkish nationalism is very different from German (NAZI) nationalism. We are not racist, anyone who says “I am a Turk” is a Turk, that is citizens of Turkey are Turks.
So you are very sensitive to the deaths of many Armenians in WWI, so we are! But the thing you don’t understand [or don't try to...] is, it was war! Armenians died, Turks died, Kurds died and Arabs died. Your so-called “civil” imperialist troops tried to invade Anatolia and it was hell-on-earth. Did you ever ask to yourself [being "civil" EU citizens] what the hell were you doing in Anatolia? Did you ever ask yourself why did you “use” Armenians in your dirty war?
Now, some of the so “civil” EU members
- Southern Cyprus: Some of the Greek Cypriots were so “civil” that they killed many Turkish Cypriots because they were “Turks”. Please see: http://www.topix.net/forum/world/cyprus/T8JJ61K81NSS4IQ2D , http://www.middleeastinfo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=6683 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jUNRVMOKCw
Were there any of you “civil” enough to raise your voice on this?
- Sweden: Did you ever hear about the Sami people who were the original owners of Sweden? I bet you didn’t, because there are not many of them now [only about 20000] because they were killed, sterilized [the definition of genocide of UN covers this] and were banned to learn and teach Sami language and culture.
Were there any of you “civil” enough to raise your voice on this?
- It is ironic that the two countries which are attached to two great genocide practices [Jewish Genocide and Algerian Genocide] are the two founders of your “civil” EU! For Algerian Genocide see: http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=93856
Were there any of you “civil” enough to raise your voice on Aalgerian Genocide?
- Greece: Is there any freedom of speech for Turks living there? They are not even allowed to call themselves “Turks”, they can’t elect their religious director [in contrast with minorities in Turkey].
Were there any of you “civil” enough to raise your voice on this?
- For many countries in Europe, the history is massacres and imperialism.
Anyway, imperialists are “civil” only for each other, so I can understand if you didn’t raise your voices to any of those countries.
- Armenia occupied a large part of Azerbaijan [Karabag], massacred many Turks there and banished them from their homes, over 1 million Azeri Turks are homeless now.
Were there any of you “civil” enough to raise your voice on this?
- Why EU can’t say anything to US about over 600000 deaths in Iraq? Ah, you’re so “civil” for that.
Many Turks do not want to join EU btw, it is just a tool used here for politics.
Yuce
Hi, Yuce. I think you misunderstood the point of the post. The whole point of it was to expose the hypocrisy of those who claim to oppose Turkey’s ascension to the EU on human rights grounds, when in fact, even if Turkey’s human rights record was atrocious (and, regarding the Kurds, it is), it would fit in very well.
As to Turkish nationalism and the Kurds – I’m sorry, but if you’re trying to claim that there is no persecution or discrimination of the Kurds, or that there hasn’t been any (through the 1990s, particularly), then you’re just wrong. Check out the human rights reports.
Hi Jamie,
My post was more strong than it should be. But your post and your comments to your post has different directions.
First, let me reiterate that, there are no problems between sane Turks and sane Kurds ; there is not a single case that a Turk fights a Kurd based on ethnicity in normal life.
About the bastard who shot Hrant Dink… 100% of Turkey doesn’t approve what he has done and we believe that he is just a pawn of an external intelligence agency; if you knew that he used an American-made gun which was one of the tousands “lost” in Iraq, you’d see our point [and another "lost" gun was used in another assassination] [of course you could also dismiss that as a paranoiac hypothesis]
You say, “By 1999, to quote Noam Chomsky,
“Turkey had largely suppressed Kurdish resistance by terror and ethnic cleansing, leaving some 2-3 million refugees, 3500 villages destroyed (7 times Kosovo under NATO bombs), and tens of thousands killed.”
Well, this is just a lie, this is just another attempt to create a “genocide” tale just like what Britain did in WWI. And can’t you see how it was made up to perfectly fit to the “Killer Turk” image? How it reverses the side which was terrorized by calling terrorists as “resistance”? [If the terrorists are resistance, what do you call the innocent people killed by terrorists?] So what did we do to Kurds and they resisted? How did they resist? Where did 2-3 million refugees go?
Why don’t you also say that your EU supports terrorism as long as it’s not against EU, many countries in EU has PKK camps [one of them was in Netherlands, a terrorist got suicidal-bombing training there and killed 6 innocent civilians just a week ago]. [Even landmines that PKK uses are from various EU countries, including Italy] Your EU were supporting fundamentalists just until 9/11.
My post really was to show how EU’s double standards are; you mention double standards for democracy, freedom of speech, etc. but not for genocide and ethnical cleansing. You don’t mention that the Turks in Greece are not even allowed to say they are Turks, let alone free-speech, etc. [And why don't they revolt?]
You don’t say why EU doesn’t accept Turkey, but you suspect that this is about being “civilized” and you’re right. EU doesn’t accept Turkey, because why they would? Turkey is a tool of politics in EU and EU is a tool of politics in Turkey.
