Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan brings to mind the story about the housewife who calls her husband during rush hour. “Be careful driving home on the Beltway, dear,” she advises. “The news says that there’s a maniac driving in the wrong direction.” “What do you mean, ‘a maniac’?,” he replies. “Everybody’s driving in the wrong direction!”
Now that Turkey has threatened Europe with a “freeze in relations” if Cyprus (as planned) assumes the presidency of the European Union in 2012, it must seem to Erdogan that everyone is driving in the wrong direction. Earlier this month Turkey declared “null and void” the United Nations’ Palmer Commission report, which supported Israel’s right to enforce a blockade against Gaza. That was a minor gaffe, because United Nations dicta have the authority of revelation to the liberal media, except, of course, when they support Israel. It’s one thing for Turkey to freeze relations with Israel — we take it for granted these days that everybody hates Israel — but the Europeans? Everybody likes the Europeans, who have replaced their defense ministries with an answering machine that says, “We surrender.” And over Cyprus? Even Russia, Turkey’s key trading partner and the host for millions of Turkish guest workers, is aghast at Erdogan’s tantrum. Russia has strong ties to Cyprus.
The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman blames Israel for not apologizing to the Turks. But one doesn’t want to apologize to Erdogan. You don’t want to talk to him. Don’t make eye contact. We New Yorkers learn that on the subway. It seems mad to take on Washington, Brussels, Moscow, as well as Jerusalem, all in the same week. What is driving the Turkish prime minister round the twist?
The Arab world is in free fall. Leave aside Syria, whose regime continues to massacre its own people, and miserable Yemen, and post-civil war Libya. Egypt is dying. Erdogan’s “triumphal” appearance in Egypt served as a welcome distraction to Egyptians — welcome, because what they think about most of the time is disheartening. What’s on the mind of the Egyptian people these days? According to the Arab-language local media, it’s finding enough calories to get through the day.
Egypt imports half its caloric consumption, the price of its staple wheat remains at an all-time high, and most Egyptians can’t afford to buy it. The government subsidizes bread, but according to the Egyptian news site Youm7 (“The Seventh Day”), the country now faces “an escalating crisis in subsidized flour.” Packages of subsidized flour are not reaching the intended recipients, in part because the Solidarity Ministry hasn’t provided the promised shipments to stores, and in part because subsidized flour and bread are diverted to the black market. A small loaf of government-issue bread costs 5 piasters, or less than one U.S. cent, but it can’t be found in many areas, as the Solidarity Ministry, provincial government, and bakers trade accusations of responsibility for supply problems. Poor Egyptians get ration cards, but flour often is not available to card-holders. Rice, a substitute for wheat, also is in short supply, and the price has risen recently to 5.5 Egyptian pounds per kilo from 3.75 pounds.
Most Egyptians barely eat enough to keep body and soul together, and many are hungry. That is about to get much, much worse: The country is short about $20 billion a year. The central bank reports that the country’s current account deficit in the fiscal year ended July 1 swung from a $3.4 billion surplus in the fiscal year ended July 2010 to a deficit of $9.2 billion in the fiscal year ended July 2011. Almost all of the shift into red ink occurred since February, suggesting an annualized deficit of around $20 billion. Egypt’s reserves fell about $11 billion since the uprising began in February. Who’s going to cough up that kind of money? Not Turkey, whose own balance-of-payment deficit stands at 11% of GDP and whose currency is collapsing, as shown in the chart below:
A question for Mr Goldman:
Why don’t your excellent analyses ever appear in the Israeli English language press? The Israeli public really needs to read this kind of analysis.
Terry, thanks for the kind words. My material sometimes appears in Maariv in translation.
David – It should be in the Jerusalem Post, online English edition.
I would love to see you start writing a column for the Jerusalem Post!
JPost has veered well to the left; it’s one reason why Barry Rubin is here now, and not there.
Caroline Glick to follow, hopefully?
Barry Rubin still writes for the Jpost, as a matter of fact he’s got an article in the paper today. There is no reason why they can’t write for both.
As for the Jerusalem Post turning towards the left… I hope not. To early to see where the new editor is going.
Israel HaYom now has an English language website with very good articles. Perhaps that would be a good venue too. As an aside, what is the readership of Pajamas Media do you think?
You do appear in Jpost, but in the talkbacks. That’s how I got here. Very clear analysis. Thanks.
Forgive me Mr Goldman but with Maariv as with Haaretz and Idiot Haranot everything seems to get lost in translation.
They overpower whatever you write with several other opinions and the overall picture is lost to the average reader.
They have so accustomed the reader to the “gospel” of the NYT that any conflicting reporting is dismissed.
Unexpectedly honest analysis from an Israeli.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000680384
Expected garbage from “globes”.
Turkey allowed IHH, a terorist organization, to send mercenaries on the Marmara. They attacked our boys, one of whom was stabbed and throw overboard. It is a miracle, and I mean that literally, that none of them died. AND we freed their attempted murderers. THAT probably convinced Turkey that they could get away with this.
If Obama had apologized in such a situation, he would have faced impeachment.
Mr. Goldman,
A very useful analysis, as usual. Thanks.
If you feel it would also be useful, could you please comment on Guy Bechor’s opinion piece on ynet on the Turkish economy. His conclusions are disputed in the comments to the piece. Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4122972,00.html
Note: Ynet has a harmless pop-up ad.
Keith,
It’s like the old joke with the punchline: “Know it? I wrote it!”
See
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH10Ak01.html
Bechor uses some dramatic language (I wouldn’t use the word “collapse,” for example) but he appears to have re-written my Asia Times piece. Turkey will have a tough time economically, but it surely isn’t Egypt.
We will soon achieve Ottoman glory and kick Israels ass. Just ask the Armenians what happened
The Armenians, sadly, didn’t have top of the line combat aircraft. Israel has a lot more F-15′s and F-16′s than Turkey, and much better avionics and armaments, not to mention surface-to-air missiles; in the extremely unlike event of a war, Turkey would lose its air force in the first day. Turkey has reasonably good pilots, but they haven’t fought against anyone but Kurdish irregulars since 1923.
And Turkey’s navy wouldn’t last much longer against Israeli subs and missile boats.
Actually, the Turks fought in the Korean War and distinguished themselves.
Yes, but that was 60 years ago as well. Their infantry has courage…but courage alone won’t allow them to win…since they’ll have to march through Syria to get to Israel.
The Turks sent one 5,000 man brigade, which fought heroically. But there’s a big difference between a single elite unit and an indifferent conscript army.
But my understanding is that we (Israel) don’t have much of a Navy. Does Turkey? Would the sixth fleet intervene?
Do you really want to take on a country that is believed to have the 4th largest NUCLEAR ARSENAL in the world?
Attack Israel, and Ankara and Istanbul would be smoking craters in 10 minutes.
“Just ask the Armenians”
-Because the Turks don’t have the moral fibre or grip on reality that would allow them to admit their crimes. As if the Armenian genocide were just a war or something…
Ecbettin, you imply that Turkey will commit genocide against the Jews in Israel? Erdogan would find out what a war is if he ever attacked Israel, and Turkey wouldn’t be the victor. Israel is not a defenseless group of people, like the Armenians, waiting for slaughter. Erdogen is the Islamist version of Hugo Chavez. Time to throw Turkey out of NATO.
WTF are you talking about? I thought that Turkey never did anything to the Armenians!
And if you even suggest that the Turks did something to the Armenians, the Turks will threaten to do the same to somebody else. It never fails.
Like this.
I would suggest that “glory” is the wrong word to describe anything having to do with the Ottoman Empire. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it no longer exists.
Ecbettin, Dream on, Mr. Goldman analysis is on target. If Erdogan tries to act on his madness, guess who will be the big looser. The Turkish economy is on the verge imploding, Turkish lira went from .75 to .50 against the US $. Turkish debt is rising to Greece’s levels. In short Turkey is nothing more than paper tiger. Once the economy crumble Erdogan’s regime is over.
As for neo Ottoman rubbish, The Turks have been hated both by the Arabs and The Kurds and no need to add all other nighbors The Greeks, The Iranians, The Armenians, The Bulgarians, and don’t forget The Russians and Georgians. I can predict Turkey will not survive its 100 birthday in 2023.
So you believe in bullying other countries around? For shame! No wonder Europe rejected your pathetic little has-been country.
David,
Thanks again, as usual.
I have a couple of questions regarding the general thesis. Historically, don’t we note several examples of dying civilizations throwing the dice? (Athens attacking Syracuse, for example.) Yet you lack concern over a similar gamble by a desperate Egypt for example. What would stop a militant Islamist starving Egypt in a year or two from marching 5 million men to be slaughtered in the Sinai? Yes, the casualties would be monstrous, but the people can’t be few anyway. Could the Israeli’s really repel the human waves?
Also, I remain confused over the role / destiny of a China which is rising financially at the same time that it is dying demographically. You seem to expect them to survive and even thrive somewhat in the coming years. How will that work?
Thanks for all the articles. The book was excellent!
Marching a lot of people across the SInai isn’t as easy as it sounds. It took Moses 40 years. What good is a human wave today? More like, small boats carrying hungry Egyptians will inundate the southern European coast.
Human wave attacks have not been effective since the invention of artillery. Chairman Mao discovered this fact in Korea.
While it goes unremarked in the West…
Mao resolved his Civil War with the Southern Chinese by driving their military formations into UN artillery.
That is instead of Soviet Penal Battalions — Mao scaled up and created Penal Armies!
Seeing them shredded to pieces by Ridgway was a feature — not a bug.
Mao had millions to murder — so it took him years to wipe out the southern wing of the PLA.
His own Northern Boys stayed safely out of range — rather like a modern version of the French Imperial Guard — compelling the victims to face a hopeless slaughter.
For our side the carnage was so senseless that we’ve captured it on film with such classics as Pork Chop Hill.
Mao’s opsec was so good that 8th Army never figured out his high strategy — even years after the war.
BTW, one of the reasons for the outstanding success of the Chinese surprise in 1950 was that America shipped entire small arms factories to the Nationalists Chinese — in the South. These produced Thompson submachine guns in vast numbers — whose sound American troops entirely associated with friendlies.
THAT’S how deep penetrations occurred. Our boys heard them – -but were informed that the distinctive noise HAD to be coming from adjacent South Korean troops. ( Of course, these fellows had either fled or were never their in the first place. )
Thanks to the internet, now you know…
Cheers.
