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291. Torpedoing the Law: How the Palmer Report Justified Israel's Naval Blockade of Gaza

Author:
Norman G. Finkelstein
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
On May 31st, 2010, Israeli commandos killed nine passengers aboard a humanitarian flotilla destined for Gaza. Eight of the nine were Turkish citizens, while one was a dual U.S.-Turkish citizen. On August 2nd, 2010, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a Panel of Inquiry (POI) to “examine and identify the facts, circumstances and context of the incident,” and to “consider and recommend ways of avoiding similar incidents in the future.” In September 2011, the POI's final report was unofficially released. In a finding that shocked the international community, the report concluded that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza was legal. Moreover, the report vilified the passengers aboard the humanitarian flotilla because they sought to publicize the illegality and inhumanity of Israel's blockade. A careful analysis of the POI report shows that it is probably the most mendacious and debased document ever issued under the aegis of the United Nations.
Political Geography:
Turkey, Israel, and United Nations

292. Israel: Quo Vadis, Turkey?

Author:
Oded Eran
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The Mavi Marmara tragic affair is viewed in Israel as part of a Turkish political maneuvering which gained momentum following the Arab Spring. According to this view Turkey under Prime Minister Erdogan has identified a vacuum created by the US phased withdrawal from the region, a decline in Egypt's traditional role and the growing European and American need for Turkey's involvement. In these circumstances, Turkey can assert itself as a regional power with domestic, regional and international political and economic returns. Championing thePalestinian cause and criticizing Israel bears hardly any price tag. Israelis and, especially, those who decide whether to accept Turkey's demand for ending the Mavi Marmara affair and restoring normal relations, question whether this is Turkey's strategy. The Arab Spring may produce major changes in the region's political map that would also affect Turkey and Israel. This is a time when a dialogue, rather than rupture and confrontation, would better serve their long term interests. Yet both governments are now entrenched in their positions. This calls for a nongovernmental initiative to prevent further deterioration and search for a process to heal the relationship.
Political Geography:
Turkey, Israel, and Palestine

293. The Arab Spring Gathers Clouds: Why the Revolts for Change Have Stalled

Author:
Yasser M. El-Shimy
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The wave of popular protests engulfing the Arab Middle East has yielded markedly different results. While the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia prompted meaningful, and immediate, political change, the regimes of Syria, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen are able to put up a fight. The violent stalemates in the latter countries may eventually give way to political reform, but for now the fate of their popular uprisings is anything but certain. What explains this outcome divergence between the two sets of nations? What makes one autocratic Arab regime stronger than another? What roles do societies and militaries play in shaping the future of the Arab Spring? This article suggests that authoritarian regimes with established networks of social patronage and unwavering military loyalty are better able to withstand calls for change.
Political Geography:
Middle East, Libya, and Syria

294. The Arab Spring and Turkey: The Camp David Order vs. the New Middle East

Author:
Taha Özhan
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Over the past decade, Turkey has been experiencing a decisive transition that North Africa and the Middle East only recently have begun to feel. It will be misleading to interpret the changes in the Arab world as unique and isolated developments taking place in each country, on a case by case basis. “The Camp David Order,” that took shape after 1978, based on Western support for authoritarian Arab leaders, has dominated Middle Eastern affairs for the last three decades. The US invasion of Iraq intentionally or unintentionally shook up the status quo of the regional order. Turkey has been seen as a success story for those countries suffering from a lack of democratization, economic development and a more equitable distribution of income, while enduring a “Cold Peace” with Israel. Just as Turkey had a role in the transformation of the Arab world, the Arab world will also play a significant role in the formation of the “New Turkey.” Turkey will remain an actor helping to build this new democratic and more prosperous regional order, as long as it deploys its comparative, historical, and strategic advantages.
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

295. Turkey's Foray into Africa: A New Humanitarian Power?

Author:
Abdirahman Ali
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan visited Somalia in mid-August to raise awareness on the devastating famine that left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced nearly a million. But the visit had broader undertones for Turkey: as a rising power that straddles the east and west, Ankara was aiming to pronounce its unique foreign policy orientation, predicated upon its moral authority, not its military or economic clout. More importantly, Turkey was laying the foundation for its foray into Africa -a continent that, by and large, remains untouched and underdeveloped. As Ankara re-orientates its foreign and trade policies, it is establishing roots in Africa by making humanitarian assistance its initial point of contact. And while traditional powers (the U.S., EU, China and India) take a wait-and-see attitude towards Africa, particularly with respect to stabilization, Turkey appears to be investing in the stabilization phase and planting the seeds for a long longterm engagement.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Africa, China, Turkey, and India

