NEIGHBORS / WHO’S IN FAVOR OF TURKEY?
By Zvi Bar’el

Ha’aretz
es/1155365.html
March 10 2010
Israel

The shock waves generated when the U.S. House Committee on Foreign
Affairs passed a bill defining the 1915 massacre of the Armenians as
genocide did not stop at Turkey’s shores. There have also been many
ripples in the corridors of the Jewish lobby in Washington.

M.J. Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Media Matters Action Network –
whose aim, among other things, is "correcting misinformation … and
combating wrongheaded assessments of conservative" groups relating
to the Middle East – published an analysis of the resolution late
last week. Rosenberg, who once edited the weekly information bulletin
published by the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, and later "crossed the lines"
to direct the Israel Policy Forum’s policy department, wrote that
the Israelis are trying to teach Turkey a lesson. If the resolution
passes both houses of Congress and goes into effect, he wrote,
"it will not be out of some newfound compassion for the victims of
the Armenian genocide and their descendants but to send a message
to Turkey: if you mess with Israel, its lobby will make Turkey pay a
price in Washington. And, just maybe, the United States will pay it
too." Advertisement

Rosenberg based his analysis on an article written by Ron Kampeas, the
Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Kampeas noted
that "in the past, the pro-Israel community has lobbied hard against
previous attempts to pass similar resolutions, citing warnings from
Turkish officials that it could harm the alliance not only with the
United States but with Israel." But for the last year or so, he added,
"officials of American pro-Israel groups have said that while they will
not support new resolutions, they will no longer oppose them, citing
Turkey’s heightened rhetorical attacks on Israel and a flourishing
of outright anti-Semitism the government has done little to stem."

Kampeas immediately responded to Rosenberg. In an article published
on JTA’s web site, he said he agreed that the pro-Israel community is
"hanging back and telling the lawmakers, ‘Do what you feel is right.

We’re not spending political capital on the Turks this season.’" But,
he stressed, he rejects the contention that Israel or the Jewish lobby
was behind the resolution. Back in 2007, when a similar resolution
came before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he noted, seven of the
eight Jewish committee members also voted in favor: Only Robert Wexler
of Florida voted against, because he was "a friend of the Turkish
lobby." In other words, the Jews have always sought to define the
Armenian massacre as a genocide.

So what changed this time around? In 2007, the committee’s chairman,
the late Tom Lantos, wrestled with the question before eventually
voting in favor; this time, the chairman, Howard Berman, co-sponsored
the bill. Wexler is no longer a congressman, and the other seven
Jews on the panel all voted in favor of the resolution. Yet in fact,
Kampeas noted, the bill secured a larger majority in the committee
in 2007 – with 27 in favor and 21 opposed – than it did this time:
Last week’s resolution passed by a very narrow majority of 23-22.

Why does all this matter? Because the bottom line is that the Jewish
congressmen also voted in favor in 2007, "when pro-Israel groups
lobbied very, very hard against the resolution. That they felt freer
to vote in favor yesterday is significant, but the bigger picture
underscores that they are not the lobby’s pawns."

So who was the winner in this vote? Did the pro-Israel lobby
successfully avenge Israel, or did Jewish members of Congress vote
as they did out of moral considerations rather than political ones?

For Turkey, these Jewish calculations are of no interest, nor is the
balance of power between the Jewish lobby and Jewish congressmen. Suat
Kiniklioglu, chairman of the Turkish parliament’s committee on
Israeli-Turkish relations, said in response to the resolution that
"though it seems that neither the American government nor the Jewish
lobby supported the Turkish position, the result was still a Turkish
victory. The Armenians thought they would be able to achieve an easier
and greater victory." In his eyes, and in those of the other Turkish
members of parliament from the ruling Justice and Development Party,
there is no doubt that Israel was behind the resolution, and that this
is the price it is exacting for the past year’s attacks on Israel by
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Is this also the end of the honeymoon between Turkey and AIPAC and
other Jewish organizations that have previously promoted Turkish
interests? "Not necessarily," said a former Turkish diplomat. "Turkey
has plenty of other interests with which the Jewish lobbies could
assist it – for example, military purchasing."

An illness in need of treatment

The Turkish minister for women and family affairs, Selma Aliye Kavaf,
has a clear stance: "I believe that homosexuality is a biological
defect, an illness. Homosexuality is something that needs treatment,
and therefore I don’t have a positive attitude to homosexual
marriages," she said.

Kavaf, whom Erdogan appointed to direct his party’s activities for
women even before he made her a minister, is a symbol of the party’s
openness toward women and its desire to advance them to senior
positions. But it seems that advancing women is not necessarily
synonymous with advancing liberalism.

A few days before she made her medical diagnosis, the minister also
made it clear that she opposed love scenes that included kissing
being screened in Turkish television soap operas. "In Europe and
America, series like these are broadcast under supervision," she
said. "They are coded, and anyone who wants to see them has to buy
them separately. Scenes such as these are perhaps not important for
the morals of people aged 45 or 50, but they can have a different
impact on 4- to 10-year-olds."

So what does the minister like watching on TV? "I watch the ‘Valley
of the Wolves’ series," she responded – the very series that sparked
so much friction between Ankara and Jerusalem because of the way it
depicts Israeli soldiers.