I was in HS during the Korean War, but I read a lot of books about it, including all of Gen. S.L.A. Marshall’s and one on the Chosin Resevoir campaign, and there were two million Chinese Communists troops, and they swamped us with numbers. Sometimes the rear ranks had no rifles and simply picked up rifles from the dead in the first waves. Many were doped up and the charges were accompanied by wild bugle playing to try to unnerve our guys. Some units ran out of ammo and had to retreat or fight hand to hand. My instructors were all Korean combat veterans, and told chilling stories of these mass attacks.
My uncle fought there. Damn near froze to death, unlike some in his unit who actually did in the overnight sub-zero temps with nothing but a blanket. Now in his 80′s he’s wheelchair and bedridden because he can barely walk from frostbite damage to his feet. Fought the Chinese from foxholes while those around him were shot up. Whatever prompted the poor Chinese bastards to advance in a human wave, you don’t want to find yourself on the receiving end of a mass with absolutely nothing to lose.
Left out the point of my comment about mass attacks by the Chicom. We WERE pushed back to the 38th parallel. Mass wave attacks did work, at whatever cost to Chinese soldiers. I’m not comparing this to war in the Sinai, just suggesting that China did not value human life, and did push us out of North Korea and would use that tactic again if it needed to do so.
Battlefield firepower has improved by a couple of orders of magnitude since Korea, with weapons like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_19_grenade_launcher
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_cannon
Well artillery and dual and quad mounted 50 caliber machine guns. General Matthew Ridgeway invented the “Meatgrinder” concept of luring the Chinese/Korean troops into launching a human wave attack and the grinding them up with artilery and rapid 50 caliber fire.
Korea cost us 50,000 good Americans. The Korean/Chinese lost 1,000,000.
It took Moses 40 years….
Though surely, you must know that Moses took a 38-and-a-half year time-out (in Kadesh Barnea), along with a few detours.
The fact is that war is just the thing that Egypt needs (and Egyptians, or all too many of them, seem to want). And with the Palestinians about to ask—and receive—Turkish “protection” from Israeli “agression” (i.e., Israel’s attempts to counter Palestinian terror); and with Hamas and Hezbullah having successfully geared up over the past several years with scores of thousands of some pretty sophisticated missiles and just itching to use it; and with al-Assad looking for just about any distraction that can take the world’s attention off his killing machine (not that the world really cares about it all that much, mind you), then Egypt, with Israel’s neck ever so firmly in the noose so caringly, so carefully prepared by Obama and his merry band, just might decide—in all of its wisdom—that it has enough American hardware and training to achieve lasting glory for itself (while distracting its starving and desperate populace with more spiritual matters, such as Israel’s destruction).
Perhaps.
(Keeping in mind that Obama has only 13.5 months left to spread chaos, and thus Israel’s Partners in Peace, Inc., along with their ardent, peace-loving supporters, only have a limited time to strike while the iron is hot).
I doubt Syria is capable of mounting a war, even if it wanted to, and Egypt, given its economic crisis, can’t be doing well with spare parts. Egypt has American equipment and its military would be cut off in a heartbeat after an adventure against Israel (in which it would get clobbered). I simply don’t believe that Turkey would initiate hostilities against the US — they wouldn’t get spare parts for their F15′s and F4′s ever again and they can’ t replace them with Russian or other fighters. Israel has about 400 F15′s and F16′s against Turkey’s 230 or so (plus about 70 F4′s refurbished by Israel, which clearly knows their avionics quite well).
The obvious danger is more missile smuggling into Gaza, more potshots at Israel, and (maybe) some missiles from Lebanon, although Syria’s problems make that more difficult. Israel goes into clean up Hamas again as in Cast Lead, and Egypt and maybe others react. But I just don’t see a war. My surmise is that Egyptian and Syrian fighting capacity is being degraded by the day.
Well, yes, of course, if everything was “logically” thought out, you’re absolutely right. But rhetoric and exaggerated dreams of glory, revenge, justice, and blood (from time immemorial?) do have a way of creating their own reality in the Middle East—and other places, too, certainly.
Remind us why exactly Nasser et al. pulled that stunt in 1967….
But let’s hope you’re on target here and that “logic” takes precedence over destruction (of both the “self” or “other” variety).
(Sorry, that should be 15.5 months, not 13.5 months.)
Mr. Goldman, as brilliant as you are in economics, you fall flat on the consideration of military affairs. Egypt plus Turkey makes the forces facing Israel equal if not superior.
Obama and Dems are at least as likely to be neutral if not supportive, since Blacks hate Israel and Jews. Roger L. Simon in the pages of this site recounts the antics of one Rev. Eric Lee, President of the LA Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, and his anti-semitic outburst which garnered no reproof from that organization’s (Martin Luther King’s old group) or Blacks in general. Black voters hate Jews (and Israel), generally, and so the Democrats must comply. Erdogan and the Egyptians can see this clearly. Heck the Administration might even join in — senior figures such as Susan Rice and Samantha Power have talked in public about invading Israel to protect Hamas and establish a single Palestinian State, overthrowing Israel.
What, Egyptians are just going to starve? When they can invade Israel and get all the food they want? Plus new land, and a golden opportunity to inflict as much sadistic cruelty and murder on Jews/Israelis as they want? Israel has not made Egypt’s people fear them, indeed weak responses make them an obvious target. A Democratic President makes US support doubtful (Hillary Clinton’s embrace of Suha Arafat makes this deeply embedded in Democratic dependence on 95%+ Black votes for Dems and something deeper than just Obama).
Erdogan sees European weakness, and wonders “Why not?” Why not simply conquer Cyprus, and Greece, and much of the Balkans? Perhaps even part of Italy? Why not? Europe cannot defend itself, the US has withdrawn and is weak anyway, Russia is too weak to respond or protect historic clients like Serbia or Greece or Bulgaria. Why not reconstitute the Ottoman Empire and trump economics with military conquest.
Here is what you don’t understand: when a culture cannot adapt economically (and culturally) but has weak and undefended neighbors it can simply conquer and avoid the need for change by taking from others. This is what Mohammed, the Arabs after him, and the Turks all did.
Erdogan is not crazy. Merely seeing the option you cannot. I would venture that your mental model is of the Cold War, a duopoly forbidding things like the Suez adventure or Central America Revolution to avoid a nuclear holocaust. That’s over, both the US and Russia are retreating nations, and any power even a weak one can conquer against limited, weak, middle class nations unused to hardship or violence. In Erdogan’s or Ahmadinejad’s or the Egyptian world, business and political disputes are settled not by the lawsuits you are familiar with, but by murder.
You don’t have to be Bill Gates if you can be Whitey Bulger.
David – I think you meant to write that Turkey has F16s, not F15s. Of course this makes an even worse equation for the Turks (although they do produce their F16s locally). Also, as you point out, Israeli avionics and training are probably significantly ahead of the Turks.
If the Turks want to seriously challenge Israel I would guess that they would more likely work on molding Lebanon and post-Assad Syria into radical Sunni clients with a semi-asymmetric capability (a la Hezbollah). Turkey Might also try to provide them with a WMD/SSM umbrella. Of course, as you indicate, demographic and economic factors may preoccupy the Turks before then.
Yes — Turkey has about 240 F-16s, against 300 for the IAF, and Israel additionally has about 90 F-15′s.
Whiskey – Have you read DPG’s column’s at AT? One theme is how the radical Muslim world uses horror and violence as a tactic and that current western elites (“Bill Gates”?) may not be equipped to understand or resist.
May I ask why it is that you believe that you are more qualified than DPG to lecture on the tactics of Whitey Bulger? Do you have some special education or experience in this area?
Please note that I mistakenly used Whiskey’s tag for my comment immediately above. My apologies.
War is likely.
While the Egyptian Army commanders remember 1973 and do not want war (which would mean losing the billions in US aid), the rank and file and junior officers are from the younger generation and were taught that 73 was a brilliant victory. In addition, many of the enlisted are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s not a stretch to imagine Egyptian army troops on the border shooting Israelis, as Lebanese soldiers friendly to Hizballah did last year. In addition, when the Muslim Brotherhood gains more political power they will certainly put their people into important positions in the army and media and may be able to fan a small border skirmish into a nationalist war. When people are starving and calling for action there is more incentive. It’s a matter of time.
Yes, Israel can defeat Egypt and reoccupy the Sinai. However, the Egyptian army is US trained and equipped, so it would be costly. They are the most competent and well armed Arab army. Combined with the Turkish military they will have many more fighters, helicopters, main battle tanks, and naval forces than Israel. With Syria weakened or controlled by Sunnis, Turkey would certainly get permission to drive their tanks and troops to the border. In any interstate war against Israel Hizballah and Hamas would also join in with missile and terrorist attacks as well. And Syria’s fighting strength is low but they have chemical warheads for their ballistic missiles. Iran is also a wild card and may have nukes by the time Egpyt and Turkey are ready for war.
I agree with you that Israel can defeat any one of her neighbors. The problem is Israel will be up against all of them at once plus Iran plus internal terrorism and missiles. It’s no walk in the park. I will be happy if Israel wins without using nukes.
Anthony Cordesman at CSIS has a pretty good summary of the Egypt-Israel military balance:
http://csis.org/publication/egyptian-military-and-arab-israeli-military-balance
I just don’t see it happening.
Jay – Here are a few observations regarding points from your above comment (in quotes):
“It’s not a stretch to imagine Egyptian army troops on the border shooting Israelis, as Lebanese soldiers friendly to Hizballah did last year” – Hizballah had great success in the 2006 war because they operated from prepared positions in and around civilian residences. Egyptians won’t have that advantage in the mostly empty Sinai, except if they are in Gaza. It doesn’t seem as if Israel is willing to give Hamas or anyone the chance to construct such fortified positions in Gaza.
“However, the Egyptian army is US trained and equipped, so it would be costly” – DPG’s point about the Egyptians depending on US logistics makes sense to me. In 1973 the Soviets conducted a massive airlift to re-supply the Egyptians. It’s hard to imagine the US doing the same.
