מקור ביטחוני: השב”כ עשה עסקה עם הפרופסור הטורקי ג’מיל טקלי כדי להפליל את דרע’אם ג’בארין, תושב אום אל-פחם
مصدر أمني: الشاباك عقد صفقة مع البروفيسور التركي جميل تكلي بهدف الإيقاع بضرغام جبارين من أم الفحم
Israel’s Shabak security agency is tasked with protecting the Israeli public from Palestinian attacks. Sometimes it does that and sometimes it just makes it up. Tonight’s story is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
A little context: Israel and Turkey for decades had an exceedingly close relationship involving high level military collaboration. But that was under secular Turkish governments. When the current Islamist government came to power that began to change. The breaking point came when the Turks sent a humanitarian relief vessel, the Mavi Marmara to break Israel’s siege of Gaza. After ten Turks were brutally murdered by Israeli commandos, Turkey broke off relations, demanded an apology and compensation for the victims’ families. After years of negotiations brokered at least in part by the U.S., Israel did apologize and paid $20-million for its crime. Turkey promised to send aid to Gaza and end the siege, though it has failed on the latter score.
That brought a short respite: relations were resumed. But they never returned to the level they were before the Mavi Marmara massacre. Pres. Erdogan, after a coup attempt, became even more hardline than he had been previously. One of the subjects on which he hardened his positions was Israel-Palestine.
Though there’s little evidence he’s invested a great deal of attention or funding in supporting Gaza, Bibi Netanyahu is always on the lookout for enemies he can rattle before the Israeli public. And Shabak, always eager to justify its ever-growing security budget, is only to ready to find enemies–ones that are real or ones that may be invented.
Over the past few months, a number of Turkish citizens making visits to Palestine have been arrested for unspecified security violations. The first two were arrested in East Jerusalem. After the Turkish government made strong protests they were released and deported. But the next group arrested was not as lucky.
Two Turks were arrested last month by Shabak. One was the director of a Turkish cultural center in Israel and the other was a law professor, Cemil Tekeli. The former was released a few hours after his arrest. But Tekeli remained in custody for nearly a month.
According to a confidential Israeli security source who reported to me that Tekeli was made an offer: inform on your ‘terror comrades’ or rot in prison for an extended period of time. The source writes:
“Shabak made a deal with Tekeli: He will give it enough info to indict [Israeli-Palestinian] Dergham Jabareen, and it will release him without charge and send him back to Turkey”.
The source claims Tekeli testified to his interrogators about an alleged terror cell which transferred funds from Turkey to Hamas in the West Bank. His narrative conveniently ties some of the funds to an official Turkish government entity. This comes in mighty handy when Israel can paint the Turkish government as a funder of terrorism. It’s the same modus operandi it uses in attacking Iran, and the same one Saudi Arabia uses in attacking Qatar. It’s a tired old bit hypocritical flimflammery, because neither Turkey nor Qatar are any more guilty of engaging in terror themselves or funding it, than their accusers–Israel and Saudi Arabia respectively.
Though news reports use the word “terror” to portray the plot, claiming they were meant to raise a “Palestine Army,” they also note that the funds were meant for the period after Mahmoud Abbas leaves office as leader of the Palestinian Authority. Even if it is true that Hamas was seeking to fund the creation of its own national army, that’s no different from what Netanyahu’s political mentors, Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin did when they tried to land the Alta Lena in Tel Aviv harbor. What was good for the Israeli goose isn’t good for the Palestinian gander apparently.
Shabak further adds that some members of this plot allegedly visited a Turkish weapons exhibition at which they viewed advanced drones. Frankly, I fail to see how an activity Israeli military personnel engage in virtually every week becomes criminal when Hamas or its Turkish allies do it. What does Shabak think Israel does with its own drones? Fly them like kites in the local parks? No, it uses them to spy on Israeli enemies and kill them sometimes.
Tekeli also allegedly helped Hamas operatives in Turkey establish commercial companies which were used as fronts for this military purchasing and activity. He signed his own name on corporate documents that made him a front for Hamas. In none of these accusations does Shabak indicate a motive: why did Tekeli do this? Out of ideology, greed? Or was he a cut-out for the Turkish government itself?
There is a contradiction, possibly a fatal one, here: Abbas is a political leader. When he steps down there will be a political process to replace him. Naturally, Hamas would want to play a role in this process. That would tend to mean that any funds being raised would be for political purposes. It would be only too convenient for the Shabak to conflate political organizing with terrorism. Because in essence it views any political activity by Palestinians as state subversion.
The only way this can become a genuine terror plot is if you argue that Hamas intended to violently topple the PA with an armed insurrection; or if it intended to engage in acts of terrorism against the PA. There is no mention at all of what sorts of acts of terror the group planned. Nor is there any mention of actual weapons. Where are the drones, the guns, etc. these millions were intended to purchase? A plot like this so thinly portrayed by Shabak leaves me profoundly skeptical about everything involved, including what specifically the plot involved that was terror-related.
My other great cause for skepticism is that Tekeli is a professor of law at a Turkish University. Frankly, I’ve never heard of law professors moonlighting as terror operatives in their spare time. Not only does this seem odd, the idea that a man steeped in the law would take up armed resistance is far-fetched at best. So pardon me, but I don’t buy it. There may be some sort of association among all or some of these individuals. They may’ve organized for certain purposes which Shabak deems dangerous or threatening. But I strongly doubt the narrative offered by the Shabak and Israeli journalists faithfully reporting their master’s voice.
