By\u00a0Natasha Mozgovaya<\/p>\n
On the fringes of the Washington meetings of Turkish official delegations, there is usually a special place for outreach with the American Jewish community. But several Jewish groups intend to skip the meeting Wednesday evening with members of the Turkish ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party). The America Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), B\u2019nai Brith International and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have decided to decline the invitation to protest the deteriorating relations between Ankara and Jerusalem.<\/p>\n Ties between Israel and Turkey have been in decline since Israel launched a three-week military operation in Gaza in December 2008, aimed at halting rocket fire on its southern communities. Tensions between the two formerly strong allies were exacerbated when nine people were killed during violent clashes with Israeli troops aboard a ship carrying aid to Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe in dialogue and meetings but there is a point at which it becomes useless to have a conversation,\u201d ADL National Director Abraham Foxman told Haaretz on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can disagree with Israeli government and its policies but why should you cancel visit of Turkish teachers and scholars to Yad Vashem [Israel\u2019s national Holocaust memorial]? I read that the prime minister of Turkey compared the Star of David to a swastika – it\u2019s ugly and anti-Semitic, it\u2019s what our enemies did. So \u2018yesh gvul [there\u2019s a limit].\u201d<\/p>\n Foxman said that he would be happy to resume the outreach meetings once the Turkish government restored ties with Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cLet them first reconcile with Israeli government, and them I\u2019ll be delighted to talk to them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the moment they\u2019ve decided to use Israel as a whipping boy and provoke negative attitudes in Israel\u201d<\/p>\n The American Jewish Committee (AJC), however, decided to attend the meeting, believing that traditional ties should not be abandoned hastily.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had an increasingly rough dialogue with leaders in Turkey, but we believe that we want to take an opportunity to deliver a tough message\u201d, AJC spokeswoman Alex Weininger told Haaretz. \u201cThere is a history of relations between the U.S. and Turkey and Israel and it shouldn\u2019t be easily discarded.\u201d<\/p>\n Turkey was also the subject of strong words from Congress on Wednesday, at a bipartisan press conference on the Hill in support of Israel\u2019s right to defend itself. Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nevada) added that, \u201cIf Israel is at fault in any way, it is for falling into the trap that was set for them by Turkey. The Turks have extraordinary nerve to lecture the State of Israel, when they are occupiers of the island of Cyprus, where they systematically discriminate against the ecumenical patriarch, and they refuse to recognize Armenian genocide. And this is the country that not only funded but sanctioned the flotilla. They did not do this for humanitarian reasons. They did this to provoke an international confrontation. As far as I’m concerned, Turkey is responsible for the nine deaths aboard that ship. It is not Israel that is responsible. Israel’s troops were attacked\u201d.<\/p>\n A letter currently circulating these days on the Hill in support of Israel in the wake of the flotilla raid has now provoked another letter, by the J Street organization, urging Congressmen not to rush to sign the original letter of support.<\/p>\n \u201cThe blockade of Gaza was instituted to stop terrorists from smuggling weapons into Gaza to murder innocent civilians,\u201d said the first petition. \u201cThe several dozen who attacked the Israeli soldiers were not peaceful aid workers, but extremists who sought to aid the Iran-backed terrorist Hamas regime in Gaza. The U.S. should make every effort to thwart international condemnation and focus the international community on the crimes of the Iran-backed Hamas leadership against Israel and the Palestinian people\u201d.<\/p>\n J Street has urged Congressmen not to sign the letter, saying it is counterproductive and does not deal with the issue of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n \u201cJ Street – the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby – is not supporting sign-on letters to the President now circulating in the [House] regarding the Gaza flotilla,\u201d wrote J-Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami.<\/p>\n \u201cAs is far too often the case, these letters have been drafted primarily for domestic political consumption rather than to advance the U.S. interest in peace and security in the Middle East. With tensions in the region already high and vital American and Israeli interests at stake, J Street urges members of Congress to seek changes to the letters currently circulating before signing – or to write their own.<\/p>\n \u201cThe petitions now circulating in the House and Senate, while expressing strong American support for Israel – a position we endorse – fail to address the impact of the present closure of Gaza on the civilian population, the deep American interest in resolving this conflict diplomatically, or the urgency of moving forward with diplomacy before it is too late\u201d.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations has urged lawmakers to sign the petition. The organization\u2019s vice-chairman Malcolm Hoenlein told Haaretz that his organization was not scheduled to take part in a meeting of Jewish leaders with Turkish lawmakers, but added that it is \u201cclearly not the right time for a constructive dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n www.haaretz.com<\/span>, 17.06.10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ADL National Director Abraham Foxman says ‘there comes a point at which it becomes useless to have a conversation.’ By\u00a0Natasha Mozgovaya On the fringes of the Washington meetings of Turkish official delegations, there is usually a special place for outreach with the American Jewish community. But several Jewish groups intend to skip the meeting Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":60022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,155,89,34,922],"tags":[3155,1069,3154,3153,3109],"class_list":["post-19832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-palestinianna","category-turkey","category-usa","category-world","tag-adl","tag-aipac","tag-bnai-brith-international","tag-the-america-israel-political-action-committee","tag-the-anti-defamation-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) warned Ankara that “There will be a cost\u201d if Turkey keeps on its current course of \u201cgrowing closer to Iran and more antagonistic to the State of Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n