“With Syria weakened or controlled by Sunnis, Turkey would certainly get permission to drive their tanks and troops to the border” – Adana to the Golan Heights or Litani is a pretty long logistics tail to supply MBTs and helicopters. I would think it is more likely that IF Turkey converts Lebanon and Syria to dependent allies the Turks will try to develop a Hizballah like semi-asymmetric capability there, not a conventional effort with MBTs and helicopters. In any case, such conventional weapons might just be fodder for the IAF. I respectfully suggest you look at the IDF’s campaign against Syria in Lebanon in 1982. If I remember correctly, the air to air kill ratio was about 80 to 1 in favor of Israel.
“I agree with you that Israel can defeat any one of her neighbors. The problem is Israel will be up against all of them at once plus Iran plus internal terrorism and missiles” – It seems that Turkey and Iran are currently opposed with respect to the fate of Syria. Do you see them sorting that out in the near future and forming a united northern front against Israel? Stranger things have happened (God forbid), but it does not seem too likely to me.
I don’t discount the Iran threat to Israel or to the U.S. It has been my prayer for the past decade that the US take effective action to dump the Khomenist regime in Iran. We paid a heavy price in U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq 2007/2008 to set up the possibility of achieving regime change in Iran and then tossed it away … a terrible waste.
Jay:
If war does come, Israel can use its nukes. They don’t lack the means.. only the will.
God forbid that it should come to that.
And don’t forget that whoever the Libyan rebels are, seem to have acquired a huge jackpot of missiles that have unexplicably gone missing. With Palestine demanding statehood, the unrest in the middle east, with possibly the muslim brotherhood in charge, and Israel’s ally (us) under control by a muslim sympathizer (at best) what a prime time to strike Israel. Of course, God’s word says that Israel will win, but the chess pieces sure seem to be in place. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
I was thinking go west, Egypt, rather than go east. Why tangle with a hornets nest with nukes with all that oil in Libya, just for the taking? Surely it’s now open season since the UN and those former European poachers have evicted the registered owner of the Libyan state? Nato and the rebels have already done most of the dirty work and I’m sure those paragons virtue in the Arab League would not object out of principle. Surely?
Hmmmm.
Egypt is far more likely to invade Libya than Israel.
First off Israel is an extremely tough nut to attack on top of which any US President that doesn’t reinforce Israel, even Obama, is looking at electoral disaster. And you have to count not only Israel’s Air Force but the possibility of having to engage one or more US carrier task forces.
Libya is chaotic, disorganized and frankly excessively weak and will remain so for years. Ginning up an excuse, say by being “invited” to establish “security”, would enable the Egyptian Army to push through thousands of troops directly into Libya. This would not only give Egypt an infusion of desperately needed resources, e.g. oil, but also follow ancient traditions as Egypt once controlled vast areas including Libya. It could even assuage the concerns of the Islamists by the simple expedient of stating that Egypt is re-establishing the Caliphate … one country at a time starting with Libya.
And the Europeans would probably not even blink at this. All Egypt would have to do is simply agree with European representatives that Egypt would honor existing oil deals with perhaps minor modifications. Even the Libyan frozen assets that are being unfrozen amount to perhaps as much as $150 billion. More than enough to fix the current cash flow problem, revitalize Egyptian economy and the continuing cash flow from oil operations would make that largely permanent through the next generation or more.
Seriously. No matter how incompetent Egyptian Army generals are I cannot imagine that any of the existing rebel forces could put up a solid fight against regular Army divisions.
Would the US allow it?
Fuel-air bombs will make short work of any human wave attack. If Israel doesn’t have enough, they had better stock up fast.
Shaulie,
Thanks for the kind words. If you liked the book, you might want to post something at the Amazon page for “How Civilizations Die”:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Civilizations-Die-Islam-Dying/dp/159698273X
As for marching five million men to the border: what possible good would that do? What would they do once they got there? Marching Egypt’s 1,000 Abrams tanks to the border is another matter, but as we’ve been discussing elsewhere on this thread, it would be a slaughter for the Egyptians.
I read that, after experiencing fifty years of independence, a large majority of Jamaicans favor the notion of reverting to a British Crown Colony. After a few million Egyptians starve to death perhaps they will be open to the idea of becoming a colony of Israel.
They could submit to an Israeli viceroy. There’s a precedent.
Good point, Kris. And that viceroy saved them from starvation.
But we’re too left-wing here to allow for it.
And to switch back to serious again: isn’t that usually the case? We decide to be all things good (left-wing, liberal, compassionate, multilateral, …), and then, unexpectedly!, not only do things go wrong, but the ones who bear the brunt of it are those we wanted to help.
Israel’s population is currently about 75 percent Jewish, with the remaining 25 percent most Arab Muslims (with some Arab Christians and Druze). [These percentages of course exclude the millions of Palestinians living in Gaza and West Bank]
Dr. Wahid Abd Al-Magid, editor of Al-Ahram’s Arab Strategic Report, has predicted that Arabs may become a majority in Israel in 2035, and “will certainly be the majority in 2048.”
Some in Israeli’s Jewish political establishment have already sounded alarms over the issue.
Early last decade, Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, an Israeli government armaments expert, proposed that Israel “implement a stringent policy of family planning in relation to its Muslim population.”
In a speech to Israel’s parliament in 2007, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, warned of “a demographic battle, drowned in blood and tears.”
International Business Times discussed this topic with Ben Moscovitch, an expert on the Middle East and Israel, as well as the Israel blogger for the Foreign Policy Association.
IBT: Is the Israeli government concerned that the Palestinian birth rate is higher than the Israeli birth rate? If so, are they taking any steps to encourage more Jewish women to have children?
MOSCOVITCH: I cannot speak for the Israeli government, but Israeli leaders and analysts are split on whether the disparity between birth rates of Arab-Israeli citizens and Jewish-Israelis suggests that eventually the state will have a non-Jewish majority that will lead to a bi-national, one-state solution.
It is important to distinguish between the Israeli Arab citizens (those residing in mainland Israel) and Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza, as the latter group will not likely be incorporated into Israel in a future peace agreement that would establish a Palestinian state.
The government already has an extensive welfare program that benefits all Israeli citizens, including the ultra-orthodox and Arab-Israelis, not just Jews. Through that program, families are provided with additional social services and funding based on the number of children born. This program is advocated by the ultra-orthodox Jewish community, which have very high birth rates and often live in poor conditions, therefore government subsidies support these families.
Similarly, Arab-Israeli citizens, who also have high birth rates, receive the same funding to help support their families. There is equality for all Israeli citizens in this regard.
IBT: Is the “Arab birth rate problem” an exaggeration used by fear-mongers? Or is it a legitimate concern?
MOSCOVITCH: As it stands, the birth rate of Arab-Israeli citizens is higher than that of Jewish Israeli citizens. The Jewish population in Israel today is approximately 75 percent, down from 80 percent in the mid-1990s, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
However, when you develop the economy and infrastructure of a society and a people, that group’s birth rates are expected to drop dramatically for several reason: infant mortality is reduced (in part from access to clean water) therefore women birth less children; there is a decrease in agricultural work, therefore less children’s help in the fields is necessary; among other reasons.
All of Israel, including Israeli Arab citizens, is developing rapidly. As such, Arab women’s birth rates are dropping. Similarly, Palestinian birth rates should drop, as the Palestinian Authority — under the leadership of Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad — has prioritized economic institution building. If successful and the Palestinian economy continues to grow, Palestinian birth rates should drop.
IBT: What role does the ultra-orthodox community play in this drama?
MOSCOVITCH: The ultra-orthodox community continues to grow and have very high birth rates. This group of Jewish Israelis believes they have a God-given mandate to procreate and increase the number of Jews both in Israel and around the world.
Excluding the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, I believe the Jewish birth rates fueled by ultra-orthodox procreation practices, will continue to increase while the Arab-Israeli birth rates will drop as their villages are further developed. Extrapolating these trends, there is no urgent demographic threat, but the situation should be closely monitored to ensure that the population, regardless of citizenship status, remains predominantly Jewish.
IBT: There are millions of Arabs living in the West Bank. What about them?
MOSCOVITCH: Annexation of the West Bank to Israel would substantially skyrocket Arab population numbers, and the birth rates of non-Jews would remain high and potentially surpass the Jewish Israeli population. For this reason, it is imperative that Israel not annex the West Bank and negotiate a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians to ensure Israeli security and provide the Palestinians with sovereignty in their own state.
Without a two-state solution and the annexation of the Palestinian population of the West Bank, Israel will eventually turn into a single, bi-national state that would dissolve Israel’s Jewish identity.
IBT: Is it possible that someday Arabs could soon outnumber Jews in Israel; or at least in parts of Israel?
MOSCOVITCH: The largest Arab populations are in southern Israel, where Bedouin birth rates are quite high. Similarly, there are high birth rates in northern Israel, such as around Haifa. Those areas, aside from the West Bank, would represent the areas where high Arab birth rates could pose the largest threat.
IBT: How many members of Israel’s parliament are Arabs? Is it proportionate to their numbers in the population?
MOSCOVITCH: There are 120 total Knesset members. There are 14 Arab members, although that figure includes the Druze population, which does not necessarily consider itself Arab and instead as a separate religious, cultural, and ethnic group.
This is not proportionate, but Arab-Israeli citizens can participate in elections, as both candidates and voters. Arabs have a long history of participating in the Israeli government, and as citizens, they have the same involvement rights and responsibilities as their Jewish counterparts.
Some of these Druze members belong to right-wing Israeli parties, such as the ultra-right wing group Yisrael Beitenu and Netanyahu’s Likud party. Similarly, Druze have served as top Knesset leaders, including as deputy speaker.
But, some Arab members, such as Haneen Zoabi, have been very critical of Israel and even reject the fundamental character of the state, such as its Jewish identity.
IBT: Let’s go back to the ultra-orthodox Jewish community, which is committed to having large families. Are they too few in number to be of any significance?
MOSCOVITCH: The ultra-orthodox community is a major factor, and it is growing rapidly. The rise in numbers of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community is causing many problems. For example, many in the ultra-orthodox community do not work, and instead pray and procreate. Therefore, the government welfare system is subsidizing this growing community that is consuming resources and not producing economic development. But, with population growth also emerges additional political clout, and a top priority of the ultra-orthodox community is ensuring that its members continue to receive government funding.
Addressing the welfare system’s inherent flaws should be among the Israeli government’s top concerns, more so than the demographic threat, as the country will go bankrupt from those choosing unemployment well before Arabs will become the majority.