Further, why would a Turkish citizen so deeply enmeshed in such a Hamas plot have traveled to Israel where he could be captured by Shabak? That part of the narrative also makes no sense.
The real victim here is an Israeli Palestinian who was allegedly fingered by Tekeli’s confession. Unlike Tekeli, he has no foreign government lobbying on his behalf. In fact, his own government treats him as a Hamas terrorist. The book will be thrown at him. He’ll spend many years in Israeli prisons. He’ll get out just when his peers are enjoying their grandchildren. Nor will anyone really know what precisely he did that was so dangerous and threatening. Shabak, like the Canadian Mounties, always get their man–whether the man is guilty or not.
@Richard Silverstein
You wrote: “..neither Turkey nor Qatar are any more guilty of engaging in terror themselves or funding it, than their accusers”
I’m not so sure of that. It had earlier been reported that, “..direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now “undeniable”.
“Turkey has openly supported other jihadi groups, such as Ahrar al-Sham, which espouses much of al-Qaida’s ideology, and Jabhat al-Nusra, which is proscribed as a terror organisation by much of the US and Europe.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/isis-syria-turkey-us?CMP=share_btn_tw
http://observer.com/2016/02/deal-with-the-devil-turkey-props-up-isis-by-buying-its-stolen-oil/
‘You wrote: “..neither Turkey nor Qatar are any more guilty of engaging in terror themselves or funding it, than their accusers”
I’m not so sure of that. It had earlier been reported that, “..direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now “undeniable”.
“Turkey has openly supported other jihadi groups, such as Ahrar al-Sham, which espouses much of al-Qaida’s ideology, and Jabhat al-Nusra, which is proscribed as a terror organisation by much of the US and Europe.” ‘
There you go. Israel has admitted funding al Qaeda in Syria, she’s carried out multiple assassinations in Iran, and she even planted some bombs there that killed twenty or so people in an attempt to stir up sectarian strife.
Actually, Israel is considerably worse than Turkey — of course. Consistent with her ideology, she simply does not recognize any moral constraints at all when it comes to dealing with the outside world.
@Colin Wright
“Israel has admitted funding al Qaeda in Syria… and she even planted some bombs there that killed twenty or so people in an attempt to stir up sectarian strife.”
I made the effort to link cites. Could you please make the same modest effort to support your two aforementioned claims. I concede that Israel has probably assassinated Iranian scientists.
@ Doctor John: You misunderstood what I wrote (not surprisingly). I wrote “not more guilty than” not “not guilty of.” There’s a comparative there, not a declarative. I did not say that Turkey or Iran don’t support nasty, unsavory movements or governments. I said that Saudi Arabia and Israel do as much or more of such unsavory armed support as the other two. Of course Turkey deals with groups it views as helping its interests. Of course, those groups are whatever moniker you wish to bestow on them (terrorist, militant, Islamist). But for everyone of those, there are one or more nasty forces that Israel & the Saudis support with lethal results.
If you think I support Erdogan (or the Iranian ayatollahs for that matter) you simply don’t understand my point of view. It’s just that I think the other guys are equally or more unsavory.
Read my comments more carefully next time & respond to what I write and not what you think I write.
@Richard Silverstein
I believe I perfectly understood what you said.
Israel has not funded ISIS to the tune of millions of dollars, nor has she allowed ISIS bound terrorists to cross her Syrian border, nor does Israel provide a haven to terrorists (Hamas is a designated terrorist organization).
Let’s not go over old ground about how Israel aided al Nusra. That’s an unproven allegation.
But, assuming arguendo, that Israel provided humanitarian aid to al Nusra, how is that on par with Turkey, or Saudi Arabia’s, material and financial support of ISIS who have committed genocide, videoed beheadings, serial rape, sex slavery, etc. etc. etc.
@ Dr. John:
No, it’s funded al Nusra/al-Qaeda to the tune of millions of dollars. Same difference.
I have no idea what “ISIS-bound” means. But Israel certainly has permitted hundreds of al Qaeda/al Nusra fighters into Israel for medical treatment and has created camps on the Israel-Occupied Syrian armistice line to house their families while the men fight on Israel’s behalf (& on behalf of whatever Islamist theo-ideology they observe).
Certainly does. What do you think happens to Palestinian collaborators who participate in Shabak assassinations? Or Lebanese collaborators who do the same? Of course they’re given safe haven in Israel or abroad.
Let’s, because it’s quite well proven. Hasbaroid Rule 1.01: thou shalt read previous posts on subjects on which you make claims, especially unsupported ones. This subject has been well-covered here and your claim thoroughly disproven.
Far more than that. It provided funds to buy weapons, weapons themselves, logistical aid, cross border commando intel liaisons, etc. And this is only what we know. Israeli intelligence doesn’t reveal a tenth of what it actually does. A former Israeli naval commando told me there were reconnaisance, sabotage, etc operations virtually weekly into Lebanon itself. He complained that no Israeli knew about it nor of the enormous cost. I have no doubt the same thing happens inside Syria.
And the thousands of al Qaeda fighters supported by Israel, Qatar, etc. haven’t done the same? C’mon. Who the hell are you foolin’? Nobody.
Richard:
You should try arguing with Holocaust deniers. You’d get the most astonishing sense of deja vu.