06-08-2016, 09:12 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-09-2016, 04:37 PM by John J. Xenakis.)
*** 9-Jun-16 World View -- Three terror attacks in Turkey and Israel mark start of Ramadan
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Israel's Netanyahu responds cautiously to Tel Aviv terror attack
****
![[Image: g160608b.jpg]](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g160608b.jpg)
Police at scene of Wednesdays attack in Tel Aviv (Haaretz)
Many times in the past, jihadists have scheduled terror attacks for
the beginning of Ramadan, and that may be the reason for the three
Mideast terror attacks in the last two days, one in Tel Aviv and two
in Turkey.
Four people were killed and five injured on Wednesday night when
terrorists dressed as Hasidic Jews opened fire at a popular market
complex in Tel Aviv. Two Palestinian subjects were arrested.
The attack was apparently well-planned. Since the price of firearms
in the Palestinian territories is prohibitively high, both of the
gunmen in Wednesday night's attack apparently used improvised
firearms: an imitation of the Swedish-made Carl Gustav recoilless
rifle, which was used primarily in the 1950s and ’60s, and which is
known on the Palestinian street as the Carlo. This has been the weapon
of choice of Palestinian assailants in the recent spate of terror
attacks.
Correction: Several readers have pointed out that there are two
"Carl Gustav" guns, and the paragraph above identifies the wrong one.
The "recoilless rifle" is actually a large antitank weapon, too large
to carry into a restaurant. The weapon used in the attack was a clone
of the Carl Gustav 9mm submachine gun dating to 1945. [Paragraph
added 9-Jun-2016]
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the
attacks cautiously:
[indent]<QUOTE>"We gathered to discuss a number of steps, both
defensive and offensive, that we will take in order to act against
this very severe phenomenon of shooting attacks. It definitely
poses a challenge to us, but we will respond. ...
We are at the peak of a difficult period. We will act with
resoluteness and with intelligence."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
A couple of months ago, there was a spate of knifing attacks on
Israelis by Palestinians. Those knifing attacks have all but ended,
and Netanyahu's caution may have been from a desire not to further
inflame relations. Wednesday's attack was the first major terror
attack in several weeks. Haaretz (Israel) and Jerusalem Post
****
**** West Bank Palestinians reject call to end security cooperation with Israel
****
I've reported on three or four occasions in the last couple of years
that some Palestinians have called on the West Bank Palestinian
Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to end all
security cooperation with Israel, forcing Israeli security forces to
take responsibility for policing the entire West Bank, rather than
sharing that burden.
On May 4, the PLO Executive Committee announced that it decided "to
immediately begin implementing the Palestinian Central Council's
decisions regarding limiting the political, economic and security
relations with the occupation authorities [i.e., Israel]," and this
due to "Israel's disregard of signed agreements and its insistence on
destroying the two-state solution." The decision was motivated by
Israel's rejection in April of the French initiative for convening an
international conference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
However, the decision has sparked a great deal of criticism
among Palestinian leaders, and no steps have been taken to
implement it.
Former Nablus mayor and Executive Committee member Ghassan Al-Shak'a
responded as follows:
[indent]<QUOTE>"The decision taken by the Palestinian Central Council
in its latest session [on March 2015], namely that relations with
Israel must be severed, was an emotional decision, since most of
the Central Council members came from abroad, from Chile, Romania,
Australia, America and other countries, and their view of the
Palestinian issue is more emotional than it is practical and
realistic – unlike [the view taken by] us, the members [who live]
inside Palestine...
[I maintain that] we kid ourselves when we say we are able to
boycott Israel or sever our relations with it, especially in the
two domains of security and economy, which are fundamental to the
lives of the Palestinian people and the residents of the occupied
West Bank... [If we sever these relations] how can we bring fuel
and flour [into our territories] and how can we keep the power
running, etc.? Israel controls us on land, in the sea and in the
air. If we decided, hypothetically, to sever our economic
relations with Israel and cancel the Paris Protocol on economic
[relations], could we actually live without them? That is the
question we must put to those who demand day and night to end the
economic and security coordination and to sever the relations with
Israel...