IBT: Is intermarriage between Jews and Arabs rare in Israel? Or is it on the rise?
MOSCOVITCH: It is fairly uncommon, but I do not have statistics on this.
IBT: Hypothetically, if there were more Arabs than Jews in Israel, what would happen? Would Israel cease to exist as a “Jewish State”, would it have to be separated into two nations?
MOSCOVITCH: It is impossible to have a majority Muslim Arab population in a Jewish state; that would be antithetical to Jewish values. Israelis and Jews have a firm belief in democracy, which is one of the reasons that many Israelis do not want to annex the West Bank and result in more non-Jews living in a Jewish state.
A majority Arab population would result in a one-state, bi-national solution, therefore eradicating the Jewish state. Both Jews and non-Jewish Arabs would live together and govern accordingly. However, elements on both sides would likely attempt to infuse religion into the debate. The Jewish population could seek the inclusion of Jewish law in governance, while Muslims could advocate governance by Sharia.
In that latter scenario, extremist Muslims could pursue a radical interpretation of Sharia that would include the suppression of minorities — including women, homosexuals and non-Muslims — therefore resulting in an anti-democratic state, possibly akin to Iran.
This one-state solution is unacceptable and would destroy the modern concept of Israel and Zionism. Annexing the West Bank would only bolster the likelihood of that doomsday one-state solution scenario.
The fertility of Israeli Jews already has converged with the fertility rate of Arabs in Israel as well as the territories. This is old, out-dated and wrong. There is no demographic time bomb.
“This is old, out-dated and wrong. There is no demographic time bomb.”
That is good news for population studies. So now you have established that demographic trends can change in 4 years. Can you explain what Israel has done to reverse this trend from 2007 to 2011?
When Goldman writes “old”, I would think it safe to assume that he means prior to 2007. For example, Yoram Ettinger et al’s work.
I find it odd that you post an extremely long comment whose sole purpose seems to be the final two lines (Israel must withdraw, yawn), none of which has anything to do with Goldman’s original post.
Israel’s long-term demographic threat is not Arabs, but the Haredim, who are a big drain on social services and welfare, and do not serve in the military.
They are working on that Eric.
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=202925
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147873
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141633
OK, so please tell Mas hachnasa to stop taxing me 50% at the margin. Apparantly that’s not enough; I’m a drain on thhe resources? (I’d like to see some real figures, say percent of families with the husband 30 or over and no main wage-earner, so we don’t include normal students and stay-=at-home mothers.)
And why did the army refuse to form a second “nachal hareidi” unit?
Any why is the IDF currently engaged in a war on religion?
I will ignore the rediculous generalizations regarding my fellow chareidim (or “ultra-orthodox” if you like bigoted epithets), but the truth is that the entire religious population has a relatively high birthrate, and the others Jews in Israel aren’t too shabby in this regard, either.
Now, if you excuse me, I need to get back to work, so I can send the Israeli government about 50% of my income at the margin.
As long as we take Gaza out of the equation (which it is), we could absorb Judea and Samaria also, athough we have no wish to.
Can anyone explain why Turkey is a partner in the F-35 fighter program?
That they are involved seems rather insane to me.
Israel’s new best friend. I hope you don’t believe in your silly propaganda. If you believe in your own lies, then you are liable to miscalculate. Then you will suffer the consequences.
Greece has a 98 percent chance of defaulting on its debt in the next five years as Prime Minister George Papandreou fails to reassure investors his country can survive the euro-region crisis.
“Everyone’s pricing in a pretty near-term default and I think it’ll be a hard event,” said Peter Tchir, founder of hedge fund TF Market Advisors in New York. “Clearly this austerity plan is not working.”
It costs a record $5.8 million upfront and $100,000 annually to insure $10 million of Greece’s debt for five years using credit-default swaps, up from $5.5 million in advance on Sept. 9, according to CMA. Greek bonds plunged, sending the 10- year yield to 25 percent for the first time.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she won’t let Greece go into “uncontrolled insolvency” as politicians try to limit contagion to other euro members. Papandreou’s pledge to adhere to deficit targets that are conditions of the European Union and International Monetary Fund’s bailout were undermined by data showing his country’s budget gap widened 22 percent in the first eight months of the year.
The default probability for Greece is based on a standard pricing model that assumes investors would recover 40 percent of the bonds’ face value if the nation fails to meet its obligations. CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated credit- swaps market, lowered its recovery assumption to 38 percent late yesterday, which would give Greece a 95 percent chance of default.
mstr – David Goldman was talking about Turkey, not Greece. Indeed, I do not even think he mentioned Greece. While it is true that Israel and Greece have grown closer as Israel and Turkey have grown apart, Israel is not dependent on Greece for its defense. So, Greece is a non-factor in this discussion.
“While it is true that Israel and Greece have grown closer as Israel and Turkey have grown apart, Israel is not dependent on Greece for its defense. So, Greece is a non-factor in this discussion.”
Wrong! Actually it is the other way around. As Greece and Cyprus have grown closer, Turkey has grown apart. It is the Israel, Greece and Cyprus trying to encircle Turkey, to shut Turkey from Oil and Gas in the high seas. The proper response for Turkey for that challenge is to align with Egypt. That is why Spengler wrote this propaganda peace. He would not miss such a good opportunity bad mouth Turkey. Whenever Spengler writes something about Turkey, the truth is exactly the opposite of it. He is an avowed enemy of Turkey.
Exposing Erdogan’s irrational, self-destructive behavior is no more anti-Turkey than exposing the same behavior of Obama is anti-American. Turkey is a great country and loyal friend of the U.S. We are most anxious that it not be taken down such a destructive path by an egomaniac leader. For that matter, we share the same anxiety about our own country.
I’m with willis on this one. Thanks to Ataturk, Turkey succeeded in educating a lot of first-rate professionals, many of whom I’ve had the privilege to work with. Turkey has the only world-class universities in the Muslim world. And I know a lot of Turks who are thinking seriously about emigrating, because they suspect that Erdogan is headed towards an Iran-style Islamic Republic.
“It is the Israel, Greece and Cyprus trying to encircle Turkey, to shut Turkey from Oil and Gas in the high seas.”
All of the Israeli, Greek, and Cypriot development is being done in their own internationally recognized waters. Please provide us with an example of where Turkey is being unjustly shut out.
mstr – You have regaled us here with how wonderous Turkey is. Demographically strong, militarily strong, economically strong, etc., etc. ButyYou can’t have it both ways. Either Turkey is as strong as you claim, in which case Erdogan should not care one way or the other what Israel does, or it’s not as strong as you claim, in which case Erdogan is being irrational. I say the latter in the following vein – if Erdogan continues down the path he is on, he will alienate the US Congress, and it will act with alacrity to cut off funding for his military.
How many wars have been waged against Israel by its Arab neighbors? Four major ones and innumerable smaller skirmishes by my reckoning. How many times has the call gone out from the likes of Iran, Egypt, Libya et al for Israel to be wiped off the face of this earth and the Jews driven into the sea? I have lost count there.
Israel has been more than patient with these murderous villains and owes them nothing, only security for themselves. If that means holding onto the land lost to them in these wars, so be it. There is no guarantee that they will ever have peace despite any treaty signed by any Arab neighbor. The peace with Egypt was only good while Mubarak was in power. Now it is a worthless piece of paper.
So what happens next? My guess is that with Turkey rattling its saber on the sidelines Egypt amongst others will be emboldened to strike at Israel again. Only this time they will again lose and Israel will take the Sinai and keep it. Forever.
Page last updated on January 12, 2011
Economy – overview:
Turkey’s economy is increasingly driven by its industry and service sectors, although its traditional agriculture sector still accounts for about 30% of employment. An aggressive privatization program has reduced state involvement in basic industry, banking, transport, and communication, and an emerging cadre of middle-class entrepreneurs is adding a dynamism to the economy. Turkey’s traditional textiles and clothing clothing sectors still account for one-third of industrial employment, despite stiff competition in international markets that resulted from the end of the global quota system. Other sectors, notably the automotive, construction, and electronics industries, are rising in importance and have surpassed textiles within Turkey’s export mix. Oil began to flow through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in May 2006, marking a major milestone that will bring up to 1 million barrels per day from the Caspian to market. Several gas http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/world_oil_gas_and_products_pipelines.html also are being planned to help move Central Asian gas to Europe via Turkey, which will help address Turkey’s dependence on energy imports over the long term. After Turkey experienced a severe financial crisis in 2001, Ankara adopted financial and fiscal reforms as part of an IMF program. The reforms strengthened the country’s economic fundamentals and ushered in an era of strong growth – averaging more than 6% annually until 2009, when global economic conditions and tighter fiscal policy slowed growth to 4.7%, reduced inflation to 6.5% – a 34-year low – and cut the public sector debt-to-GPD ratio below 50%. Turkey’s well-regulated financial markets and banking system weathered the global financial crisis and GDP rebounded strongly to 7.3% in 2010, as exports returned to normal levels following the recession. The economy, however, continues to be burdened by a high current account deficit and remains dependent on often volatile, short-term investment to finance its trade deficit. The stock value of FDI stood at $174 billion at year-end 2010, but inflows have slowed considerably in light of continuing economic turmoil in Europe, the source of much of Turkey’s FDI. Further economic and judicial reforms and prospective EU membership are expected to boost Turkey’s attractiveness to foreign investors. However, Turkey’s relatively high current account deficit, uncertainty related to policy-making, and fiscal imbalances leave the economy vulnerable to destabilizing shifts in investor confidence.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$958.3 billion (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 17
Introduction ::ISRAEL
Geography ::ISRAEL
People ::ISRAEL
Government ::ISRAEL
Economy ::ISRAEL
Economy – overview:
Israel has a technologically advanced market economy. It depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are the leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Roughly half of the government’s external debt is owed to the US, its major source of economic and military aid. Israel’s GDP, after contracting slightly in 2001 and 2002 due to the Palestinian conflict and troubles in the high-technology sector, grew about 5% per year from 2004-07. The global financial crisis of 2008-09 spurred a brief recession in Israel, but the country entered the crisis with solid fundamentals – following years of prudent fiscal policy and a series of liberalizing reforms – and a resilient banking sector, and the economy has shown signs of an early recovery. Following GDP growth of 4% in 2008, Israel’s GDP slipped to 0.2% in 2009, but reached 3.4% in 2010, as exports rebounded. The global economic downturn affected Israel’s economy primarily through reduced demand for Israel’s exports in the United States and EU, Israel’s top trading partners. Exports of goods and services account for about 40% of the country’s GDP. The Israeli Government responded to the recession by implementing a modest fiscal stimulus package and an aggressive expansionary monetary policy – including cutting interest rates to record lows, purchasing government bonds, and intervening in the foreign currency market. The Bank of Israel began raising interest rates in the summer of 2009 when inflation rose above the upper end of the Bank’s target and the economy began to show signs of recovery.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$219.4 billion (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 52
First, it would behoove you to provide us with the source of your last two comments: The CIA World Factbook.
