Israel intentionally humiliates the turkish ambassador on camera. What do you think about this?

I read it twice and I just can’t get the image of a group of little kids, feeling so self-important and acting like it, until someone comes along and takes away their toys.

It’s called “diplomacy” and it is done daily in and by many nations. You like to single out Israel, I notice. Is it a tic?

This is just a fairly typical diplomatic dust up. Two nations’ “diplomats” playing mind games and media games. It’s generally meaningless.

@pdworkin
It is what makes the news. Why the focus on Israel? Because the country, being the beacon of the western world in the middle east, should know better than doing this kind of counterproductive nonsense. And while it may be ‘diplomacy’, it was dumb diplomacy, a really retarded move. The goal of diplomacy is achieving goals and that requires that both sides meet as equals and treat each other respectfully. What did this move try to achieve? It seems to me the only reason this was done was to humiliate, to agitate and to make the enemy hate them even more. Why do they risk making their country less safe and by extension risk the lives of their citizens, just to play a condescending bully? Behaviour like this is simply unbecoming of a mature and civilised society.

Apparently the Israeli diplomatic corps disagrees with you. Perhaps you should write them a strong letter explaining how foolish they are being. Couch it in diplomatic terms, though.

Beh. Silliness. I am sure stuff like that happens on regular basis, but it’s not much of a deal really.

I agree that it’s not very nice behavior, but they are both being babies. None comes out looking good in this.

Personally, I am not very happy about Israel’s foreign policy. It’s not only stupid, it’s dangerous.

@pdworkin even your smile makes me think exists for diplomatic reasons…
@ragingloli whoever has the support of the US loves to make it clear in public using humiliating words for those who haven’t

I’d say that it’s a valid tactic. The meeting was initially called to address what amounts to anti-Israeli propaganda. You can browbeat much more effectively when you’ve got more altitude.
@ragingloli
The goal of diplomacy is to reach an agreement that’s advantageous for your country; in this respect, diplomats are like lawyers. Diplomacy is a very complicated game of chess, where simple placement is replaced by the psychology of bargaining. The Israeli diplomat did this because he felt that it would improve his tactical situation, though I (not being a diplomat) cannot think of how. Maybe it was merely a show of power, and the offense is incidental. Maybe the offense, and the backlash, are a calculated move to shift Turkey around on the playing field.

.
I don’t see how this:
...television series Valley of the Wolves, popular in Turkey. It depicts Israeli intelligence operatives running operations to kidnap babies and convert them to Judaism.”
should be met with warm cookies and open arms.

@ragingloli Where is your contempt for this issue, also brought up in the BBC article but that you deliberately neglected to mention?

“The meeting with the Turkish ambassador, Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, was called over the fictional television series Valley of the Wolves, popular in Turkey.
It depicts Israeli intelligence operatives running operations to kidnap babies and convert them to Judaism.” And this is ok how?

Incidentally, this type of TV series is common in the Middle East. Let’s not even mention Palestinian TV urging young children to become martyrs on a Sesame Street equivalent.

Makes me want to watch Chapin’s The Great Dictator with Jack Oakie again.

@shilolo
So you think a fictional TV show that is not produced or backed by the government, no matter how tasteless or inflammatory, justifies calling in a government official just to humiliate him on camera? If there was a TV show in the US depicting Germans as emotionless Nazis, would the German government be justified to call in the US ambassador to empty a bucket of piss on his head on camera? No it would not. In fact, that they did this because of a TV show makes it even more childish.

@ragingloli Something seems to interfere with your otherwise cogent thought process when it comes to Israel. Were you bitten by a Jew in a caftan when you were an infant, perhaps?

@pdworkin
Tell me please, why is it that whenever some one criticises Israel, the first thing that is done is implying antisemitism? It has nothing to do with Jews or the jewish culture but everything with the actions of a government that is not held to the same standard or level of responsibility as others.
Also, why is it that you never seem to find any fault when it comes to Israel? I could say the same about your thougth processes in that situation aswell.