When Israel wants to enter a village, city or refugee camp, it
does not care whether they are in area A, B or C, because we have
no sovereignty over the land, with or without security
coordination. Security coordination serves our interest. If the PA
wants to launch a security campaign to enforce law and order, as
it did in Nablus when it brought in 1,500 security officers [from
all over the West Bank] – would it be able to do this without
security coordination with Israel? Of course not. [Furthermore,]
there are 1,000 individuals wanted [by Israel] who are [held] in
bases of the [Palestinian] security apparatuses throughout the
West Bank. If we suspend the security coordination, Israel will
surely arrest them immediately, and that will be to the detriment
of our young people..."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
MEMRI
****
**** Turkey endures two days of terror bombing attacks
****
There were two major terror attacks in Turkey this week, one on
Tuesday and one on Wednesday. It's thought that the attacks, along
with the attack in Tel Aviv, were scheduled to coincide with the start
of Ramadan.
On Tuesday in Istanbul Turkey, a car bomb was detonated around 8:35 am
just as a police bus was passing near a policy station. The bomb
killed 11 people, six of whom were police officers, while wounding 36
others. Seven people have been arrested, including the four that
rented the car.
Turkey has been hit by a spate of terrorist bombings in recent months.
In some cases, the perpetrators were the the so-called Islamic State
(IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and in other cases the perpetrators
were terrorists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), or
it terrorist offshoot the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK).
Turkish officials say that Tuesday's suicide bomber was a Syrian
refugee that had come to Turkey, and that the refugee had links to
ISIS. Police are investigating other connections to ISIS.
On Wednesday at 11 am, a car bomb attack targeted police headquarters
in Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin, killing five people,
including two police officers, and wounding around 30. In this case,
Turkish officials say that they've identified they've identified the
perpetrators as terrorists from the PKK.
Southeastern Turkey is a stronghold of ethnic Kurds in Turkey, and
terror attacks occur regularly, leading police to take extra
precautions. Authorities say that Wednesday's attack would have had a
much higher death toll, but that was prevented by safety measures and
barricades already in place. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Hurriyet
****
**** Terror attacks in Turkey complicate EU-Turkey migrant deal
****
In a way, the two terror bombings in two days in Turkey strengthens
Turkey's hand in the continuing negotiations over the EU-Turkey
refugee deal. After all, if one of the bombings was perpetrated by an
ISIS-linked Syrian refugee, then Europe will be all the more desperate
to keep out unvetted Syrian refugees.
So far the EU-Turkey deal has been incredibly successful according to
what the EU wanted to accomplish. In 2015, 800,000 refugees crossed
the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece, and there were thousands of
drownings. But 5,000 have crossed the Aegean Sea in the last two
months, and there were no refugee drownings. So Turkey has
been meeting its obligations under the deal.
But if Turkey has been meeting its obligations, the EU has not:
The EU is also demanding that Turkey liberalize its anti-terrorism
laws, especially those targeting ordinary Kurdish citizens. The two
terror bombings will strengthen Turkey's claims that it's not possible
to liberalize the laws.
We're now well into June, and there's been little public discussion of
the EU-Turkey deal in the past few weeks. My guess is that European
and Turkish officials have tacitly agreed not to discuss this issue
until after Britain's June 23 "Brexit" referendum -- whether Britain
should leave the European Union -- in order not to inflame the
immigration issue further in the Brexit campaigns.
If that's true, then the last week of June is going to be a period of
crisis negotiations between the EU and Turkey, no matter how the
Brexit vote turns out. Daily Sabah (Ankara) and Washington Times and Foreign Policy
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ramadan,
Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, West Bank, Ghassan Al-Shak'a,
Palestinian Authority, PA, Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO,
Turkey, Istanbul, Mardin,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, TAK,
EU-Turkey deal, Greece, Britain, Brexit
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Israel's Netanyahu responds cautiously to Tel Aviv terror attack
- West Bank Palestinians reject call to end security cooperation with Israel
- Turkey endures two days of terror bombing attacks
- Terror attacks in Turkey complicate EU-Turkey migrant deal
****
**** Israel's Netanyahu responds cautiously to Tel Aviv terror attack
****
Police at scene of Wednesdays attack in Tel Aviv (Haaretz)
Many times in the past, jihadists have scheduled terror attacks for
the beginning of Ramadan, and that may be the reason for the three
Mideast terror attacks in the last two days, one in Tel Aviv and two
in Turkey.