Second, if all you’re interested in is the final ranking, why are you clogging up the comment section with all of the preceding text?
Third, you want to compare rankings? With pleasure: (Keep in mind that since these statistics were compiled, Israel’s economic situation has improved, while Turkey’s has worsened.)
GDP – per capita (PPP):
Turkey: $12,300 (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 94
Israel: $29,800 (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 46
Unemployment rate:
Turkey: 12% (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 128
Israel: 6.7% (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 63
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
Turkey: 8.6% (2010 est.)
Israel: 2.7% (2010 est.)
Current account balance:
Turkey: -$48.42 billion (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 189
Israel: $6.699 billion (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 29
Debt – external:
Turkey: $290.7 billion (31 December 2010 est.)
Israel: $106 billion (31 December 2010 est.)
Some more stats:
Female Literacy:
Turkey: 79.6%
Israel: 95.9%
Life expectancy at birth:
Turkey ranking: 126
Israel ranking: 17
As many Arab countries spiral down the toilet one will stand firm and enjoy the fruits of freedom.
Iraq.
“one will stand firm and enjoy the fruits of freedom. Iraq”.
Sadly, it looks like the Iraqis will be Iranian satraps, at least for a while (Iran Woos U.S. Allies as Troops Withdraw – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303627104576409983223152852.html).
Don’t confuse cynicism with wisdom.
Iraq is not going to become Iran’s satrapy.
“Iraq is not going to become Iran’s satrapy” – Inshallah, but don’t confuse hope and pride with the facts on the ground.
Noted.
We shall see.
And one of those facts on the ground is that Arab hatred of Persians trumps intra-Shi’a loyalty, every time.
Bohemond: “And one of those facts on the ground is that Arab hatred of Persians trumps intra-Shi’a loyalty, every time”.
In early 2008 the Malaki government went toe to toe with Iranian sponsored militas in a fight for the southern oil/port city of Basra. But in those days it looked like the US was in Iraq for the long term. Since 2008, the Malaki faction (roughly moderate Shia) have taken the measure of U.S. will power and the correlation of forces and made an alliance with the pro-Iranian Shia in parliment, rather than the Iraqi Sunnis.
In the Middle East it is “Kiss the hand you cannot bite”.
Here’s a few more facts plus analysis from a recent AEI piece (http://www.irantracker.org/analysis/irans-strategic-offensive-iraq):
‘Iran’s so-called supreme leader Ali Khamenei said in a June meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that “nations should take advantage of “the current state of U.S. policy in the region.[21] In Iraq, the Iranian regime’s roadmap to take advantage of the absence of a credible, long-term American commitment is clear: to kill a greater number of Americans and undermine American influence; to prevent the emergence of a strong and independent Iraq; and to bind Iraq ever more closely to itself in ways that over time can hold Iraq hostage to the Iranian agenda. Failing to counter this Iranian offensive, and the broader threat that Iran poses, will do great harm to American and Iraqi security and regional interests’.
So how degraded has the Turkish military capabilities become following the mass resignation of their military leadership?
That was a remarkable piece of news. It either pointed to a tactical withdrawal of support for the current regime or a collapse of the Turkish scheme of governance and social stability.
BACKGROUND: Nothing better illustrates the scale of the demographic changes in Turkey than the autobiographic essay Istanbul by Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. In his book, Pamuk laments the city of his childhood, just 30 or 40 years ago. In the 1970s, Istanbul was a relatively small and sleepy city of about 2.1 million people. Today, it is a bustling mega-polis of about 12 million and counting. One of the most popular descriptions of Istanbul among foreign journalists and writers is the image of an awakening giant in the eastern corner of the Mediterranean.
Turkey experienced an unprecedented demographic explosion during the twentieth century. The first official population census was conducted in 1927, four years after the country was established as a republic; it registered about 13.5 million people. Turkey’s population first doubled between 1927 and 1960, growing to about 27.7 million, and again between 1960 and 1989, up to roughly 56.5 million people. By 2009 the country had added another 18 million inhabitants. Not only is Turkey becoming the largest country in Europe after Russia, many of its cities have become larger than some states in Europe. For example, Ankara alone with its population of about 4.5 million is larger than most newly independent states of the former Yugoslavia. The population is the youngest in Europe, too, with almost 27.2 percent of the population – or about 18 million people – below the age of 14 in 2009.
However, the population growth has been quite uneven. Most of the families in large urban centers in Turkey, like Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, have about 2-2.5 children, just above the reproductive rate. In sharp contrast, in the rural areas the families are much larger and it is not unusual to see five or six children marching with their parents to schools or bazaars in small towns and cities. The population growth in the rural areas creates a huge pressure on the labor market as a large cohort of young people of the Turkish baby-boomer generation – those born between 1980 and 1990 – are entering the job market right now. In turn, this creates huge pressures on the Turkish government which has to develop job-creating economic policies.
In fact, the Turkish government conducted quite painful structural adjustment reforms in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Some missteps in policy implementation cost the Turkish economy dearly, causing high inflation and the near collapse of the Turkish currency. Yet, once reforms and changes were in place, the Turkish economy grew at the fastest pace in Europe between 2002 and 2007, with an average annual economic growth rate of about 5-6 percent. By 2008 the Turkish economy had become the 17th largest economy in the world (according to the 2008 World Bank estimate) ahead of Poland, Switzerland and Sweden, though behind Spain and the Netherlands. Therefore, taking into consideration the growing economic and demographic factors, it is not surprising to see the increasing role of Turkey not only in the region but also in the international arena.
IMPLICATIONS: In the past, development economists considered fast population growth to be a liability. During recent years, however, many economists have revised some of their assumptions and approaches and have begun claiming that a growing population and a younger workforce are indeed valuable assets for a country with sound and balanced economic policies. There seems to be four major advantages: First, the population growth is good for national economies as it leads to growth in consumption and drives many sectors of the national economy. In the post-industrial world, where service sectors and consumption turn into the most important driving forces of economic development, having more consumers is an obvious plus.
Second, the size of the consumer market often attracts foreign direct investments (FDIs), as it is among the decisive factors in calculating return on investment. In the case of Turkey both the population and incomes have been growing steadily for about two decades and once Turkey weathers the global financial crisis the growth is likely to continue.
Third, the growing size of the economy and its various sectors leads to the competitive advantage of economies of scale. Large economies are usually more flexible and able to produce more internationally competitive products simply because of the advantage of targeting both domestic and international markets. Fourth, Turkey with its young workforce has a better economic perspective against the background of the rapidly aging population in the European Union. The shift in demographics in Europe will probably lead to an important geo-economic change taking place. According to some economic predictions, there will be a significant decline in domestic consumption and in economic growth across the EU in the coming decades, making it necessary for the countries of the European Union to turn to the Turkish market for growth by outsourcing some of their industrial production, development of care industries and a number of other services.
CONCLUSIONS: Demographic indicators suggest that the population growth in Turkey is here to stay. However, this trend should be addressed very carefully with well-balanced economic policies. Every year during the next decade or two, about 2-3 million young people will need appropriate education and social services before entering the job market, in order to be competitive in the new economy. And then, there will need to be jobs for these people. Thus the most important economic issue that needs to be addressed by the Turkish government is to stimulate job creation through various policy measures and initiatives, especially by attracting FDIs, new technologies, and outsourced industrial production from Europe. It is especially important as the global financial and economic crisis has affected the country particularly negatively. According to the Turkish daily Hürriyet, recently the unemployment rate in the country reached a decade-high level exceeding 13.4 percent among the general population and a mind-blowing 23.5 percent among the youth.
The Turkish government needs to develop business-friendly relations with its neighbors in order to stimulate its trade and to attract international investors willing to participate in the establishment of new enterprises, especially in export-oriented small and medium enterprises sector, which play a crucial role in job creation. And just as EU members in all probability will need access to the Turkish market in the near future for their economic growth and expansion, Turkey will need access to the EU market for exporting its own goods and services.
Rafis Abazov teaches at the Harriman Institute of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York. He is author of The Culture and Customs of Turkey (2009) and the Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia (2008). In 2009 he contributed to the UNDP and UNFEM reports on the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on migration in the CIS and Eastern Europe.
© Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 2009. This article may be reprinted provided that the following sentence be included: “This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center”.
The Turkey Analyst
The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It is published weekly, and includes a topical analysis, as well as translations and summaries of selected Turkish news reports. It is edited and compiled under the supervision of Svante E. Cornell, Halil M. Karaveli, and M. K. Kaya.
The analyses appearing in the Turkey Analyst are often written by the three Editors. The Turkey Analyst occasionally publishes signed guest analyses.
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The Joint Center was created in 2005 through the merger of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and the Silk Road Studies Program, at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.
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Yet another mindless screen-wasting cut and paste. I am being reminded of Serdar Argic.
You know a link would suffice along with, perhaps, some of your *own* thoughts. It would save a lot of time and space and maybe your credibility. That, and not tossing the word racist around would also help.
“some of your *own* [mstr's] thoughts”
mishu, you are making a possibly unwarranted assumption here about the contents in the space between mstr’s right and left ears.
Again, outdated. Turks (defined by cradle tongue) have a fertility rate of 1.5, Kurds 4.5 — which means the population below 25 is half Kurdish in one generation. That’s why Erdogan says Turkey will cease to exist in 2038. Yup. It’s in my book.
I think you don’t know what you are talking about. The article is dated 2009. If anything is outdated, I think it is your racism.
Listen, mstr,
If you call me a racist ever again, I’ll kick you off this board. We Jews aren’t racists. Come to Israel, and see how many black Jews there are, a lot of them in army uniform. The fact that some cultures don’t cut it isn’t my fault. I won’t put up with gratuitous insults to anyone, myself included.