I think you are an anti-imperialist which I respect [seeing myself as also anti-imperialist]. Your blog frequently mentions US, Palestine, Israel and Blair, fine. But you don’t mention anything much else, even what’s going on EU: how UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Norway are earning real good money from producing and selling guns and financing the so-called humanitarian and peace associations [isn't that ironic?], let alone what’s happening elsewhere.
Best wishes,
Yuce
Hi, Yuce. You say:
It’s not a lie at all. It’s well known. Read here, for example, or here, or here, or here. According to Human Rights Watch,
If you really want to deny the horrendous campaign of violence and terror inflicted on the Kurdish population by the state throughout the 1990s, you can – but the documentary record shows otherwise. Likewise, if you want to deny the Turkish government’s long history of repressing the Kurdish population, both culturally and economically, then go ahead. Again, the record supports the opposite.
Of course the EU supports terrorism – the case of Israel/Palestine is an excellent example. Indeed, many members of the EU are themselves major practitioners of terrorism – see our conduct in Iraq, for example.
Again, you seem to be mistaken about the point of this article. It wasn’t really about Turkey. It was about the human rights hypocrisy of many EU countries. The only reason I brought Turkey into it was because all this concern about how “civilised” Turkey is shows up the hypocrisy I was attempting to examine.
The point was to illustrate the double standards on issues of human rights. But I wasn’t doing that in order to defend Turkey’s conduct, which was indefensible.
No, I don’t think it’s about that at all. As I say, most EU countries evidently have no concern whatsoever for human rights, as their own conduct demonstrates.
I write about Iraq, Iran, West Papua, Israel/Palestine and many other issues for which I feel morally responsible, or else about which I am simply interested. I have written about the arms trade – see here, for example.
I must say, it is very disappointing to see someone continue to deny the atrocities inflicited upon the Kurdish population by the Turkish state. They were horrific and, as I say, indefensible. They also happen to be quite well documented.
During a recent visit to Turkey, I was seated at an outside restaurant. I got up to leave and only 5 minutes later did I realize that I had accidentally dropped my wallet, filled with cash and my passport, out of my pocket. I ran back, breathless, and as I ran toward my table, the maitre-D handed me my wallet like a football handoff. Nothing was missing! Could that have happened in the USA or EU? Whisper who dares!
Jamie — I just wanted to post a quick note that I think your logic and moral standards in evaluating Turkey and the Kurdish issue are admirably consistent — just when I had given up on the ‘left’! A refreshing read.
After looking at some of your “best of” posts, however, I’m left with a question about that consistency. One of your readers commented that the “new anti-semitism” is such when Israel is held to a different standard than other countries, and vilified out of proportion to its transgressions. Hence the British union boycott is anti-semitic… You and some others gave the intelligent response that “we can’t be interested in and write on all topics, and Western support of Israel makes us more complicit in its actions.” So why have none of you, including the British unions, considered boycotting Turkey? Turkey receives a great deal of Western weapons, trade, political support, etc… Looks like different standards are being applied, and hence the new anti-semitism charge gains credence. Especially if you want to compare number of killed by the state in both countries, attempts for mediated solutions, etc…
For the record, I am against a boycott of either Turkey or Israel, especially an academic boycott — way to heighten the siege mentality that exists in both countries, and strengthen the hyper nationalists. Just vainly looking for consistent deeds and words, I guess… And just in case it also needs to be said, I’m a fan of the people of both countries (ethnic Turks as well as Kurds, Israeli Jews as well as non-Jews, Palestinians…).
Hi DR – thanks for your comment. I think what has to be remembered in the case of a boycott is that it isn’t a moral principle that has to be applied universally or else not at all. A boycott is a tactic, a means of achieving a goal. Whilst it is important that our goals are consistent, obviously, depending on circumstances, the means to achieve them will differ.
In the case of the Occupied Territories, we have a people (the Palestinians) who have suffered for decades under an occupation in which we are complicit, who are now explicitly asking us to boycott Israeli goods and academic institutions. They believe that such a boycott can have an effect, and evidently the Israeli government agrees, judging by the level of hysteria with which they have greeted the idea. Given all this, it seems only right that we show solidarity with the victims and do as they ask.