Four people were killed and five injured on Wednesday night when
terrorists dressed as Hasidic Jews opened fire at a popular market
complex in Tel Aviv. Two Palestinian subjects were arrested.
The attack was apparently well-planned. Since the price of firearms
in the Palestinian territories is prohibitively high, both of the
gunmen in Wednesday night's attack apparently used improvised
firearms: an imitation of the Swedish-made Carl Gustav recoilless
rifle, which was used primarily in the 1950s and ’60s, and which is
known on the Palestinian street as the Carlo. This has been the weapon
of choice of Palestinian assailants in the recent spate of terror
attacks.
Correction: Several readers have pointed out that there are two
"Carl Gustav" guns, and the paragraph above identifies the wrong one.
The "recoilless rifle" is actually a large antitank weapon, too large
to carry into a restaurant. The weapon used in the attack was a clone
of the Carl Gustav 9mm submachine gun dating to 1945. [Paragraph
added 9-Jun-2016]
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the
attacks cautiously:
[indent]<QUOTE>"We gathered to discuss a number of steps, both
defensive and offensive, that we will take in order to act against
this very severe phenomenon of shooting attacks. It definitely
poses a challenge to us, but we will respond. ...
We are at the peak of a difficult period. We will act with
resoluteness and with intelligence."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
A couple of months ago, there was a spate of knifing attacks on
Israelis by Palestinians. Those knifing attacks have all but ended,
and Netanyahu's caution may have been from a desire not to further
inflame relations. Wednesday's attack was the first major terror
attack in several weeks. Haaretz (Israel) and Jerusalem Post
****
**** West Bank Palestinians reject call to end security cooperation with Israel
****
I've reported on three or four occasions in the last couple of years
that some Palestinians have called on the West Bank Palestinian
Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to end all
security cooperation with Israel, forcing Israeli security forces to
take responsibility for policing the entire West Bank, rather than
sharing that burden.
On May 4, the PLO Executive Committee announced that it decided "to
immediately begin implementing the Palestinian Central Council's
decisions regarding limiting the political, economic and security
relations with the occupation authorities [i.e., Israel]," and this
due to "Israel's disregard of signed agreements and its insistence on
destroying the two-state solution." The decision was motivated by
Israel's rejection in April of the French initiative for convening an
international conference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
However, the decision has sparked a great deal of criticism
among Palestinian leaders, and no steps have been taken to
implement it.
Former Nablus mayor and Executive Committee member Ghassan Al-Shak'a
responded as follows:
[indent]<QUOTE>"The decision taken by the Palestinian Central Council
in its latest session [on March 2015], namely that relations with
Israel must be severed, was an emotional decision, since most of
the Central Council members came from abroad, from Chile, Romania,
Australia, America and other countries, and their view of the
Palestinian issue is more emotional than it is practical and
realistic – unlike [the view taken by] us, the members [who live]
inside Palestine...
[I maintain that] we kid ourselves when we say we are able to
boycott Israel or sever our relations with it, especially in the
two domains of security and economy, which are fundamental to the
lives of the Palestinian people and the residents of the occupied
West Bank... [If we sever these relations] how can we bring fuel
and flour [into our territories] and how can we keep the power
running, etc.? Israel controls us on land, in the sea and in the
air. If we decided, hypothetically, to sever our economic
relations with Israel and cancel the Paris Protocol on economic
[relations], could we actually live without them? That is the
question we must put to those who demand day and night to end the
economic and security coordination and to sever the relations with
Israel...
When Israel wants to enter a village, city or refugee camp, it
does not care whether they are in area A, B or C, because we have
no sovereignty over the land, with or without security
coordination. Security coordination serves our interest. If the PA
wants to launch a security campaign to enforce law and order, as
it did in Nablus when it brought in 1,500 security officers [from
all over the West Bank] – would it be able to do this without
security coordination with Israel? Of course not. [Furthermore,]
there are 1,000 individuals wanted [by Israel] who are [held] in
bases of the [Palestinian] security apparatuses throughout the
West Bank. If we suspend the security coordination, Israel will
surely arrest them immediately, and that will be to the detriment
of our young people..."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
MEMRI
****
**** Turkey endures two days of terror bombing attacks
****
There were two major terror attacks in Turkey this week, one on
Tuesday and one on Wednesday. It's thought that the attacks, along
with the attack in Tel Aviv, were scheduled to coincide with the start
of Ramadan.