On the demographics, see
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/72679/time-out/
Nothing in your article belies Rafis Abazov who teaches at the Harriman Institute of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York. He is author of The Culture and Customs of Turkey (2009) and the Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia (2008). In 2009 he contributed to the UNDP and UNFEM reports on the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on migration in the CIS and Eastern Europe.
© Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 2009. This article may be reprinted provided that the following sentence be included: “This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center”.
My eyes roll back in my head when I read your anonymous screeds, mstr. (Why is it that people who suffer from logorrhea rarely have the courage to identify themselves.) Everyone knows Erdogan, with his weird obsession with Israel, is taking Turkey back centuries into religious fanaticism. Nothing good can ever come of that. Too bad. It was a great place.
Who is “everyone”? I don’t think you know Erdogan at all. I have lived in Turkey for the last twenty years. I know him better than you or Spengler. Everyone knows Spengler and his “love” for Turkey except maybe himself. He is no friend of Turks. Religious fanaticism of Erdogan? that is news to me. Instead of rolling your eyes if you had shown effort to read the articles I posted, than you would have understood that the current deterioration in the relationship has to do with real conflict of interest. Israel has sided with Greece and Cyprus against Turkey. Turkish response to that is to align with Arabs. (Egypt, Gulf, Jordan, Magreb.)Simple as that.
mstr, I am glad things are so simple. Could you please provide me with one small simple fact? When exactly is it that Israel sided with Greece and Cyprus against Turkey?
Roger, Why permit any anonymous postings? When I politely suggested that a week ago, anonymous “cybergeezer” answered thusly: “Mr O’Brien, you are a piece of shit”; thereby making my point. If there are really any who would suffer serious consequences for posting their thoughts and require anonymity, exceptions might be made; but I see some hiding behind pseudonyms to cowardly attack. Gentlemen don’t say or write anything they haven’t the courage to say face to face. Why give in to the mores of a new culture most of us despise?
I agree…I never, ever use pseudonyms. I have the courage to stand by what I say and put my name and face to it. I rarely get comments passed through PJM’s comment filters…so I rarely comment here any more.
Rich Vail
Pikesville, Maryland
The Vail Spot dot Blogspot dot Com
mstr – So now it comes out. You have lived in Turkey and apparently you have been enraptured by Erdogan, so you defend him no matter what. I am currently reading a book by Ian Kerchaw titled, The End. It is about the last 10 months of Nazi Germany. Kerchaw asks a simple question: Why did Germans continue to obey Hitler right up until the end? While I have not completely finished the book, it appears to me at least (although Kerchaw does not say so explicitly) that Hitler had a certain magnetism that many below him found impossible to resist. They could not imagine a Germany without Hitler. Also, the average German was grateful to Hitler for everything he did to reinvigorate Germany in the 1930s, and not until early 1945 did support for him in the average population. Indeed, as late as July 1944, when the plot to kill Hitler failed, the average German was angry at the plotters and not the object of the plot who was leading them into the abyss. Needless to say, the other other thing that kept everyone in line was sheer terror from the SS. I tell you this because Erdogan seems to have some of the very same characteristics as Hitler. He is a charismatic leader under whom Turkey has prospered and he has been ruthless (though not to the level Hitler) with his opposition. Of course, no two scenarios play exactly the same way, but if I were you, I would question where Erdogan’s behavior may be taking Turkey?
Interestingly, Jack, I got into a long conversation with a Turkish national who has been residing in our city (Edmonton in Alberta, Canada) for the last twenty years. He has many relatives in Turkey, however. He is very dismayed and perplexed about Erdogan. He told me the following (relevant to your comments and others): 1) Turkey is a very mixed country in terms of ethnicities. It includes Russians and Kurds and (at one time) many Jews. In spite of what people may be thinking, the people are very well integrated. 2) There are numerous opposition parties in Turkey. His own sister has been politically prominent and is an advocate of a secular (Ataturk) Turkey. 3) The political situation is such that if a party does not receive 10% of the total votes, then all those votes go to the majority party; in this case, Erdogan’s. 4) Gradually, all significant military figures are being removed from their positions, many imprisoned, even old people. As a result, the military will not provide an opposition and, as it stands, Erdogan will be around for a very long time. 5) My Turkish discussant does not know what Erdogan’s game plan is but thinks it may be that the USA wants Turkey to appear to be turning away from the West in order to take command of the weakening powers of the Mideastern states and to oppose Iran. The threats against, and demands on, Israel (being obviously ridiculous) are therefore a ploy in order to harness associations with the aforesaid regional states and making Turkey appear to be in league with them and against the “Zionist State of Yisrael”. Strangely enough, I, myself, have read in Ynet News about the continued and ongoing military cooperation between the two countries. 6) In general, many people in socially significant positions (other than the already noted military) are at risk of losing their jobs. Some, like my discussant’s sister, has simply been laid off but is still being paid. This is one of the methods utilized by Erdogan to destabilize the population, make the dependent and fearful so that he is able to consolidate his growing power.
I, like others, am finding it difficult to comprehend what’s going on but I hope my comments may open some doors.
I spent some time in Istanbul reporting for the Turkish chapter of my book, “How Civilizations Die.” It’s true about Turkey’s diversity, but not about the integration. The “White Turks” of European descent (who in 1923 formed a quarter of the population) were the equivalent the Dutch in South Africa, internal colonists ruling over backward Anatolians. With Erdogan, Anatolia came back.
Re Hitler’s popularity in Germany. There are similarities and dissimilarities between Germany and Turkey. Economically, Turkey is in better shape today than Germany was. The people of both countries share an us vs them mentality. Hitler and Erdogan use pride to forment popular sentiment for the policies they implement. Hitler’s aryian nation and Erdogan’s islam. Hitler had a grand plan as outlined in the published mien kampf and the unpublished sequel. Erdogan does not seem to have any published vision, but one wonders if he embraces the Ottoman past.
It was unclear to the German people what Hitler was until it was too late. The accounts of Hitler’s rise at the top of the new Richstag and the consolidation of Hitler’s power as presented at Dachau recount the story. The restoration of the German economy. The restoration of pride following the humiliation following WWI. The fractured nature of political opposition to the Nazis. The slow realization that he needed to be oppossed. The declaration of martial law. The consolidation of power by coersion at Dachau. The earliest inmates at Dachau were political prisoners. They were generally released after receiving notification of the even more dire consequences of any dissent. There was a saying at the time which the German people expressed by a saying that ended with the hope they would not have to go there.
The newspapers of America were willingly deceived into exclaiming the virtues of Dachau. It is not so different today. The brutal reality of islam is miraculously transformed into the virtuous religeon of peace.
The nuts and bolts of the coming war aren’t yet clear. That the war is coming is.
Two points. First, Kurds are rapidly assimilating, they have now more autonomy than they want,, and only a dwindling minority of hard-core Marxist Kurdish radicals will keep fighting for few more years. Second, Armenia today is a military force to reckon with and the main Russian ally in Transcaucasia. And Israel will definitely use it as strategic advantage.
Interesting, especially given the current Turkish economic miracle (bubble) built on debt at 9.5 percent of GDP. No wonder the man is baiting Israel, his domestic debt financed gravy train is ending.
It is the Israel, Greece and Cyprus trying to encircle Turkey, to shut Turkey from Oil and Gas in the high seas.
Thank you for that so clearly articulating the paranoia that the Turkish PM is feeding his people, and which will lead it—which must lead it (and others)—to ruin.
The solution to the problems in the middle east and north Africa is to turn the entire area over to Israel.
I just wonder when will Turkey obey the UN resolutions and withdraw its armies from occupied Cyprus? When will Turkey stop terrorising the Kurdish population? The answer is never. Turks have always been combative, since they migrated from the Steppes to occupy Anatolia. Converting to Islam fit as a glove, as they found a religious justification to their aggressivness. Ataturk was a drop of reason in a sea o madness. It seems that madness is back, with the same religious fervour.
Erdogan isn’t crazy, he needs and wants to be Sultan. His actions are all designed for that one purpose. He can see the shit storm coming, and the only way he can survive is to take so much power that he becomes untouchable. I don’t think he will be successful, but I’m not a Turk, and I don’t know how the Turks will react.
One of the things not mentioned in the article is the situation with the Military. Atatürk created a system which used the military to keep Islamic insanity out of government, that is under attack by Erdogan.
I am reluctant to write about things I don’t know about, for example, the Turkish military. There is a great deal of speculation about the degree to which the largely secular military can offer opposition to Erdogan, to which I will not contribute. It is certainly likely that the intensity of Erdogan’s rhetoric and the extravagance of his threats are intended for a domestic audience, and a confrontation with Israel certainly could be used to put pressure on Turkish officers who in the past had a good working relationship with Israel. But with thousands of people under arrest for alleged plots against the state, it is dangerous to make guesses in public.
I see that you didn’t respond to my position that Erdogan is not crazy. That what he is doing internationally is for internal consumption, and is designed to help him accumulate more power. He is going to make himself dictator, he is breaking the military, and he will rewrite the constitution as soon as possible.
Jacksonian,
Erdogan is always playing to the home audience, but he appears to have waded into the deep end in the last few days, especially with his tantrum against Cyprus. Going after the EC right now hurts him at a sensitive moment. His outbursts, I surmise, reflect the gravity of the problems in his actual (Turkish) and wannabe (Arab) constituencies.
The truly significant part of this is, as Claire Berlinski’s pointed out, that a Turky whose senior military leadership festers in jail w/o charge is not exactly going to be (effective at) throwing its weight around regionally.
The middle-east has demonstrated repeatedly how well a military chosen for its loyalty does when pitted against one trained for competency.
mstr claims: “Israel has sided with Greece and Cyprus against Turkey. Turkish response to that is to align with Arabs. (Egypt, Gulf, Jordan, Magreb.)Simple as that.”
You really have no clue what you’re talking about. Israel considered the relationship with Turkey of course as very important; but starting at least from January 2009, when Erdogan publicly attacked Peres in Davos, Turkey has over and over again tried to stoke tension with Israel, e.g. in fall 2009, Turkey tried to exclude Israel from the “Anatolian Eagle” Nato exercise, which was therefore cancelled. Turkey didn’t mind at all: they proudly trained with Syria instead…
That’s why Israel had to look elsewhere.
