Israel rethinks arms sales and support for Turkey

From Ynet News, 12/10/09, by Roni Sofer:

Deputy foreign minister: Avoid crisis with Turkey
Day after tensions with Turkey reach new level with cancellation of joint air force drill, ...Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon says, 'Our interest is not to reach friction, crisis with Turkey, who we consider important strategic partner'

...Despite the deputy minister's comments, senior official in the defense and foreign ministries said the drill's cancelation should not be overlooked. "The incident occurred. We cannot accept this, and we should also maintain our national pride. We should follow closely and see what Ankara is doing, in the formula of 'respect him but suspect him'," a source said.

Ayalon hinted that the Turks also have something to lose from the move: "The commitment to strategic partnership is two-sided. It is important for both sides to maintain the meaningful strategic bond in Israel's ties with the Turkish government, which has proven to be moderate in the past."

Ayalon's comments reflect the growing perception in Jerusalem, and while the Prime Minister's Office and the defense minister's office, as well as the Foreign Ministry are displeased with Turkey's behavior in recent months, officials now hope to calm the storm...

...Jerusalem officials have preferred to view the glass as half full, despite the cancelation of Sunday's drill, and said it must not be forgotten that Turkey remains a veteran member of NATO and that Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government continues to push forward with its efforts to join the European Union.

...In addition, the officials said it the real threats should not be forgotten. "Iran is not just a threat to Israel, and NATO – with Turkey included – is well aware of this. We must find a way to restore relations," a source said.

From THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 12, 2009, by HERB KEINON and YAAKOV KATZ:

While Israel kept a low official profile Sunday on Turkey's cancellation of a joint military exercise, defense officials said advanced weapons sales to Turkey would now be reviewed, and a leading academic expert on Israeli-Turkish relations suggested ending support for Turkey on the Armenian genocide issue in Washington if the deterioration in ties continues.

According to defense officials, several Turkish requests are currently under consideration by the Defense Ministry's Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization (SIBAT). These will now need to be reviewed due to the change in the diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Ankara...

Ephraim Inbar, head of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, who has written widely on the Israeli-Turkish relationship, said that while someone high up in the Turkish decision-making hierarchy has decided to "teach the Israelis a lesson," Ankara still needed Israeli influence in Washington to prevent the passage in Congress of a resolution declaring the killing of Armenians during World War I a genocide...

...One senior Israeli diplomatic official, meanwhile, counseled against taking this type of drastic action, and said that while Israeli-Turkish relations were "getting complicated," Israel should not do anything "abruptly."

"There is room for quiet diplomacy, and not to take actions that would move things beyond repair. The situation can still be mended, nobody wants to push Turkey into the hands of Iran," he said.

This advice was heeded by the Foreign Ministry over the weekend, which instructed diplomats to make no comment on the matter, but rather to refer all queries to the defense establishment...

...The only official to discuss the matter on Sunday was Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who...described Turkey as "the antithesis to Iran. Here is a Muslim country that is both a democracy and tolerant, living in good relations with Israel because it is in the interest of both countries to do so."

But Inbar said that a change was taking place in Turkey, and the incident over the military exercise should be seen within the context of the country slowly distancing itself from the West, and becoming more Muslim in tone and character...

Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option

From The Guardian (UK), by Ian Traynor in Brussels, Tuesday January 22, 2008 [my own emphasis added - SL]:

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.

Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.

"The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."

The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.

The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:

• Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
• The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
• Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
• The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.

To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:

• A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.
• The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.
• No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.
• The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings"......

Israel a "critical miltary partner"

From JTA.org, 21/3/07....

The supreme commander of NATO operations in Europe called Israel a "model state."

Gen. John Craddock, who also heads the U.S. European Command, told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee last week that Israel will receive 93 percent of EUCOM area military aid this year. Craddock called Israel a "critical military partner" in "this entangled seam of the Middle East."