There seems to be a Dolphin Submarine on Offer…

Dolphin submarine (Wikimedia Commons)

Israel may not get this one, reports DER SPIEGEL, and Taiwan could use one (or many) of these diesel-electric (and fuel-cell propelled) submarines.

If only the technology would stay in Taiwan. With some help from Taipei, China might re-engineer that thing within ten years. The KMT and the CCP are said to be very close. Almost like brothers. And the Taiwan Strait is a flash point. China told the German government so.

But what are we supposed to do with that thing? Putting it into a thema park?

Simply Put, “Genocide”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Wikimedia Commons): wish you were here.

I’m wondering if Ankara can see their demand for an Israeli apology – or severance of diplomatic ties – through. Does the Turkish government need something that would confirm and justify their own hubbub, in the face of the Turkish public at home? A face-saving operation from Tel Aviv?

Maybe Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s prime minister, and many of his fans, have become too used to their own rhetoric. “The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide”, His Excellency reportedly said last year. And in the books of many other “critics” – not Erdoğan’s, to avoid misunderstandings -, there is “genocide” in the Gaza territory. If there is any nation that never committed one, it is, for sure, Turkey itself. “After all, a Muslim can never commit genocide.”  Allah be praised!

Just two estimates – from the CIA Factbook:

Category	Gaza	Turkey
Death Rate	3.36 deaths/1,000 population	6.1 deaths/1,000 population
Infant Mortality Rate	17.71 deaths/1,000 live births	24.84 deaths/1,000 live births

Granted – no information that stems from the Middle East should be taken without a pinch of salt – but if this spells genocide in Gaza, it must be a human right to be on the receiving end.

From Tehran, for a Clearer Picture

Iran has supplied sophisticated radar to Syria that can monitor Israeli air force sorties and threaten its ability to attack Iranian nuclear targets by surprise, Reuters quotes the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ quotes – unnamed by Reuters – Israeli and US officials.

A spokesman for the Syrian embassy in Washington, Ahmed Salkini, denounced the allegation as “classic Israeli PR stunts aimed at diverting the world’s attention from the atrocities they are committing in Gaza and other occupied territories”.

The tech transfer was reportedly carried out about a year ago. In 2007, Israeli fighter jets bombed a Syrian site that the Israelis said housed a nuclear reactor in the final stages of construction. The BBC points out that there has been a UN ban on Iran since 2007 to sell or supply weapons to other countries.

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad travelled Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina last week. MercoPress (Montevideo) writes that Syrian communities are very strong and economically influential in Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina, advocating the establishment of “a new and more just international order” by including Brazil in the U.N. Security Council.

On June 29, Radio Damascus, in a commentary, noted that

The countries currently visited by president al-Assad – Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Cuba – all adopt stands that support the just Arab cause. At the same time, their stands confront the policies of hegemony, war, and terrorism in the whole world. Those states have suffered a lot from the American policies and interference in the affairs of states and peoples. The previous American administrations supported dictatorial regimes, and supported them against their peoples.

Now, Damascus apparently believes, it is time for America to support Syria’s dictatorial regime. And no more distractions, please.

How Israel screws its Reputation

Israel’s government press office passed on a link to a youtube video – by “Caroline Glick and the Flotila Band” –  to journalists on June 4, five days after the IDF raided the Turkish cruising ship Mavi Marmara on May 31 which was on its way to Gaza to “bring in humanitarian aid and supplies”, defying the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.

youtube video: "Caroline Glick and the Flotila Band"

The video, “We con the world”, had been posted on youtube on June 3, produced by the Latma website. Maybe the “joke” could have worked if it had lasted up to twenty seconds – but “We con the world”, based on the 1980s song by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, takes painful five minutes, too long even if it had been a good skit. Israelis act as “Arab” and “Turkish” activists (or gangsters?), and with strained attempts to produce funny lines: “The greatest bluff of all”, “We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas Is Momma Theresa” (by the way, the old nun spelled her name Teresa) are not really funny.

The press office apparently had second thoughts about the “fun”, too. Der Spiegel quotes Dutch  news agency BNO as reporting that the office had contacting them with the intention to retract the email with the link.

The main problem with the video isn’t that it is using stereotypes. That could still be funny. The real problem, I believe, is that Mrs Glick and the Flotila Band didn’t enjoy their own show. It was a hasty propaganda measure, and the Israeli government’s press office dived for it like for a last straw.

The American “Center for Security Policy”, a conservative organization, is a major donor to latma.tv, Der Spiegel wrote on June 5. Caroline Glick, who took part in the “Flotila Band” production, moved from Hyde Park, Chicago to Israel in the 1990s and is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the “Center for Security Policy”. Yesterday, she posted another “funny” one: “The Three Terrors”, i. e. Ahmadinejad (Iran), Erdogan (Turkey), and al-Assad (Syria). The comments to her post don’t suggest that the viewers really had fun either. It’s fear, loathing, and little else.

It is obvious that the “Free Gaza” movement gives a rat’s ass on how life and Hamas are treating the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. The only thing that matters is what Israel does to Gaza. The “Free Gaza” movement wouldn’t have cared either if Hamas had taken the cargo from the Mavi Marmara and distributed it among the Palestinian people there in accordance with their allegiance to the Hamas regime.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the IDF raided the Mavi Marmara in international waters, and that the operation took the lives of nine “activists” who, after all, may have carried lots of knives and clubs – but no guns.

Sometimes, it would be nice if people like Mrs Glick and her Flotila Band would just shut up.

Their recent activities show that their mouths are no smaller than those of the people they fear and hate. Maybe they know each other only too well.