Israel is “alone and adrift at sea” but they make a multitude of things including drugs and high-technology (and weapons.) Egypt, meanwhile, basically is wondering where their next meal is coming from. The Middle East is full of failed or about-to-fail states whose rulers are busily drumming up wars and rumors of wars to distract attention from the mess at home. But Israel is the one “alone and adrift at sea.”
How about, “Thomas Friedman is alone and adrift at sea”?
Adrift as he might be, he is, unfortunately, not alone. He’s part of a strange plague of mass delusion afflicting most of humanity.
I remember reading in the history books about the German Economic Miracle. 1933 to 1940. The German plan to cover up the “miracle” succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. For a while.
They even ran a surplus for one year (1943 IIRC) after starting the liquidation of some surplus assets.
Follow the money.
Spengler,
Do you follow Claire Berlinski, be it at City Journal or at Ricochet, and what do you think of her assessments of Turkey? She has lived there, I think for over 5 years.
Perhaps the Turks harbor a deep nostalgia of the former Ottoman glory, in the same way as many French still look back to the days when King Louis the 14th was supposed to be the central pivot of galactic rotation. If things start to look scary, could you make yourself important by calling back the folklore of the supposedly good old days? Maybe that’s all Erdogan is trying to accomplish, just for the sake of good old self-aggrandizing. If that’s the case, he is no different from other islamists. In times of uncertainty, emotion can easily trump reason. The islamist dream may soon vanish, after an epic surge of fervor. The islamic movement has taken quite a beating from our reaction to 9/11. Can we really tell whether the last 10 years were decisive or not? When the Soviet regime collapsed we were almost universally surprised.
Perhaps Gorbachev was a most sincere communist, but he could not save it. How about today’s islamists? They have a lot of cards in their hands, but can they play them well enough to triumph? We will eventually find out, but we cannot tell how much longer it might take. In the meantime it makes sense to learn as much as we can. Thanks, David P. Goldman, for your coaching in these pages!
I’m a bit torn in this discussion: on the one hand I value David’s basic insight that demographics is at the root of the current global economic disaster, and at the root of that is modernity pushing out faith in the West and elsewhere.
However, I’ve made the same point more than once at his forums: a Turk is not an Uzbek is not a Tadjik is not a Kyrgiz. To label them all ‘Turkic’ is more or less akin to labeling all Germans, Dutch, Swedes and Norwegians as ‘Nordics’. There are genetic, cultural and linguistic commonalities but nothing so coherent as a political-ethnic cohesion. (I’m thinking here too of the t-shirt I saw the other day on a Mexican man here in the U.S. which read, “I am a Mexican — NOT a Hispanic or Latino”. The Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Argentines and Panamanians in America could at least applaud his precision in not lumping them in with the ‘Reconquista’).
So when David says Turkey is getting remittances from migrant workers in Russia (not just the European Union countries, where there is a large Turkish population in Germany and the UK), it seems news to me. Is he talking about Dinc Arslan of ‘The Turkish Invasion’ blogging from Moscow? I didn’t see a huge number of Turks in Moscow, unless he thinks the Uzbek and Tadjik remittances are going to Ankara first before headed to Samarkand and Dushanbe. In fact, Tadjik is basically a form of Persian with a Cyrillic alphabet, so the Tadjiks don’t count under anything but the most broad and meaningless use of the term ‘Turkic’. They are far closer to descendants of Ghenghis Khan like the Kyrgiz. So that really just leaves the Turkomen and Uzbeks. And admittedly, getting reliable statistics on their numbers is difficult, not only due to lots of problems with the Russian census itself, but also the fact that foreigners, and particularly those who are in Russia illegally or are legal but not registered to live at the address where they reside (under the so-called propiska system), are certainly not going to open the steel door of their high rise apartments to a young Russian census taker. Whereas the U.S. Census actually encouraged Spanish-speaking illegals in the U.S. to be counted, there was no such encouragement or widespread availability of Census questionnaires in the Uzbek, Tadjik and Kyrigiz languages.
Nonetheless Russia, like Israel, seems to have started to shrug off predictions of its demographic doom. Not to the extent that Israel has, but to at least some degree.
But finally the thing that bothers me the most about all the ‘Erdogan is a neo-Ottoman/Islamist fanatic’ rhetoric is that many of the same people mouthing it routinely accused Putin and Medvedev of trying to revive the Soviet Union in 2008 and even before the proxy war with U.S. client state Georgia. So it’s hard to say: is this overreaction following the flotilla incident, or is it firmly based in reality?
Ah, but Erdogan is increasingly seen as crazy/fanatical (you say poe-tae-toe…). Putin, on the other hand, is considered a brutal thug whom one can do business with (if one is not at a disadvantage.)
Feel better?
And I ask this again with another point: that Russia has been trying, with limited success for some time to drive a wedge between America’s large and broad-based pro-Israel lobby and its smaller and much more elitist, military-industrial complex driven anti-Russia lobby (not that the MIC doesn’t have anything to do with Israel, but I don’t think the MIC is paying million of Evangelicals to support Israel, whereas Randy Scheunemann and other anti-Russia lobby figures are all hired guns for the most anti-Russian elements in every country around Russia they can find).
I do not endorse this effort, I simply point it out — the Russians have had far more success with it thus far in Jerusalem than they have or ever will have in Washington D.C. — Msrs. Deripaska and Prokhorov’s lobbying and sports franchise purchases aside. It’s good to remind the folks in Washington that they may not always be at the center of the universe and allies that they would consider throwing under the bus might have some options here and there.
Last but not least, and this will be my final comment on this thread:
Only in U.S. mainstream media would a stinging rebuke of Merkel for supporting endless bailouts for Germany’s neighbors be spun as a defeat for ‘euroskeptics’ in her governing coalition
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110918/ts_nm/us_germany_election;_ylt=Au9seFZKTjvpfgNvHRCkCuJbbBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTJtMGMxc3A0BGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwOTE4L3VzX2dlcm1hbnlfZWxlY3Rpb24EY3BvcwM0BHBvcwM0BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDbWVya2VsYW5kZXVy
Remember: the EU is always inevitably expanding and euroskeptics are always wrong, and Ron Paul has absolutely no chance of ever winning anything
I support the Israeli flotilla in advance to support the Kurds in their struggle for self determination against an apartheid racist government in Ankara.
What? Not a PhD? You’re disqualified!
“consider how Tayyip Erdogan must feel. His economic boom is about to come to a crashing end”
You need to explain this point. I don’t see where the article explains why this is going to happen. You discuss Egypt’s economic plight but not Turkey’s.
Thanks,
I’ve been talking about for a while but added a link to this August piece:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH10Ak01.html
Mr. Goldman, aka “Spengler,” I have no comment to offer at the present, only thanks for your insightful and often-brilliant analysis of world events. I am no slouch in this dept., but I do not meet your standard. Well-done, sir…
Mstr, re: “Religious fanaticism of Erdogan? that is news to me…” We have a saying here in the USA that goes, “The devil is in the details.” The crux of your argument lies in how one defines ‘religious fanaticism,’ does it not?
To a Muslim resentful of secularism and hoping for the restoration of the caliphate in Turkey and the Mideast, Erdogan probably does not qualify as a fanatic. However, to a westerner, concerned about pan-Islamism and the aggressiveness of Muslims in Europe and elsewhere, Erdogan’s rhetoric sounds like that of a religious fanatic, i.e., as when Prime Minister Erdogan said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…” I don’t know about you, but those are the words of a religious militarist and Islamix imperialist…
Perspective, you see, is everything.
I am in awe of everyone who can predict the future. Unfortunately, one stupid move can change everything forever. Remember Forrest Gump, “stupid is as stupid does.” Since there is a pandemic of “stupid,” anything can happen. One oil well polluting the enclosed Mediterranean from Turkey to Egypt would do it. One stupid politician sacrificing a warship for headlines! One crop failure. One degree increase or decrease in global temperature. The use of just one small atomic weapon!
I have a hard time deciding which foot to put in front of the other or what I should wear for the changing weather. I am in awe of everyone who knows more or less how things are going to turn out, especially those who look at the past to predict the future. There are things we can know, but maybe the future is not one of them.
You are right, we cannot know the future. IMHO a war is coming. My reasoning is that their is a thing I would call social inertia. Asimov uses it as a basis for his Foundation trilogy. I maintain islam is a very dangerous threat to modern civilization. From it’s founder to it’s earliest history through to today we witness a malevolent ideology. There is no doubt that islam is flexing it’s muscles and expanding it’s intentions. They are funding an infrastructure designed to reduce any other culture to ash.
The next war is intended. Whether it begins at a time or place of the islamists is yet to be determined. It may be triggered by an assault. It may begin by accident. Either way it will begin.
@Mr Goldman,
Thanks for this acurate and awesome report.
You should be published in “le figaro”,”le soir” and “la libre Belgique” to present another much needed point of view !
Sincerely ,
Trumpeldor from Brussels, shabby capital of eurabia
“.. Prime Minister Erdogan said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..”
These are verses from a poem which refers to the war of independence(1914-1923). That indeed was a war of existence as Britain-Russia-France was intent on dismembering the Ottomans and sharing the sp/oils. The first world war was an imperialistic war to establish world hegemony by Britain/France/Russia. The consequence of the war was death of close to eight million Turks from Balkans to Hejaz. Turks were ethnically cleansed from Balkans and Armenians from Anatolia.
By the way Erdogan was jailed for reciting that poetry. Erdogan surely takes his religion seriously though not as much as Netanyahu or GWB. But he is not an antisecularist or Islamist, he is more of a nationalist.
That (mis)quotation is widely used by opponents Islam to score a propaganda point that there is no moderation in Islam. All muslims are either engaged in outward jihad or hiding it so that all muslims ipso facto guilty. This view of the world is not only dangerously simplistic, it is totalitarian. It is fascistic to the extent that it tries to impose on muslims -of any grade- an identity which the muslims themselves can not chage: no matter what you do or say you are a jihadi. The tactics they use are no different than the propaganda tactics used by Leninist Indeed it is no minor coincidence that those who are in the fron of this antiIslam propaganda were themselves Leninists at one time.