Thanks Jamie — a cogent point. I’m not sure if memory serves me correctly, but when the boycott first started in the British Union movement, the Palestinians in the territories (as opposed to those in the diaspora) weren’t for it. Yet it went ahead nonetheless, which would bring us back to my earlier point about harsher actions and condemnations reserved for the Jewish state (heck — just take a look at the level of vitriol out there on the net). Major Kurdish groups, including the Kurdish “Parliament in Exile,” have likewise called for a boycott of Turkey, to no effect…
Many people make the parallel to South Africa under Apartheid, arguing that such a tactic was effective there. Leaving aside the issue of wether or not the Apartheid term could or should be applied to Israel, there’s a huge fundamental and relevant difference between Israel and Turkey and 1980s South Africa — the ANC for the most part eschewed violence, particularly against civilians. South Africans were not being blown up in restaurants or tourist resorts or buses. In contrast, the PKK and various major Palestinian groups (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, etc…) do target Turkish/Kurdish and Israeli civilians, respectively. Under such circumstances, boycotts will not be perceived by Israelis or Turks the way South Africans saw them, and the tactic won’t work. Furthermore, it implies a moral equivalency between the aforementioned terrorists and the ANC, and a smug expectation from outsiders that Israel (or Turkey) will play nice when their civilians are being blown up (and remember, suicide bombing were occurring at the height of the Oslo Accords as well). A better approach would be to proclaim something along the lines of “As soon as major Palestinian groups [or the PKK] stop targeting civilians, the international community will do all in its power to peacefully support a just resolution of their very real grievences.” You might get a change in strategy from these actors as a result, and then you could win back the Israeli peace camp (or create a Turkish pro-Kurdish rights camp) that is so necessary for a just resolution of the conflict. You won’t get that peace camp with boycotts that increase the siege mentality — rather, you’ll get people like Netanyahu re-elected…
I’m not sure about that – can’t remember. But even if so, I think you’re falling into the trap of arguing that until we can do something about everything, we mustn’t do something about anything. People used to make exactly the same argument to oppose the boycott of South Africa. The result, if accepted, would indeed by that no one would do anything about anything.
Perhaps there is a good case to be made about boycotting Turkey. I’m not sure – I need to read some more about the exact situation there. The efficacy/morality of a boycott of Israel remains unchanged, regardless.
Well, many people are very, very angry about what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians. It is only natural to be angered by a colonial state which has been allowed by the international community to oppress and brutalise the indigenous population virtually unchallenged for decades. I don’t think Israel receives a disproportionate amount of “vitriol” against it – in fact, quite the opposite. If you look at the treatment Israel has received at the hands of mainstream intellectuals, the media, many Western governments, etc. etc. it’s actually been remarkably apologetic. Largely as a result of this, if you look at public opinion in, for example, the U.S., a majority of people claim to identify with and have sympathy for Israel more than for the Palestinians. To the extent that the anti-war movement is ‘over-vitriolic’ towards Israel (and, as I say, I don’t think it is), this is probably simply a reaction to the largely pro-Israel views of the mainstream majority.
But anyway, I don’t think it’s a particularly fruitful line of inquiry to examine why some people are this outraged about Israel, but only that outraged about another issue. The problem is precisely the opposite: not enough people are outraged enough about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to force our governments to bring it to an end. That is the issue.
Well, I don’t think that’s really the point of a boycott, though. The point of a boycott is to undermine the legitimacy of the occupation in popular and international opinion, and to keep the issue on the agenda. The ultimate purpose is to force our own governments, in the EU and the U.S., to start seriously pressuring Israel to change its behaviour.
That’s ridiculous. By the same token, it’s presumably “smug” to expect Palestinians to “play nice” while their civilians are being blown up (with greater frequency and on a far larger scale) by Israeli “terrorists”. The paradigm we’re talking about here is one of an oppressor and the oppressed, an aggressor and its victims, an occupation and the resistance to that occupation. Of course there are legitimate and illegitimate means of resistance, and the illegitimate means (targeting civilians) should be condemned. But we must not equate the violence of the resistance with the violence of the occupier, and we should not lose sight of the fact that the motor driving all this conflict is the Israeli occupation. That is what has to end.
And the “Oslo Accords” had nothing to do with peace – they were, as former deputy-mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti said at the time, Israel’s attempt to continue the occupation by “remote control”, forcing the Palestinians to police themselves leaving Israel free to get on with building settlements (the number of Israeli settlers almost doubled in the seven years following Oslo).
Oh, so we should start making demands of the victims whilst leaving the oppressor, which targets civilians on a scale Hamas and Islamic Jihad can only dream about, to continue colonising what little remains of Palestinians land?
I think it’s pretty clear now that the necessary change is not going to come from within Israel. None of the three main parties have ever advocated the international consensus two-state settlement based on international law, and none of them show any signs of doing so. Change is going to have to be forced through from the outside, primarily by the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, the EU.
