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From Friend to Enemy? FM Lieberman Slams Turkish Incitement

Tishrei 27, 5770, 15 October 09 10:20

by Hillel Fendel

 

(Israelnationalnews.com) Turkey, Israel’s erstwhile ally in the north which abruptly called off a joint air exercise with Israel this week, is broadcasting a TV series depicting IDF soldiers as child killers.

 

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded sharply: “The television series broadcast on Turkish TV constitutes the most serious level of incitement,” he said, “and it is being done with state sponsorship.” Lieberman has issued instructions to summon the Turkish Ambassador to a meeting with Foreign Ministry officials to protest the broadcasting of the series.

 

The TV shows “bear no connection whatsoever to reality,” a Foreign Ministry  announcement stated, “presenting IDF soldiers as murderers of innocent children. It is not worthy of broadcast even in hostile states - and certainly not in a state that maintains full diplomatic relations with Israel.”

[weJew:6454]

 

Scenes on the shows include “Israeli soldiers” cold-bloodedly shooting an Arab girl to death, killing Arab youngsters who throw rocks, kicking and pushing elderly Arabs, and the like.  A brief scene is even shown of a line of Palestinian Authority Arabs standing before an Israeli firing squad.

Broadcasts of the weekly series, entitled “Separation,” began this past Tuesday on the Turkish public television station TRT1.

 

A checkpoint scene shows an Arab woman being forced to give birth at a checkpoint – and an Israeli soldier then shooting the newborn baby.

The direction of future Turkish-Israeli relations is not clear; until now, Turkey's army has led an approach that is sympathetic to Israel, but of late, the increasingly anti-Israel government appears to be setting the tone. Turkey also announced this week that it would soon hold a joint military exercise with Syria.

 

Jews in Turkey say the incitement is nothing new. “Israelis are always depicted as the bad guys and the Palestinians are the good guys,” a Turkish Jewish leader told Ynet. “During the Gaza War, they never showed both sides – only the Palestinian side… But we sense no change in how Turkey relates to us both as Jews and as Israelis.”

 

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FM summons ambassador in Turkey over anti-Israeli TV show

Oct. 14, 2009
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST

An inflammatory anti-Israeli television show in Turkey on Tuesday did what Ankara's cancellation of Israeli participation in an international military exercise last week failed to do - lead the foreign ministry to call in Turkey's envoy to register a protest.

 

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement Wednesday night announcing that the Turkish envoy would be summonsed to protest the "inciting" television program that appeared Tuesday evening on prime time on the popular state-run station TRT1.

 

In the first episode of a series on a Palestinian family living in the West Bank, IDF soldiers are variously seen killing a baby, a young girl, and lining up Palestinians to be shot before a firing squad.

Lieberman, currently holding meetings in Austria, issued a statement saying the airing of this show, on a government controlled station, represented the "gravest form of incitement."

 

"This series, which has absolutely no connection to reality, and which presents IDF soldiers as murderers of innocent children, is not fit to be broadcast even in the most hostile countries, and certainly not in a country that has full diplomatic relations with Israel," he said.

 

Since the start of the current diplomatic tension with Ankara, Israel has opted to take a very low profile, not wanting to exacerbate the situation with harsh public comments.

Tuesday's airing of the television show - on top of the cancellation of Israel's participation in the military exercise, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan harangue Monday accusing Israel of killing children with phosphorus bombs in Gaza, and the announcement of joint military manoeuvres with Syria - has now changed the situation.

 

To make matters even more complicated, Turkey - in the midst of all this tension - is not currently represented by an ambassador in Israel, as the previous ambassador left the country a few weeks ago, and his replacement has not yet arrived. Some diplomatic observers in Israel doubted this was a mere coincidence.

 

In a related development, Israel reacted skeptically Wednesday to Turkish press reports that the IAF was dropped from the annual Anatolian Eagle military exercise because of an Israeli delay in supplying unmanned aviation vehicles (UAVs), and not because of deep political differences.

The Turkish daily Zaman on Wednesday quoted a Turkish air force official as saying that Israel failed "yet again" to deliver the Heron surveillance drones.

 

"Turkey needs those vehicles in its fight against terror. What led to the recent crisis between Turkey and Israel was the delay in the delivery," the paper quoted the official as saying.

