Erdogan to stage anti-Semitic show trial of Kurds charged as “US and Israel terror agents”
Turkey’s MIT this week arrested Dawud Baghestani, Chairman of the Israeli-Kurdish Friendship Association and editor of the Israel-Kurd Magazine with at least three of his associates, accusing them of undercover ties with the banned PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) and US and Israeli intelligence. By staging a show trial of the accused, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan seeks to show that US and Israeli intelligence maintain illicit ties with terrorist groups in Syria. DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources note that he will be targeting entities he holds responsible for putting a spoke in his military designs on Syria, the US, Israel and the Kurds, and hit them with one stone.
The Turkish president knows he can’t admit that his brave military plan for the takeover of northern Syria has been stymied without losing face at home. He has therefore contrived a distraction, a demonstration of how US and Israeli clandestine services are sabotaging Turkey’s national interests.
Two years ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that Israel is opposed to the PKK as a terrorist group– in striking contrast to Turkey which backs the Palestinian Hamas. Israel, said the prime minister, is against terrorists, while “supporting the Kurdish people’s legitimate aspirations for a state of their own.”
Both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave Erdogan due warning that they would not tolerate a Turkish army invasion of Syria and its takeover of Kurdish regions ruled by the US-backed Syrian Defense Forces, the bulk of whose members belong to the Kurdish YPG militia. Although Moscow is just as responsible as Washington for frustrating his plans, Erdogan does not dare touch the Russians knowing they would punish him through his assets in Syria.
Turkish intelligence has meanwhile mobilized its mouthpiece, The Daily Sabah, which led the pack in the scandal over the death of the Saudi journalist Jama Khashoggi, to maximize the case against the Kurdish detainees. They are guilty not just of ties with the PKK, says the paper, but also with “several terrorist organizations,” and names them: The Kurdish Communists (which call themselves the Kurdistan Communities Union or KCK) and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which DEBKAfile notes is the main Syrian Kurdish political party and is recognized as such by Moscow and Washington, and even by Syrian President Bashar Assad, as the community’s official representative. The third group with which the detainees are accused of consorting is the Iranian branch of the PKK, the Iranian Kurdish armed opposition Kurdistan Free Life (PJAK)
None of the three meets the description of “terrorist.”
Media published in Irbil, the capital of semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, reported that the Turkish prosecution will charge Baghestani and his colleagues with “disseminating terrorist propaganda” on social media during 2018, on behalf of the Kurdish-Israeli friendship Association. This will put Israel front and center of their trial.
The Kurdish accused were arrested on Saturday, Feb. 2, while the Turkish president was welcoming the delegates of Israel Arab parties, MK Ahmed Tibi, Talb Abu Ar’ar and Massoud Ganaim. He assured them that he would not hestitate to defend the Palestinian people, Jerusalem and Al Aqsa. They also discussed the Israel government’s “racist policies” towards its Arab minority.
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something makes me think thanksgiving…turkey time? he’s acting like a dictator but he’s got a trick up his sleeve and it smells like putin
My Amazons insist all Israelis special forces leave my Kingdom of Rojava along with that MEK pretender to my throne, Maryam Rajavi, along with the US troop pullout
Any interruptus of Israeli Grand Strategy this caused is unfortunate, but necessary
Troll!!
Perhaps Greece and Cyprus might be amenable to 250,000 Kurds being resettled in Northern Cyprus, with a little bit of help from Israel.
Another Troll !!!
Jew hatred is a mental illness that leads to deterioration of the diseased brain.
Side effects may include loss of territory and life.
The ottoman empire is dying hard. RIP ottoman empire, go the way of all before you.
The Ottoman Empire has been dead for 100 years. There will be no resurrection!! It’s time for Turkey to realize that.
Erdogan might be a dictator,but he is a very frustrated one and they become the most dangerous.
Overusing the charge of “anti-Semitic” is dulling it as a taboo. Real anti-semitism musn’t be tolerated and the people who are guilty of it must be shunned by the civilized world. Spurious accusations of anti-semitism run the risk of making anti-semitism more acceptable.
RE: Overusing. You wrote 3 sentences and used anti-semitism 4 times. Perhaps this irony escapes you, or you have great sense of humor.
James, you have hit the mark. The term, as it is so overused, will be interpreted by many, including myself, as nothing more than a sign of weakness, and appeal to the mercies of the secular gov’ts of the (other) nations. “Jew hatred” would be a more accurate term, considering that most arabs are semites also, and as refers to the nation, “enemies of israel” would be far more appropriate. Best of all, we need to humbly accept correction at the hand of our maker, and pray to endure until this and other trappings of the exile are swept away in a wave of national holiness. shalom.
Idiot, Semitism doesn’t refer to semitic languages or the people who speak them, but to a political process. Fckng dimwits.
This isn’t a show trial – it’s real life
The prosecution will have to subpeona the MEK Queen as well
Israel must withdraw from the Rojava (aka Netanyahu’s Brigadoon) t as appropriate to Trump’s other diktats on Netanyahu
BREAKING – Trump was on Face the Nation today dashing the last hope of the sn*kebit Clean Break Plan on Iran, Al Tanf, MEK, Israeli Rojavastan, or any other fantasies of the old Kahanist era
The Americans are going and it’s time for Israel to withdraw it’s forces along with it’s critical US cover. Which Israel will, as now they have no other choice
Trump is all over Netanyahu like a cheap ill-fitting suit now, much like Mueller is, and much as Mandelblit is, and apparently, much like President Mavi Marmara, as well as Mr ICC
Bibi ‘5 Suits’ Netanyahu
‘Payback is an Rich Ivanka’
– Trump’s view of Netanyahu, Israel, and the Israel Lobby stiffing him hard on his last chance Peace Plan,
Since there already is a substantial number of Kurds within Israel coordinating with the Israeli military, I would think that many Kurds would enjoy living in Israeli proper, until it converts to the One State 1P1V1S
It’s the least Israel can do for it’s Kurds, Druze, MEKs, Baluchis, Mubarak, Saad Hariri, Saudi Princes, Henri Bernard Levis, Play Station Kings, and other beloved brothers in arms
Who else is gonna have them?
Carve a Kurdistan out of Turkey.
Why don’t the Turks and the Iranians just attend to their sorrowful economic conditions and the welfare of their own people instead of the rotten antisemitic foreign policy and conquest and expansionism? I guess it is their core beliefs making them insane again as they have done throughout history.
Turkey needs to take care of their man/child Erdogan one way or the other. The guy is a total idiot in the shadow of Hitler.
This “trial” sort of reminds me of the late 1970’s movie “Midnight Express”———-showed Turkey for what it really is!
=== Turkey is anti-Semitic islamic terror state supporting hamas and Iran. erDOGan is an idiot obsessed with Israel’s destruction. Creation of kurdish state in eastern turkey is the only way to restrain the ottoman ambitions of turkey over Jerusalem.
Erdogan is losing it and of course he tries to play dirty. Putin rejects him, Trump rejects him and Erdogan’s dream of a Turkish empire is over. Now he realizes that he will be only a secondary factor and thus he is depressed and frustrated. This trial is a farce and a sign of Erdogan’s defeat.