Jamie — you make some good arguments here, but others which I think are filtered by the political lenses we all use to understand an infinitely complex reality. The point about the trap of “until we can do something about everything…” is quite good, although my argument on that particular score was that by way of vitriol and action, Israel is the first target for a lot of people — which I find strange, because no matter how you measure it, Israel is not the worst offender, nor the only recipient of Western aid and trade. If you truly think that Israel targets civilians, then there’s probably not much more to discuss, as we are simply perceiving reality differently (have you gone there? Spoken to soldiers who have served in the territories? Looked at casualty figures of civilians and then compared them to other conflicts? It just doesn’t add up as an argument, beyond a few outlier events of a kooky soldier that every army unfortunately has some of, and some reprehensible acts of collective punishment when Israel targets electricity grids or other infrastructure). I compare that to the policy of groups like Hamas which explicitly and admittedly target civilians, and there’s no equivalency. Unless you mean to say that the weaker power, or the one who lost a particular fight, is always by definition the more morally defensible actor, the victim, and hence the one to be supported. Certain ideological lenses see any move Israel makes, despite the fact that it is a complex political entity that is far from unified, as cynical — so withdraw from Lebanon, no good. Withdraw from Gaza, no good. Oslo accords — just a trick — see, settlements still expanding in West Bank…(never mind that this was a result of internal Israeli politics, and the ones signing the Oslo Accords couldn’t control other Israeli political actors in charge of housing and settlements — no, it’s evidence of a plot to not really accept a two state solution, no matter what parties like the Labour Party in Israel say and do. Yet when Arafat can’t control the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, that’s complex internal Palestinian politics and not his fault… Double standard, cognitive dissonance…). And yet, despite all the difficult negotiations and violence, you expect Israel to go to the bargaining table already having conceded all the points that the Palestinians are demanding (”international consensus two-state settlement based on international law” I take to mean 100% withdrawal to pre-67 lines), for intangible promises, often broken (especially by out of control groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad), not to target pre-67 Israel the way these groups targeted Israel before 1967. And if your response to that is that pre-1967 Israel is likewise illegitimate and an occupation, then why should Israelis take the time to discuss any of it, much less trade tangible assets paid for in blood during previous wars? Find me a state that didn’t establish control over some of its territory in warfare — but oh, I’m not supposed to say “if we can’t solve everything, or someone else did it so it’s O.K. for Israel to do it,” so instead we’ll just hold Israel to standards not realistically expected of any other state, and villify them out of all proportion to how much we villify others, never mind a casualty count that looks like a picnic next to Chechnya or the Kurds or Sudan… Still smacks of a double standard, even more evident with terms like ‘colonialism’ — who were the Israelis making a colony for? Doesn’t colonialism require a metropole, the home state to which the benefits accrue? Anyhow, I’m not constructing this argument carefully, as I’m in a rush (about to go into a real conflict zone that journalists don’t cover, unlike the “today a donkey farted in Ramallah” microscope…). I don’t mean to sound a bit harhser than previously, just in a rush.
Cheers
Hi DR,
Well, perhaps that is because people feel that they have a greater ability to change the situation in the Occupied Territories than they do in, say, Sudan or the Congo. Also, the Israel/Palestine issue is, I would say, relatively straightforward to understand. Israel is occupying Palestinian land, and the Palestinians are resisting that occupation. There has been a solution sitting gathering dust on the table for some 30 years, and Israel simply refuses to accept it. Moreover, we (the EU and, particularly, the U.S.) have the power to force Israel to accept it, but instead we have facilitated their continuing rejectionism. That pisses a lot of people off, and rightly so. Then there’s the fact that the Palestinian cause gained for the Arab world a symbolic status, which again has increased the profile of the issue (for everyone, not just those in the Arab world). And I’m sure there are other explanations as well. As I say, while the question of why ‘x’ number of people are politically active about the Israel/Palestine issue but only ‘y’ number of people are politically active about the Kurdish issue (for example) might make an interesting academic discussion, in terms of practical reality I don’t think it’s a particularly productive line of enquiry at all. The real issue is how to increase popular political activism to the point where policy is actually changed, and I don’t see how spending our time worrying about whether each particular crisis or political issue is treated with an exactly proportional degree of outrage is going to help that.
Yes, I have been, but that’s irrelevent. Israel targets civilians, or fires indiscriminately into civilian crowds (under international law, there is no difference), all the time. For example, in last year’s war on Lebanon, Amnesty International concluded (and I’m going to quote at length, because I really think you should read it):
Human Rights Watch also reported “a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians”. It continued,
The situation in the Occupied Territories is similar. Last year, Israeli forces subjected Gaza to a relentless, indiscriminate assault, killing hundreds of people, most of them civilians. The result was that the number of Palestinian children killed in 2006 was almost triple the number killed in 2005 (141 compared to 52). Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy reported from the ground in Gaza,
According to the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, most of the civilian deaths were “the result of deliberate and reckless shooting and artillery shelling or air strikes by Israeli forces carried out in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip.”
As I say, it is really not controversial to say that Israeli deliberately or indiscriminately targets civilians regularly and as a matter of policy. It has been extensively documented, as sampled above.
As far as I can see, there are two major differences between Israeli terrorism and Hamas terrorism. Firstly, Israeli terrorism is carried out on a far larger scale, because Israel, as the third/fourth ranking military power in the world, has a far greater destructive capability. Secondly, Hamas’ terrorism is carried out in self-defence, whereas Israeli terrorism is perpetrated in the furtherance of an aggressive occupation. These differences are important in terms of analysis, although they do not really affect legitimacy – I think the terrorism of both sides is totally illegitimate. But yes, you are certainly right in saying that there is “no equivalency” between the two, for the reasons outlined above.