According to the paper, Turkey agreed four years ago to buy 10 Heron UAVs for over $180 million from Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems, Ltd.

However, the paper said, "Israeli firms have missed the deadline for delivery."

According to the paper, basing itself on the Turkish air force official, "As Israeli authorities failed to satisfactorily convince Turkey that they would be able to achieve the planned date for delivery of the Herons, the Air Forces Command informed the General Staff of the situation. Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ shared his concerns with Erdoğan during a security meeting in late September. The prime minister assured Başbuğ that the government would back any military sanction on Israel. The General Staff asked Israeli authorities one last time about the delivery of the Herons. Israeli authorities refused to give an exact date and said they planned to deliver the vehicles by the end of 2009, whereupon the General Staff decided to cancel the international part of the exercises."

Israeli officials, however, dismissed this version of events, with one Defense Ministry official saying that Israel had met all its contractual commitments to Turkey. The official said it was the IAF's actions in Gaza, and not the Heron, that led Turkey to bump Israel from the military exercise.

One diplomatic official said that it was hard to believe a dispute like this over the Heron would lead to the cancelling of a major military exercise, and the hectoring of Israel by Erdogan.

Rather, he said, if there was indeed a problem in the delivery of the UAVs, then a more likely response would have been to keep Israel out of the bidding for other Turkish military contracts.

Moreover, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu indicated in an interview with CNN on Sunday night that Turkey's decision to bar Israel from the military exercise did, indeed, have to do with Gaza.

"We hope that the situation in Gaza will be improved, that the situation will be back to the diplomatic track. And that will create a new atmosphere in Turkish-Israeli relations as well. But in the existing situation, of course, we are criticizing this approach, [the] Israeli approach," he had said.

Another Turkish daily, Hurriyet, quoted a Turkish official as saying that Turkey was "not warm to the idea of opening its air corridor to Israeli jets for training."

But, the paper reported, the cancellation of the recent exercise did not mean an end to all joint military exercises and that Ankara would approve other military exercises involving Israel in November.

Also Wednesday evening, Erdogan reportedly said that Turkey's decision to bar Israeli from the NATO drill was based on "the people's" concern over Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Citing an Al Arabiya television interview, Reuters quoted Erdogan as saying, "There are diplomatic sensitivities in the region which we had to take into consideration... and we took into consideration the conscience of our people ... because our people did not want Israel's participation."

Jpost.com staff contributed to this report

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1255547719341&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Turkish TV producer: Our show is not about Israeli soldiers

Oct. 15, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

In an interview full of contradictions, Turkish television producer Saljuk Trubanulad, whose anti-Israeli TV drama led Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to summon the Turkish envoy for a meeting, told Israel Radio on Thursday that the soldiers depicted in the drama "are not Israeli soldiers" and stressed that all of the program's staff love the Israeli people.

"The show is not about IDF soldiers, we also wrote this in a warning that appeared on the screen at the beginning of the program," the Turkish producer said.

 

In the first episode of a series on a Palestinian family living in the West Bank, which appeared Tuesday evening on prime time on the government-controlled station TRT1, IDF soldiers are seen killing a baby and a young girl, and lining up Palestinians to be shot before a firing squad.

In Thursday's interview, Trubanulad stressed that "all of our staff loves the Israeli people, that is, this show isn't about Israeli soldiers but rather about a specific group that is responsible for all the murders. We love the Israeli people."

 

"These soldiers are not Israelis, we know the Israeli public does not justify the operation. It's just a small group of soldiers who murdered Muhammad al-Dura, the Palestinian boy," he explained, referring to a 12-year-old Palestinian boy whose footage cowering next to his father during a firefight and then slumping dead became the symbol of Palestinian suffering in the early days of the Second Intifada, despite it being entirely unclear that the cause of the child's death was indeed IDF bullets.

 

"These are not Israeli soldiers, their uniforms aren't Israeli uniforms. It's a small group that killed all the people and all the children. We say this group is not of Israeli soldiers, neither [those shown murdering citizens] in Gaza nor in Beirut," he told the radio station.

 

He went on to stress that the production team based the screenplay on historical facts. "We sent our script to Israel, we checked it," he said.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1255547725070&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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