Anyway, if you engage in a single minded as these Leninists are, you are bound to end up as simpleminded bigot.
mstr – When your “religion” tells you to conquer the world, when your “religion” tells you that you can lie to the infidel, when your “religion” tells you that wherever you step is yours for eternity, when your “religion” commands you to blow yourself up to achieve some of those goals, it stops being a religion. It becomes a political ideology (and in Islams’s case, a totalitarian political ideology) pretending to be a religion.
You may see Erdogan as a nationalist, but that’s because Islam does differentiate between Mosque and state. I would think that Attaturk would not be pleased with the path Erdogan is taking.
While I am anything but a Leninist, you count me as being a simpleminded bigot.
Erratum – That should be: Islam does not differentiate between mosque and state.
“The first world war was an imperialistic war to establish world hegemony by Britain/France/Russia. ”
How to stand history on its head!
Britain and France used every tool in their diplomatic pouches to keep Turkey neutral and out of the war… but the Sultan’s ministers succumbed to German cash and the prospect of seizing the Suez Canal if not all of Egypt.
Reade up on the Goeben incident.
“These are verses from a poem which refers to the war of independence(1914-1923).”
Oh, absolutely. The nationalist-and definitely-not-Islamist Erdogan is practically quoting Ataturk, right?
I’ll note that while you were quick to respond to this supposed affront to your hero Erdogan, you have yet to provide us with the requested back-up to two of your claims:
1. Just when is it that Israel supposedly provoked Turkey by siding with Greece and Cyprus against it?
2. Just how are Israel, Greece, and Cyprus “shutting” Turkey from its maritime oil and gas resources?
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000680384
I’ve read the article you linked to twice, and found nothing that answers my questions and buttresses your claims. Are you sure you posted the right link?
Kris – I read the article too. One man with one opinion about a lot of what ifs, does not a certainty make.
My Dear Mr. Goldman,
Just keep writing such incisive, common sense, informed, and remarkably insightful commentary about the Middle East.
With any luck at all, you and Dr. Rubin will eventually have an impact on the ill informed thinking that passes for American and European Middle East foreign policy.
All the best,
I was wondering if Turkey is or will have some economic fallout from countries/corps being too afraid to invest in Turkey with a madman Islamist as its head?
The comments and cut ‘n paste coming from MSTR are ridiculous.
This article addresses the issue of a potenital famine in Egypt, and I quite agree with that scenario.
With the economy of China booming and with incomes rapidly rising the Chinese will no longer content themselves with a bowl of rice. Meat consumption is rapidly rising ( it take ten pounds of grain to raise one pound of meat) and that rising consumption has driven the price of foodstuffs through the roof.
Almost the ENTIRE islamic world is being priced right out of the commodities markets. Their economies are so sluggish and stagnant ( nothing like sharia to destroy initative and ambition)that they don’t generate enough revenue to purchase the necessary food-staples at world-market prices.
The same thing has happened to Somalia, and it’s also going to happen to Yemen and perhaps Pakistan as well.
For decades now, whole swaths of the Muslim world have failed to grow enough food to feed their populations.
It’s basic logic that if you can’t grow enough food to feed yourself, and if you haven’t the money to purchase sufficient food-stuffs, then it is inevitable that you’ll face famine.
Another intractable problem revolves around growing shortages of fresh water In N. Africa, The Horn of Africa and The Mid-East, but I won’t even get into that
Very good article!
What is driving the Turkish prime minister round the twist?
His wife ?
I have read more than a few times that Erdogan’s Islamic leanings are even more exaggerated in his spouse.
So much for the ideals of Ataturk.
Does Turkey rival Iran for Muslim leadership/supremacy in the rather immense bloc (including much of northern Africa) now taking shape?
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…”
Should say- the mosquitos are in our barracks, the dummies forgot their helmets, our fartful soldiers spend time twirling maronettes and don’t have bayonets-so much for a modern army..
I have been concerned by the current administration’s policies towards the Middle East. Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Friday expressed regret over the fall of US ally Hosni Mubarak “while President Obama sat on his hands.” This sitting on his hands, as I have mentioned several times, goes back to the Iranian uprising in 2009.
Earlier this year Obama attempted to put Israel on the US State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terror; however, pro-Hamas Turkey is to chair an Obama backed counter-terrorism body. This panel is not to include Israel and is being done quietly, in the shadows of the UN General Assembly this week. Hillary Clinton calls this “smart power approach to counterterrorism,” and described the founding group as “traditional allies, emerging powers and Muslim-majority countries.” I call it another attempt to subjugate the power and strength of America to its enemies.
There is also that little and far too under-reported “want” from the administration to put in a direct phone line to Tehran.
http://msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/09/obama-gets-cosier-with-iran.html
“Packages of subsidized flour are not reaching the intended recipients, in part because the Solidarity Ministry hasn’t provided the promised shipments to stores, and in part because subsidized flour and bread are diverted to the black market” -that wouldn’t be the flour US has been shipping to Egypt, now would it? Reminds me of Somalia? When the “crisis” first started- I don’t remember -either 4 or 8 shiploads of wheat were rushed to Egypt from US-free..
Since then -who knows how much and what has been shipped from US to Egypt- hopefully no more weapons…
Circa 94 years ago a book was published(The Grand Illusion) proving that there was not enough gold to finance a European War. Somehow one occurred anyway. We’re still feeling the effects. I’m not trusting of logical comforts against human stupidity and insanity.
I would hope that G would go to his roots on this one. Like a financial forecast in other places we have a lot of different factors nudging Egypt Turkey and others in the direction of unpleasant outcomes. Tragic perhaps, but also the result of human agency reflecting human will.
First, Egypt and other places are heading toward some type of Malthusian trap, that is, production is being outstripped by politically potent demand on income.
Second, these pressure are high intensity so infrastructure and the military suffer. You are confronted with significant disinvestment which is not completely visible, and that is why it happens. In the military, they can still have the equipment, but maintenance is decreased along with availability. Training is the first to go and that can be measured by rounds fired per year. Correcting these problems is expensive and visible.
Three, unlike Somalia, the hungry can easily come to the government and make real trouble. If the short falls appear to be chronic and increasing, the pressure of and for corruption increases so less become available as people start stealing in order to be able to escape.
There appears to be no self-corrective mechanism in many places. The system of transfers both internal and international are brittle and offer no imaginable possibility except for the traditional flight and die-off cycle.
Anywhere government gets involved in income transfers, it become very vulnerable: trying for a sort of Marxist management of conflict eventually become unsustainable. The USSR didn’t fall from a sudden desire of the population for freedom, except insofar as the system failed to work, and that is what we will see in many places. Greece should be a very good study in political overcommitment from the Left.
That graph of the ‘collapse’ of the Turkish Lira vs the dollar is very misleading. By chopping of the bottom 2/3rds of the graph, it makes it look like the lira has dropped 90%. It’s down, but more like 20%, not 90%. The PURPOSE of a graph is to visually display information in a way that makes it quick and easy to understand. This graph doesn’t inform, it mis-informs. For shame.
This is the standard format in which Yahoo! produces graphs. Write to their Webmaster if you don’t like it. One assumes that people who look at graphs know how to read the left-hand scale. Nonetheless, the lira is the worst-performing currency in the world this year.
And what happens to the US if Egypt falls? Are we going to be innundated with starving Muslim Brotherhood members due to our insane immigration policy (just like we are importing the wonderful, grateful, infidel-loving Somalis)?
It’s time to elect a President and Congress who will secure our border and limit immigration to this country.
We have our own problems, we do not need those of Egypt, Turkey, etc.
And how are Egyptians going to get to the US?
Maybe this way:
http://www.solarnavigator.net/history/ra.htm
“Any military provocation would lead to a further collapse of the Turkish currency…”
If Erdogan listens to Krugman (and really, who doesn’t?) then war is the answer!
it’s quite simple…Erdogan has to go after resources, and that’s why he’s eyeing the Israeli operations. Taking something as valuable as oil and natural gas, instead of paying for it, can not only fix your economy, but also support your war machine.
As decisively proved by Operation Barbarossa.
Mr. Goldman,
I can’t help but think that you’re underestimating the danger Israel is in. Countries in desperate circumstances have been known to wage wars to divert domestic attention. Argentina during the Falklands War comes to mind. I think you’re also underestimating Turkish military capabilities. While Israel does possess the best air force in the region, air power is not the decisive factor. Egypt, Syria, and Turkey combined enjoy an enormous manpower advantage over Israel. Quantity has a quality all of its own. Furthermore, Turkey benefited from decades of NATO tutelage. While I doubt their troops are up to NATO standard, they are probably a cut above your average Arab soldier. All this, combined with the threat posed by the Palestinian Authority, the Hamas, and the Hezbollah lead me to the conclusion that Israel probably faces its greatest danger since 1948.
I’d say that the Turkish army is more than “a cut above” most Arab ones. In fact, I’d bet on the Turkish army versus all Arab armies combined. (Certainly before the Yezhovshchina.) If Turkey bordered Israel, the IDF heads would be spending many sleepless nights. But it doesn’t, and air power does become a decisive factor, and the only way Turkey can become a true threat to Israel is through Israeli incompetence. Hmm, that wasn’t as optimistic as I thought…
I am shocked beyond all measure!
The magnificent Spengler (and I say that in all seriousness as a regular reader) hasn’t yet heard of airplanes, boats, and refugee programs?
Further reading on modern transportation technology and the state of the American immigration system (particularly re: Somali refugee resettlement) is respectfully suggested.
Beth,
I know about trains, planes and automobiles. What I wanted to suggest by linking to Thor Heyerdahl is that what the Egyptians will be able to afford is papyrus.
No relations with Turkey? This close to Thanksgiving?
Would you Czech if there’s still Greece on the China, because I’m Hungary.
Congratulations for the absolute WORST set of puns I’ve ever Peru’ed on the Internet.
This Congo on and on but let’s not.
Wonderful post! Great that you’ve included screenshots to validate your statements and show your progress. As an owner of a review site, I haven’t seen the “effect” of writing reviews and setting up an affiliate in order to gain an income. I am inspired by your post to be more dedicated in making strategies to generate traffic to my site.
We, Turks are doomed because of Erdogan’s meaningless politics. He is not well educated enough to govern a country. All he knows is talking about religion and Israel.
I don’t agree with the writer about Turkey’s demography but he is right about current economical situation.