The violence of the victim, perpetrated in self-defence, is obviously qualitatively different from the violence of the oppressor. That doesn’t make it legitimate, and it doesn’t necessitate “support” (whatever that means). But it is surely wrong to equate the violence of the oppressor with the violence of the oppressed.
Well, you make these sweeping statements without providing any support for them. Israel withdrew from Lebanon, very reluctantly, after Hizb’allah forced them out. Israel withdrew from Gaza in order to concentrate on expansion in the West Bank – certainly, it had nothing to do with a desire for ‘peace’, which is why the move was carried out unilaterally and why the occupation of Gaza continued, and continues to this day. Oslo, as I say, was an attempt to get the Palestinians to police themselves without Israel having to end the occupation or give up the settlements. That’s why the Oslo Accord made no mention of a Palestinian state or Palestinian national rights at all. As former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami put it, “the Oslo agreements were founded on a neo-colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other forever”. Oslo was also an attempt to groom a ‘bantustan leadership’ – unfortunately for Israel, Arafat failed at the last moment at Camp David. Again, Shlomo Ben-Ami is instructive on the topic:
No, I expect Israel to abide by the law. It’s not so complicated. No Israeli leader or government since 1967 has ever offered the Palestinians a settlement in which even the majority of their legal rights are recognised (e.g. a two-state settlement, which, as I say, has been sitting on the table gathering dust for decades as a result of consistent Israeli rejectionism).
As long as there is an occupation, there will be resistance to it. That’s a virtual truism.
Well, isn’t that a bit like saying of Nazi Germany: “well, if your response is that the Nazi occupation of Poland is illegitimate and an occupation, then why should Hitler take the time to discuss any of it, much less trade tangible assets paid for in blood during previous wars?” If Israel refuses to comply with the law, it should be forced to comply with the law.
At any rate, I’m not talking about a one-state solution at the moment. I’m talking about the two-state solution, accepted by virtually the entire world for decades, which Israel continues to reject in favour of expansion.
Oh, so if Israel decided to conquer Lebanon tomorrow and I objected, you’d simply say, “find me a state that hasn’t done stuff like that in the past”? Yes, in the past it has been considered acceptable to invade other states and kill their people in the pursuit of land. Since the end of WWII, and the formation of the UN (and the accompanying development of a system of international law), that kind of thing is no longer considered acceptable behaviour. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
No; I hold Israel to exactly the same standard to which I hold everyone else: the law. You know, “don’t invade other states because you want their land”, “don’t kill people who are not trying to kill you”, “don’t torture”, “don’t use human shields”, “don’t kick hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes and block them from returning”…that kind of stuff.
That’s pure semantics – the effect on the ground was the same. And certainly, even by that definition, the settlements in the West Bank are Israeli colonies.
You’ve been reasonable (if mistaken) so far, but I really don’t see the need for you to try and minimise, or even ridicule, the horrendous suffering the Palestinians endure on a day to day basis. And actually, that’s a common theme throughout these “double standards” arguments: essentially, what they do is try to deflect attention away from a cause by minimising the suffering of the people involved. That’s one of the reasons I find them so distasteful.
Jamie, this requires a full response, and I’m at a non-English keyboard. I’ll save my full response for something I can write on my own computer, in the form of an alternative narrative to the partisan and blinkered one you have. For the moment, let me say this in direct reaction to some of what you’ve written:
1) The law. In the law semantics matter, and the Israelis did not invade a Palestinian state in 1967. Rather, they took Palestinian inhabitted land from the Jordanians and Egyptians controlling it. So the legal case is weaker, no matter how many partisan international jurists want to think otherwise. If you want a real case of taking someone else’s state in the Arab world, someone who didn’t do anything to you and didn’t pose a security risk to you, then look to Western Sahara and Morrocco. Not in your realm of interest I guess, for whatever reason. Anyhow, that’s law, although it doesn’t change the fact that Palestinians need the freedom, dignity and security that only their own state in the West Bank and Gaza can probably provide.
2) As for Lebanon, who in the summer of 2006 crossed over the internationally recognized border to which Israel had withdrawn, killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers? Last time I checked, that’s Causus Belli in International law, allowing Israel to declare war on Lebanon (Hizballah was a member of the government and allowed to be in the south). Yet only under 2000 casualties (as tragic as those 2000 are)? Not much of a war, no matter what all the Amnesty people who have never served in the army and who couldn’t recognize a military target if it hit them in the face say. If they were trying to kill civilians in Lebanon or Gaza, there would be a lot fewer civilians in those places — and the reports you yourself cite for Israel in the first case say Israel was targeting infrastructure (not civilians): ‘The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy,’ — which I had already conceded occurs, and as in all the other places it occurs, is to be condemned, if there was truly no justified military target.
and in the second case says ‘apparently targeting civilians’ — to which I respond, either this person is confused by the fog of war, ideolocically blinkered, or has no applicable military knowledge to evaluate the issue. I say this from what I’ve seen firsthand, from all the conversations with Israelis who have served in Lebanon and Gaza, and from basic logic — the cost to Israel of civilian casualties (in terms of its public image) far outweighs any strategic or military advantage they could derive from such, so I conclude that it’s not Israeli policy — no matter some outlier sources you quote claim. But since you want to brandish quotes, I’ll provide the one where Israel responds to its accusers:
”9. Were Israeli attacks directed against legitimate military targets?