On Tuesday in Istanbul Turkey, a car bomb was detonated around 8:35 am
just as a police bus was passing near a policy station. The bomb
killed 11 people, six of whom were police officers, while wounding 36
others. Seven people have been arrested, including the four that
rented the car.
Turkey has been hit by a spate of terrorist bombings in recent months.
In some cases, the perpetrators were the the so-called Islamic State
(IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and in other cases the perpetrators
were terrorists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), or
it terrorist offshoot the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK).
Turkish officials say that Tuesday's suicide bomber was a Syrian
refugee that had come to Turkey, and that the refugee had links to
ISIS. Police are investigating other connections to ISIS.
On Wednesday at 11 am, a car bomb attack targeted police headquarters
in Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin, killing five people,
including two police officers, and wounding around 30. In this case,
Turkish officials say that they've identified they've identified the
perpetrators as terrorists from the PKK.
Southeastern Turkey is a stronghold of ethnic Kurds in Turkey, and
terror attacks occur regularly, leading police to take extra
precautions. Authorities say that Wednesday's attack would have had a
much higher death toll, but that was prevented by safety measures and
barricades already in place. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Hurriyet
****
**** Terror attacks in Turkey complicate EU-Turkey migrant deal
****
In a way, the two terror bombings in two days in Turkey strengthens
Turkey's hand in the continuing negotiations over the EU-Turkey
refugee deal. After all, if one of the bombings was perpetrated by an
ISIS-linked Syrian refugee, then Europe will be all the more desperate
to keep out unvetted Syrian refugees.
So far the EU-Turkey deal has been incredibly successful according to
what the EU wanted to accomplish. In 2015, 800,000 refugees crossed
the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece, and there were thousands of
drownings. But 5,000 have crossed the Aegean Sea in the last two
months, and there were no refugee drownings. So Turkey has
been meeting its obligations under the deal.
But if Turkey has been meeting its obligations, the EU has not:
- There are still 55,000 refugees stuck in camps in Greece. The
EU had promised Greece that EU member countries would send a staff of
2,300 experts -- police, case officers, judges, and language
interpreters and translators -- to help process asylum requests, and
the EU has not supplied that staff.
- The EU has not resolved the distribution system whereby approved
asylum seekers would be distributed fairly to the 28 EU
countries.
- The EU is obligated to pay Turkey 3 billion euros in aid for
refugees, followed possibly by 3 billion more. None of that money has
been paid, and is way overdue.
- The EU has committed to visa liberalization by the end of June --
allowing any of Turkey's 74 million citizens must be able to travel
freely throughout Europe's Schengen zone without a visa. Turkey's
president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said repeatedly that if visa
liberalization isn't granted, then he'll cancel the deal and allow the
full flow of Syrian refugees to Europe to resume.
The EU is also demanding that Turkey liberalize its anti-terrorism
laws, especially those targeting ordinary Kurdish citizens. The two
terror bombings will strengthen Turkey's claims that it's not possible
to liberalize the laws.
We're now well into June, and there's been little public discussion of
the EU-Turkey deal in the past few weeks. My guess is that European
and Turkish officials have tacitly agreed not to discuss this issue
until after Britain's June 23 "Brexit" referendum -- whether Britain
should leave the European Union -- in order not to inflame the
immigration issue further in the Brexit campaigns.
If that's true, then the last week of June is going to be a period of
crisis negotiations between the EU and Turkey, no matter how the
Brexit vote turns out. Daily Sabah (Ankara) and Washington Times and Foreign Policy
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ramadan,
Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, West Bank, Ghassan Al-Shak'a,
Palestinian Authority, PA, Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO,
Turkey, Istanbul, Mardin,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, TAK,
EU-Turkey deal, Greece, Britain, Brexit
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
