RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/russo-turkish-relations-joseph-puder/

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between Turkey and Russia have improved, largely on account of trade. The two nations consider each other as a major trading partner. Russia is Turkey’s largest provider of energy, while Turkish companies operate in Russia. Significantly, Turkey’s dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defied the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in which Turkey has been an important member. It announced in September, 2017 its plan to purchase from Russia’s strongman, Vladimir Putin, the S-400 surface-to-air missile system, despite strong objections from the U.S. and all other members of NATO. 

During the Cold-War, Muslim but secular Turkey was the southern anchor of the West, and of the U.S. in particular, against the Soviet Union. U.S. President John F. Kennedy had nuclear missiles placed in Turkey aimed at Moscow. When, however, the Cuban missile crisis occurred in 1962, as a price for the Soviets removing their nuclear missiles from Cuba, which intended to threaten the U.S., the U.S. was secretly compelled to remove its missiles from Turkey as part of the deal. Turkey was allied with the West, and had sent troops to fight alongside the U.S. during the Korean War.

The story of Russo-Turkish relations is one of imperial wars between the Russian Romanov Tsars and the Ottoman Turkish Sultans, both with imperial ambitions to expand their respective territories. Hostilities between these two empires began in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The first clashes occurred in the Ukraine, where the Turks held large portions of the land, and enslaved Slavic boys and girls, as well as women to serve as concubines in harems of the Ottoman Sultan/Caliphs. The Crimea was another stage in the 1687-1689 war between the two empires.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16936/chinese-cyber-offenses

[M]uch of the world is organizing to roadblock China’s march to dominance in 5G telecommunications. That is, to get China’s spying out of our system – although we are far from done, there is a lot of 2020 to build on in 2021.

Early in 2020, Huawei announced it had 91 commercial 5G contracts outside of China, including 47 in Europe and 20 in Asia.

China’s goal was threefold: to broaden its capabilities in domestic spying, to broaden its worldwide ability to steal Western technology — and, in particular, to infiltrate Western defense capabilities

Beijing inserted itself, often illegally, into American research institutions. And inserted spyware – hardware and software – into computers made in China and exported to the West. In the case of Super Micro Computers, providing services to Amazon, investigators discovered that extra microchips were implanted on boards in Chinese factories by operatives of the People’s Liberation Army.

As the year ended, 26 of 27 EU member countries had joined the Clean Network initiative, along with 180 telecom companies and such important tech players as Israel, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, India – and Taiwan, which is building a 5 nanometer chip production facility in Arizona. Partners in South America include Brazil, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16933/marx-heidegger-mesbah-yazdi

Because Fardid knew no German, his knowledge of Heidegger was based on scanty reading and misreading of French or Persian translations.

Fardid’s understanding of Heidegger could be summed up in two erroneous beliefs: society’s need for order and the need for an unimpeachable leader to impose that order. He also claimed a visceral hatred of Marxism in all its many different forms

No one was allowed to join the debate and suggest, ever so modestly, that maybe it was time for Iranians to use their own heads and begin thinking themselves.

At a time that the ruling elite in Tehran were busy marking the anniversary of the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Khomeinist movement lost another of its iconic figures: Ayatollah Muhammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi.

The 86-year-old cleric who changed his surname from Givehchi (sandal-maker) to Mesbah (Arabic for lamp) was alone among Khomeinist mullahs to have secured the title of “Super Scientist” (Allameh in Arabic) from the establishment. He was marketed as “the greatest living Islamic philosopher” and, as head of the Imam Khomeini Center of Studies, the custodian of Khomeini’s theologico-political heritage.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16932/jack-uncle-horse-ma-is-a-bad-bet

Beijing has… gone after Ma’s business empire hard.

[R]egulators appear to be forcing Ant to restrict its profitable investment and loan businesses and making the company accept bank-like regulation. Tighter control would ensure that the fast-growing Ant would pose less of a challenge to state control of lending.

Rumor has it that Beijing ordered Ma not to leave the country. “His passport has supposedly been held by the Foreign Ministry for a long time,” Anne Stevenson-Yang of J Capital Research told Gatestone, passing along financial community gossip.

Of course, this series of incidents also shows that foreign optimism about the Chinese markets—large inflows of capital have recently driven the Chinese currency sharply higher against the dollar—could be misplaced. If Jack Ma’s business empire can be broken up—and that is what’s happening—all foreign investment is at risk of confiscation.

Foreigners need to begin paying attention….

Jack Ma’s fate, then, is a leading indicator.

Ma Yun, until recently China’s richest individual, is in detention in a Chinese cell, is in hiding in China, is “embracing supervision” from the ruling Communist Party, or is in Singapore after having evaded Chinese authorities. One observer even argues Ma’s disappearance, the object of intense speculation in China and elsewhere, is nothing more than a ruse.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16929/eu-china-investment-deal

“It is a massive strategic blunder at a time when President Biden will be seeking to put together an international partnership of liberal democracies to deal with the bullying loutish behavior and assault on our international rules by Chinese Communists.” — Former Hong Kong Governor Lord Patten, Daily Mail, January 7, 2021.