The generally accepted definition of “military objective” is that set out in the Geneva Conventions (Article 52(2) Additional Protocol I), which states: “…military objectives are limited to those objects which, by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”
Anything that facilitates and serves Hizbullah, in terms of the real and tangible threat it poses to Israel, is a legitimate target. For example, Beirut International Airport has served as a conduit for the transfer of weapons and the arrival of instructors from Iran. The bridges in northern and southern Lebanon serve as channels for transporting Hizbullah weapons and personnel. The same is true of the Beirut-Damascus Highway.
10. Were Israeli attacks on Lebanese infrastructure justified?
The guiding principle adopted by the IDF was to target only infrastructure that was making a significant contribution to the operational capabilities of the Hizbullah terrorists. This meant that, for the most part, Israeli attacks were limited to the transportation infrastructure. Most of the other infrastructure (medical, cultural, railroad, tunnels, ports, banking, manufacturing, farming, tourism, sewage, financial, electricity, drainage, water and the like) was left almost completely untouched.
All IDF operations in Lebanon were directed against legitimate military objectives, and specifically in relation to infrastructure, included the following:
Bridges and roads – The activity of terrorist groups in Lebanon was dependent on major transportation routes through which weaponry and ammunition, as well as missile launchers and terrorist reinforcements, were transported. Damage to key routes was intended to prevent or obstruct the planning and perpetrating of attacks by the terrorists. It was also intended to prevent the kidnapped Israeli soldiers from being smuggled out of the country.
Under international law there is widespread recognition that lines of transportation which can serve military purposes are a legitimate military target. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) includes in its list of military objectives considered to be of generally recognized military importance: “Lines and means of communications (railway lines, roads, bridges, tunnels and canals) which are of fundamental military importance.”
Notwithstanding the operational justifications for targeting major roads in Lebanon, the IDF took pains to ensure that sufficient routes remained open to enable civilians to leave combat zones and to permit access for humanitarian supplies. Efforts were also made to ensure that damage to civilian vehicles was minimized.
Runways at Beirut International Airport – In the view of the IDF, rendering the runways unusable constituted one of the most important and appropriate methods of preventing reinforcements and supplies of weaponry and military materiel reaching the terrorist organizations. It was also a response to reports that the Hizbullah terrorists intended to fly the kidnapped Israelis out of Lebanon.
Airports are widely recognized to be legitimate military targets. The International Committee of the Red Cross recognizes airfields on its list of generally recognized military objectives, while The Canadian Law of Armed Conflict Manual, for example, notes that “ports and airfields are generally accepted as being military objectives.”
It should also be noted that, in its operation at Beirut Airport, the IDF was careful not to damage the central facilities of the airport, including the radar and control towers, allowing the airport to continue to control international flights over its airspace.
Al Manar TV station – Operating as the Hizbullah television station, Al Manar was used to relay messages to terrorists and to incite acts of terrorism. The ICRC list of accepted military objectives includes “the installations of broadcasting and television stations.” Similarly, the Committee established to review NATO bombings in Yugoslavia noted in relation to NATO attacks on radio and television stations in Belgrade: “If the media is used to incite crimes then it is a legitimate target… Insofar as the attack actually was aimed at disrupting the communications network it was legally acceptable.”
Fuel reserves – Terrorist activity is dependent, inter alia, on a regular supply of fuel without which the terrorists cannot operate. For this reason a number of fuel depots which primarily served the terrorist operations were targeted. From intelligence Israel has obtained, it appears that this step had a significant effect on reducing the capability of the terrorist organizations.
The legitimacy of directing attacks on fuel and power installations has been widely noted. The Canadian Law of Armed Conflict Manual, for example, lists petroleum storage areas as “generally accepted as being military objectives,” while the ICRC list of military objectives also includes “Installations providing energy mainly for national defense, e.g. coal, other fuels, or atomic energy, and plants producing gas or electricity mainly for military consumption.”
One of the claims that have been made against Israel concerns the oil spill that occurred off the shores of Lebanon during the war. Without making any comment regarding the factual validity of such claims, it should be emphasized that Israel ensured that sea and air access was allowed to any assistance offered with regard to the oil spill, even in the midst of a naval and aerial blockade which had to be imposed for operational and security reasons.
