Israel, as I half expected, has eaten Turkish crow not once, but twice in the past 24 hours for the unpardonable treatment meted out to Turkey’s ambassador at the hands of Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon. After the “take him to the woodshed” between Ayalon and the ambassador, Ayalon made a tepid personal apology for his actions.
Turkey promptly announced that an apology from Ayalon was insufficient and that it expected an official government apology, since Turkey viewed the incident as one that reflected on the entire Israel-Turkey relationship. In fact, it announced it was prepared to recall its ambassador if Israel refused to respond in a satisfactory manner. The Turkish government had already instructed him to return home Thursday.
Astonishingly, Israel responded that no second apology would be forthcoming. Until it realized it would be breaking off relations with the only Muslim country in the world that recognized it. Shimon Peres apparently realized this and got on the phone with Bibi, Yvette, and Ayalon and persuaded the latter to stand down from his refusal. Otherwise, God only knows what sort of international incident we’d be dealing with now.
The second apology was forthcoming and this appears to have mollified the Turks. Though if one reads it it is clearly a tissue of lies:
In the letter of official apology, Ayalon wrote that “I had no intention to humiliate you personally and apologize for the way the demarche was handled and perceived. Please convey this to the Turkish people for whom we have great respect. I hope that both Israel and Turkey will seek diplomatic and courteous channels to convey messages as two allies should,” the letter said.
Can you imagine an idiot who humiliates the national representative of one of the most important nations in the region to have the chutzpah in his alleged apology to call upon Turkey to be courteous in its communications with Israel? This really is too much even for the dunderheads running the Israeli foreign ministry.
Just once I’d like to see Israel get what it actually deserves instead of being allowed to lie its way out of the cesspool it creates for itself.
Thanks for this Richard, as someone who has several diplomats in the family, I was surprised by this move by Israel. A real faux pas, not matter how serious a dressing down you want to give an ambassador, is crazy to do it in such a fashion unless you want to deliberately want to provoke an incident. Very poor planning by the Foreign Ministry here.
I don’t think it’s poor planning. I think the Israelis are so narcissistic and so puffed up with grandiosity and arrogance that they don’t think the normal rules of diplomacy, or even common decency, apply to them. I don’t think they are capable of understanding that they have made a faux pas ever.
Google Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and take a look at how closely it fits Israel’s behaviour as a political entity.
It also fits with the reason given for the incident, and that Ayalon would have none of the ambassador’s explanation that the TV series is made and/or broadcasted by a private channel. Perhaps it hasn’t come to Ayalon’s (more likely, his boss’) attention that in a democracy private channels don’t take orders from the government.
I actually think that Lieberman & Ayalon DID want to provoke an incident. Perhaps they set Bibi up & he allowed them to handle the matter w/o realizing they had their own agenda to destroy bilateral Turkish-Israeli (& by extension Syrian-Israeli) relations & also wreck Barak’s trip to Turkey.
The whole thing blew up in their faces. But they don’t really lose much since it looks to the avg. Israeli like Ayalon stood up to the Turks & gave ’em what for. Bibi doesn’t care how Israel looks in the eyes of the world or he’d never have give them the foreign affairs portfolio.
“Bibi doesn’t care how Israel looks in the eyes of the world”
Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And by the way, those who suffer from this disorder are by definition sociopaths as well.
By the way Richard, I thought your analysis that this Yisrael Beiteinu ploy has to do with an internal war between different factions in the Israeli coalition (Lieberman trying to mess up Barak’s visit to Turkey in advance) was very insightful. It is the only thing that can explain this bizarre behavior a little bit. Your comment is more intelligent than the one I found in my newspaper, and I read a good one!
I’m tickled by your praise. Now if I can just get your newspaper or any one in the U.S. to publish any of my work! Al Jazeera has just commissioned a new piece. But I’m gornisht over here.
URI AVNERY: “…When the ambassador arrived, he was surprised to see the place crawling with TV crews and journalists. He was left waiting for a considerable time and then shown into a room where three solemn officials, including Ayalon, were perched on high chairs. He was seated on a low sofa without arms, and had no choice but to sit in a reclining position.
Not satisfied with this, Ayalon expressly requested the media people (in Hebrew) to pay attention to the difference in height between the chairs and the sofa, to the absence of the Turkish flag on the table, as well as to the fact that the Israelis did not smile and did not shake hands.
Perhaps Ayalon drew his inspiration from a memorable scene in Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Great Dictator, in which Hitler and Mussolini sit on barber’s chairs, each of them jacking his chair up so as to tower above the other, until both chairs topple over….”
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://original.antiwar.com/avnery/2010/01/17/kill-another-turk/