296. A Tradition in Delivering Injustice: Judiciary and Rights in Turkey

Author:
Necati Polat
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This piece is on a number of critical rulings issued recently by high courts in Turkey in brazen disregard of the discourse of human rights, to which a growing commitment appears paradoxically to be the case in democratic politics. The bureaucratic authority that characterizes the dissipating old regime in the country is often associated with the military. Yet the civilian bureaucracy, in particular the high judiciary, with justices long handpicked from among the legal elite with a disdain of democratic politics, has been just as crucial in sustaining the old order molded by anachronisms of the 1930s, when the regime that defines this order, Kemalism, emerged in concerted thinking with authoritarianisms prevalent in Europe at the time. The overhaul of the system of high courts from 2010 has clearly been momentous in seeking to bring the judicial establishment into line with democracy and human rights. Still, the settled reflexes seem on the whole to be resilient in dictating the outcome in crucial cases, rendering the transformation both sluggish and painful.
Topic:
Human Rights and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Turkey

297. Turkey at the Crossroads: From "Change with Politics as Usual" to Politics with Change as Usual

Author:
Ümit Cizre
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The article analyzes the new roadmap for Turkey after the summer 2011 elections as not a “resumption” of unfinished business from the last nine years, but from the perspective of the ability of Turkey's ruling party, the AK Party, as well as the opposition forces and actors to “transform” some anachronistic features of the dominant politics as well as deal with troubling new trends in society. The AK Party governments made progress in many areas by pushing forward a series of far-reaching reforms which have genuinely changed Turkish politics. However, Turkey under AK Party rule includes a society which has failed to shed its extreme hostility toward different ideas, identities and values. Moreover, current opposition parties and movements in Turkey continue to be weak in imagination, vision, capacity and leadership, which have led to rigidities and even deeper political divisions. More importantly, the new government will have to create new possibilities out of its past failures and turn paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities in politics and society, in the country and in the region, into positive achievements.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Turkey

298. The Electoral Success of the AKP: Cause for Hope and Despair

Author:
Menderes Çınar
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The 2011 elections marked the emergence of the AKP as a political brand that is likely to win all the elections in the foreseeable future. The party's overwhelming popularity is linked to its image as the most reliable and trustworthy political party today. The ambitious democratization promises of the AKP created hopes for a paradigm shift in Turkish politics in the aftermath of the elections. However the AKP's overemphasis on its brand name and its consequent monopolization of the democratization process, excluding Turkey's other parties, have raised concerns over the fulfillment of a more profoundly democratic participatory system in Turkey. Moreover, the AKP's adoption of populist rhetoric and stereotypes, which is usually the hallmark of Turkey's right-wing traditionalist parties, raises further concerns. Finally, the failure of the main opposition CHP to form a coherent platform to challenge the AKP's monopoly over Turkey's political scene has contributed to the growing skepticism for a new democratic political paradigm in Turkey.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Turkey

299. Continuity and Rupture: The "New CHP" or 'What Has Changed in the CHP?'

Author:
Ayşen Uysal
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This paper discusses the CHP within the paradigm of party individualization and the “political firm.” In what ways has the CHP made a break from its past? In what ways has it maintained historical continuity? Just how new is the “New CHP?” In this paper, the subject will be studied in terms of two dimensions: election campaigns and the discourse of the CHP on the one hand, and the organization and leadership on the other. This paper starts from the hypothesis that the CHP has transformed into a catch-all cartel party. To test this hypothesis the article first provides a short overview of what the CHP has been up to for the past year and a half. The developments which the party had lived through brought to the fore the claims of a “New CHP” and its “changing ideological axis.” Moreover, the article discusses the CHP's dilemmas as a cartel party which attempts to appeal to every voter segment and its ideological status.
Topic:
History

300. The 2011 Elections and the Kurdish Question?

Author:
Mesut Yeğen
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This essay argues that the 2011 election results point to a number of important conclusions concerning the Kurdish question in Turkey. First, the Kurdish party will continue to be the main actor in “Kurdish question politics.” Second, the AK Party has been unable to halt the rise of the Kurdish party in a number of provinces with large Kurdish populations. Third, political parties, other than the Kurdish party and the AK Party, have been eliminated from “Kurdish question politics.” This essay will demonstrate that the support for the Kurdish party is gradually acquiring a territorial dimension. Thus, this essay argues that the notion of democratic autonomy proposed today for the whole of Turkey by the Kurdish party may over time give way to the political objective of “autonomy for Kurdistan” or even “federal Kurdistan.” It is also argued that the same trend may foster a political agenda of “Kurds to Kurdistan” to take hold in Turkish politics.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Turkey