Beyond such specific instances of infrastructure serving the Hizbullah terrorist organization, Israel took care to try to avoid damage to civilian structures and services. The effects were noted by Washington Post journalist William M. Arkin (18 Sept 2006) who visited Lebanon during the conflict. Regarding the destruction in Beirut he wrote:
“Only a very short drive from the neighborhood of southern Beirut though, you are back to bustling boulevards; a few neighborhoods over and there are luxury stores and five star hotels. Beyond the Hizbullah neighborhoods, the city is normal. Electricity flows just as it did before the fighting. The Lebanese sophisticates are glued to their cell phones. Even an international airport that was bombed is reopened. An accurate reading of what happened and what south Beirut means might produce a different picture. Israel has the means to impart greater destruction, but that does not mean intrinsically that it is more brutal. If Hizbullah had bigger rockets or more accurate ones, it would have done not only the same, but undoubtedly more.””
Onto: ”Well, isn’t that a bit like saying of Nazi Germany: “well, if your response is that the Nazi occupation of Poland is illegitimate and an occupation, then why should Hitler take the time to discuss any of it, much less trade tangible assets paid for in blood during previous wars?” If Israel refuses to comply with the law, it should be forced to comply with the law.” No, it’s not at all like that, and it’s offensive of you to say so. The story of Israel/Palestine until 1967 is one of a desperate people invoking a 2000 year-old claim to a land in order to gather more of their people there and build a state where they are not an abused minority, and another people most of whom lived in that land for at least hundreds of years fighting back against these developments that would see them become an abused, or simply tolerated, minority in the same land. So yes, it’s a tragic situation that history created, but you only have a regard for one side of the issue. To an Israeli, your language of victim and oppressor would imply that no matter if you were attacked (like last summer with Hizballah, or after Israel withdrew from Gaza, or in the middle of the Oslo Accords), if you strike back harder you are the oppressor. So I guess the United States should have replied to Pearl Harbour by only hitting a Japanese naval base, and calling it even.
Looks like I gave my mini-narrative and rebuttal to more than I thought I would be able to stand on this keyboard. Oh, last thing for now — my comic headline of ”Donkey farts in Ramallah” was not intended to minimize or trivialize Palestinian suffering, suffering which is the biggest reason they need their own state and independence — not at all. It was making fun of how the area is under such a media microscope, to the point that Jerusalem has the 2nd highest number of correspondents in the world (Washington D.C. has the highest). Anyone who had lived there would have known that, as this kind of joke poking fun at the media’s constant presence is common enough amongst both Israelis and Palestinians. It was also in the same spirit of a joke about a German, Frenchman and Palestinian commissioned to write a book about ‘the elephant.’ After 1 year, the German comes back with an 800-page authoritative and exhaustive volume, ‘Das Elephant.’ The Frenchman comes back with a slim, attractively bound book, ‘The Elephant in Poetry.’ The Palestinian comes back with a 500-page volume, ‘The Elephant: As it Relates to the Paletine Question.’ Now this joke may well offend some types, in which case I’ll know who not to have a beer with…
Hi DR,
This will be my last response, because I think we’ve already spent a lot of words on this and are beginning to go round in circles.
You say:
Well, firstly, the legal principle is quite clear: it is inadmissable to acquire territory by war. Therefore, Israel must withdraw from the territories it conquered in the ‘67 war. All the settlements must be dismantled, because under the Fourth Geneva Convention the occupying power is prohibited from transferring its own population into the territory it is occupying.
It is therefore totally uncontroversial that Israel is occupying the West Bank and Gaza, that it has no legitimate claim to any of that land and must withdraw. As the ICJ almost unanimously concluded, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. Throwing around cheap accusations of “partisanship” does nothing to change that.
You say:
Since the 2000 withdrawal, there has been an ongoing, low-level border conflict between Israel and Hizb’allah. Both sides violated the ceasefire agreement numerous times, and Hizb’allah’s action in July 2006 was just the latest act in that ongoing tit-for-tat. What Israel usually does in those circumstances is to attack Hizb’allah – bombing bases, shooting militants, etc. etc. What it did this time was to use Hizb’allah’s action as an excuse to launch a full-scale war on Lebanon. This is an aggression. It’s as if you and I kept poking each other for a while, and suddenly in response to one of your pokes I pulled out a gun shot you in the face. That’s not a “response”, that’s an aggressive attack.
Yes, there were well over 1,000 civilians killed, primarily as the result of deliberate or indiscriminate Israeli fire. They weren’t “tragic”, they were criminal.
Ah, so now everyone’s wrong except for the IDF. You’re in Dershowitz territory, here…
Israeli forces often deliberately target civilians, although mostly, as I say, civilian deaths are the result of indiscriminate fire, which is essentially the same thing. You seem to think that because Israel is not perpetrating a genocide, it must be only targeting militants.
You said that “some reprehensible acts” of collective punishment occur – i.e. giving the impression that it happened here and there. In fact, its an integral part of Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories (and, last year, in Lebanon) and is systematic and calculated.
“Outlier sources” – I quoted a mainstream, respected (and biased towards Israel) human rights organisation. You’re really getting quite desperate here. The deliberate targeting of civilians fits quite easily into a general policy of collective punishment of the civilian population, which Israel quite openly pursued in Lebanon. As Olmert himself boasted,
Mostly, however, the civilian deaths were the result of indiscriminate fire.