“We should not be seeking to contain China but to constrain the Chinese Communist Party.” — Former Hong Kong Governor Lord Patten, Daily Mail, January 7, 2021.

“It is naive to believe that China will respect the agreement it has signed. It is naive to ignore the geopolitical implications of doing a deal with China right now. And it is naive to think that the darkening political climate in Beijing will never affect life in Brussels or Berlin.” — Gideon Rachman, Financial Times.

“The EU Commission’s haste to partner with Beijing despite its grotesque human rights abuses has removed a fig leaf. Some European officials and commentators liked to claim that the Trump Administration was an impediment to even deeper transatlantic cooperation. Now it is plain to all that this isn’t about President Trump. It’s about key European officials. Look in the mirror.” — Former Deputy U.S. National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger, Twitter, December 30, 2020.

“Beijing’s disregard for international law in Hong Kong is serving as a catalyst for a change in alliances — both Britain and Europe have serious choices to make.” — Johnny Patterson, Director of Hong Kong Watch.

The European Union has negotiated a controversial trade deal with China. The pact has been widely criticized because European leaders, in their apparent rush to reach an agreement, have sacrificed their professed concern for human rights on the altar of financial gain. Indeed, precisely one week after the deal was signed, China launched a massive crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong.

The so-called Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), concluded on December 30, was negotiated in great haste by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. Other EU countries were excluded from the negotiations. Merkel, under pressure from China, reportedly wanted an agreement at any cost before Germany’s six-month EU presidency ended on December 31.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16881/egypt-european-union

Earlier this month, Egypt’s military killed 15 Islamist terrorists in Sinai. The army said that since July 22, it has eliminated 77 terrorists as part of Egypt’s efforts to combat terrorism at all of the country’s strategic borders.

[Egyptian political analyst Dr. Abdel Azim] Ramadan said that the European Parliament’s anti-Egypt resolution indicates the presence and remarkable activity of the Muslim Brotherhood lobby inside European Union bodies, including the European Parliament.

“Why does the European Parliament give itself the right to evaluate others? The resolution, aiming to put pressure on Egypt, is in itself opportunism and a clear violation of human rights.” — Egypt’s Coordination of Youth for Parties and Politicians, Youm7.com, December 19, 2020.

[Prominent Egyptian media personality, Ahmed] Diab accused the Europeans of turning a blind eye to human rights violations in Turkey…. “All the enemies of the Egyptian state were happy with this unacceptable resolution.” he said.

Egyptians fear that the jihadi terrorists will interpret the European Parliament’s resolution as a green light to continue their terror campaign to overthrow the Sisi government and bring the Muslim Brotherhood back to power. What is certain, meanwhile, is that the resolution is being celebrated by Egypt’s enemies — not a good sign for the future of the war on terrorism.

Egyptians from across the political spectrum have expressed outrage over the European Parliament’s December 18 resolution calling for restrictive measures against Egypt for its “human rights violations.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16901/turkey-israel-premature-optimism

It would be childish to believe that the man whose political formation was based on a militant expanse of anti-Zionism as raison d’être was not anti-Israeli, but had merely been under the influence of advisors who no longer hold sway. Erdoğan is anti-Israeli today as he was 40, 30, 20 and 10 years ago.

In August, The Telegraph revealed that Ankara had granted citizenship and passports to “senior operatives of a Hamas terrorist cell” …. Also in August, Erdoğan met in Istanbul with Hamas’s senior military leader, Saleh al-Arouri, and senior political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

These are not blurred memories from distant past…. They follow an ideological pattern of hostility along religious lines. They do not make Erdoğan a reliable partner for peace.

As a matter of fact, none of the reasons why Erdoğan preferred to steer otherwise friendly relations between Turkey and Israel into where they stand today has disappeared. Without their disappearing for good, a reset will remain but a sweet wish.

It has been more than a decade since Turkey and Israel, once strategic partners, broke up badly, with an angry Ankara passionately vowing to isolate Israel internationally. It has also been exactly four years since the two countries decided to give peace a chance once more and appointed ambassadors. They would have to pack up and leave after 17 months of trying to put things back together again.

The decade of animosity between Turkey and Israel, clearly a choice of Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has produced exactly the opposite of what Ankara had hoped would happen: The Abraham Accords produced a landmark opportunity for peace in the Middle East. Israel’s former Arab foes have lined up to end hostilities, one after the other, while Turkey, oddly, criticized the establishment of diplomatic ties between the Arab world and Israel, having apparently forgotten that it already had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1949.

The United States and seven other countries recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, while Turkey campaigned for the “Palestinian capital Jerusalem.” Israel built a geostrategic alliance with Cyprus and Greece while Turkey’s tensions with the Hellenic states escalated exponentially. Turkey’s ties with fellow Muslim countries such as Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates sank from one nadir to another. Eventually, Turkey became the first country in the world that was officially sanctioned by Russia, the U.S. and the European Union. Turkey’s “isolate Israel” hysteria has practically turned Turkey into a monument of self-isolation.