@ragingloli There is nothing independent about Turkish television, and you should know that. Much like there is nothing independent about the Hamas television broadcasts. The fact that the Turkish government allows such blatant anti-Semitism (as the old blood libel that non-Jewish children were kidnapped for rituals) is indeed a legitimate reason to have a diplomatic discussion. Humiliation or not, the people in those countries are constantly bombarded with this type of insidious anti-Semitism, and yet Turkey is considered secular. I could break the Fluther quip limit with examples of this from every country in the Middle East, including so-called allies and “democracies” (though we all know there are none save Israel in the Middle East.)

Well, I think what Israel did to the Turkish Ambassador is quotidian diplomatic bullshit, hardly worth bringing up, and you seem to think it’s a major deal, so I guess we just disagree. The US diplomatic corps decided to have Allende executed, and employed the CIA to help bring him down, installing a murderous dictatorship in Chile. Now, that I find objectionable. But seating someone in a low chair? BFD.

This site is riddled with Israeli apologists, it’s pretty offensive, it’s pretty bleak to think that with all the information available, at your very fingertips, with which to examine and explore the history of that region, that people still choose to assume an air of apparent indifference or even support to that thoroughly reprehensible regime. It’s tragic, that you can stare fascism in the face and not feel the urge to smack it. Israel is long past victim status and is a long way into the Bully Boy stage of it’s political evolution.

@mammal It is your post which is offensive. A small democracy surrounded by wealthy and determined enemies sworn to wipe it out of existence has successfully defended itself since 1948 against armed incursions and continuing terrorist bombings, and your sympathies lie with the surrounding oppressive theocracies, busily arming themselves with nuclear weapons? Yeah, that sounds right.

@mammal
1) What makes Israel a “thoroughly reprehensible regime”?
2) What makes it fascist? Or a bully, for that matter?

Keep a lookout for bias in your fact-finding, ‘cos believe you me, it’s there. For instance, on Dec. 2 of last year, a Palestinian stabbed a handful of people in a gas station and ran away. Somebody shot him. Then he was run down by the husband of one of the stabbing victims the latter was driving a car and mooshed a few times under the wheels before the Israeli MPs could take control of the situation. Yet most accounts make it look like a random act of violence.

G.W. Bush made the former German chancellor Schroeder wait for hours. I was worse than visiting a dentist. I think Schroeder never forgave his “host”. Rumsfeld also had a reputation for cruel games like walking out of the room as soon as the German defense minister started to speak. How dare someone have a different opinion about the Iraq war.

I think you’re all wrong. You’re also all right. @ragingloli There is no doubt in my mind that the Israeli government does some pretty awful things, but this was a fairly typical diplomatic encounter, and I think you are blowing it out of proportion. @pdworkin I don’t really see what’s offensive about @mammal‘s post. He never said his “sympathies lie with the surrounding oppressive theocracies”. They may, I don’t know, but criticizing Israel doesn’t mean one likes Jordan, or Hamas, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia. The terrorists who attack Israel are wrong. But Israel is wrong to respond disproportionately, to maintain a blockade of the Gaza strip that creates awful conditions for everyone there, and it is wrong to wall off sections of the West Bank and treat Arabs as they do. I won’t go into the more sensitive issues of settlements and whether Israel should have been created in the first place, but the point is that Israel has a lot to answer for, but that doesn’t mean that other nations don’t also (including the U.S.). Those of us who are Americans, however, have a particular right to criticize Israel, given the enormous amount of U.S. financial and military assistance they receive. We have every right to question what is done with our tax dollars. It is wrong to assume that all criticism of Israel is anti-semitism, and it is wrong to assume that all critics of Israel are supporter of Hamas or anyone else in the region. It is also wrong to blow insignificant issues out of proportion when there are so many legitimate issues to criticize Israel for.

And if the Israelis really want to piss off Turkey, all they have to do is take a stand on the Armenian Genocide.