You now go on to quote what appear to be Israeli government or military talking points, although you don’t link so it’s hard to say. It’s full of the usual nonsense – for example, it is claimed that “the guiding principle adopted by the IDF was to target only infrastructure that was making a significant contribution to the operational capabilities of the Hizbullah terrorists.” How, then, do we square this with the 30,000 homes, offices and shops that were destroyed? UN humanitarian co-ordinator Jan Egeland described “block after block of houses” totally “levelled” by Israeli air strikes. Presumably each one had a Hizb’allah militant hiding underneath. Amnesty International explicitly replied to the kind of Israeli justifications you quote from above:
They then explain why in detail. The Israeli position is simply to say: well, Hizb’allah fighters use roads, so that means we can bomb all the roads. Hizb’allah fighters use electricity, so we can bomb all the power stations. Hizb’allah fighters use fuel, so we can bomb all the petrol stations. Hizb’allah fighters might use a hospital if they get injured, so we can bomb all the hospitals. Hizb’allah fighters could possibly fly away in a big plane, so we can bomb the airport. Hizb’allah fighters will probably want food and clothes and plastics (who knows?), so we can bomb all the factories. Hizb’allah fighters might want to cross a bridge, so we can bomb all the bridges, etc. etc. The point is that most of these are overwhelmingly used by civilians, and are essential for civilian welfare, and so they did not make for legitimate targets. Destroying the south of the country, whilst it probably did temporarily limit Hizb’allah’s operational capability (although that is up for debate), was not proportional and so was illegal.
Only if you misunderstand the point of the analogy, and probably not even then.
It’s not a “tragic situation that history created” – stop apologising for massive crimes against humanity. It is an unjust and terrible situation that people have created. I can totally understand the desire of Jews after the Holocaust to have a homeland, but the ethnic cleansing of over 700,000 people is not an acceptable price to pay.
I don’t have regard for only “one side” of the issue – I have not made any good/evil judgements about either side, and I have not tried to paint any side as blameless. In fact, I’ve largely stayed away from the whole ‘blame game’ altogether.
I have simply noted the facts: Israel today is the oppressor and the occupier. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are the oppressed, and they are fighting against the occupation. That is the fundamental paradigm in which events must be understood.
Well, perhaps, but if so than he or she would be wrong. Israel is the oppressor in the OPT because it is fighting to maintain and expand an illegitimate occupation, which deprives hundreds of thousands of people of their legitimate moral and legal rights. The Palestinians are the victims of that occupation, and yes, they do fight against it, as is their right to do.
As to the “donkey farts” thing – if I misunderstood then my bad, although the general point about the ‘double standards’ argument remains.
Thanks for the exchange, and feel free to have the last word.
Hi Jamie,
Well, you’ve been a gentleman (albeit a mistaken one) in this debate, so I won’t introduce new points or make much in the way of rebuttals, beyond noting that international legal principles such as “indiscriminate” and “proportional” are notoriously hard to judge, especially from the outside, and depend a lot on from whose vantage point the judging has been done. It’s one of the reasons international law doesn’t have much purchase. And my apologies if I threw a few of what came across as cheap shots — your drawing attention to it will hopefully help me not do that again.
I think we agree that especially if Israel isn’t going to give full citizenship and political rights to the people of the West Bank and Gaza (and obviously it won’t, as it would end up losing the character that is its raison d’etre), then they must be freed from occupation. Most Israelis agree with this, actually, and felt that this was what Oslo was all about (and by the time of Taba negotiations of December 2000, the only disagreements between the Palestinians and Israelis revolved around a few meters in Jerusalem). It’s hard for them to make the final pull out from the West Bank, however, while under fire — which you view as Palestinian self-defense and I view as a terrible mistake by Palestinians — I think that if they had limited their tactics to the symbolic violence of the 1st intifadah rather than terrorism, if they had gone out to peacefully protest the expanding settlements day after day instead of suicide bombings and then the “al-Aqsa” intifadah, they would have had their state by now and not suffered the checkpoints, closings, Wall, and civilian death toll that is their lot now (not to mention the loss of a good deal of their legitimacy). Those who didn’t want a two state solution — mainly Hamas and the Israeli far-right, ended up leading everyone into this tango of death, when the majority of both sides were genuinely interested in a two state solution (perhaps another point we differ on, but I looked at polling data from the 1990s on this one). So that’s part of where we differ in “victim vs oppressor,” or the blame game if you will — I felt that you were very much assigning blame, and you were assigning it solely to the Israeli side, and because you think the Israeli side is solely to blame you also think international pressure solely on Israel is the way to fix things, and it doesn’t look like we’ll reconcile that difference or each others’ ways of viewing the whole thing or what constitutes a “poke” and what constitutes “indiscriminate” (the fact that you think Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are biased towards Israel makes that very clear to me). But thanks for the discussion and good arguments.