Erdogan: Israel Waging “State Terrorism” in Syria

In an article written by Elad Benari, we read that the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is a frequent critic of Israel, accused the latter of waging “state terrorism” by violating international law and launching an airstrike against targets located in Syria. According to the article, Israel officials have not officially acknowledged their involvement in this attack but they have hinted that Israel was behind the air-strike.  U.S officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the strike was directed against surface-to-air-missiles and a military storage facility believed to house chemical agents. The article informs the readers that Turkey attacked several targets in Syria recently to retaliate for the killings of Turkish civilians due to a mortal shell fired from Syria. Additionally, the Turkish government has the parliament’s authorization to use military force inside Syria if it is deemed necessary at any time during the upcoming year. The article also mentions that the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu speculated that there may be a secret agreement between Syria and Israel, based on the former’s failure to respond to the Israeli attack.

In my opinion, the article attempts to defend Israel from accusations about “State terrorism” by undermining the credibility of the Turkish Prime Minister.  A combination of different pieces of information and links is used to show that the Israeli response to a threat of its national security coming from Syria was no different to the Turkish response to Syrian threats in the recent past. Israel probably tried to prevent the shipment of advanced weapons from Syria to the terrorists of Hezbollah, which could be used to attack Israeli citizens.  The Israeli government deemed it was necessary to use military force to protect its citizens by attacking military targets in Syria. As the article shows, the Turkish government has authorization to do the same to protect Turkish citizens. Finally, the conspiracy theories of the Turkish Foreign Minister reinforce the absurdity of the Turkish accusations. Given the past confrontations between Syria and Israel, it is difficult to imagine a scenario of cooperation between these two countries which would require the passive reaction of the Syrian regime to an Israeli air-strike provocation. In fact, even the Turkish Prime Minister himself cannot sketch the motives and goals of this cooperation.

According to my brief research, Elad Benari is a writer for Israel National News and lives probably in Canada. Therefore, his article is a second-hand source using only information available on the internet. Despite this, Benari has most of the facts right. The links he provides come all from the same source, but a cross-reference with other sources of information, shows that the statements by all the officials involved and the events which took place in the Syrian-Turkish borders (strikes) and the Turkish Parliament (authorization) are accurately presented in the article. The article gives specific names of Turkish and Israeli officials and links making it easy for someone to check the facts.  On the other hand, the piece of information regarding the target of the Israeli air-strike is questionable.  There is no way to verify its accuracy or detect its source (U.S. official). However, other sites give the same piece of information, so we can at least say that the author has not distorted the available pieces of information.  

Based on all the above, I believe the author has a valid point of view. However, I would like to present briefly a different one. There was a crucial difference between the Turkish and the (probably) Israeli military strike. In the first case there was an actual attack against Turkish citizens, while in the second there wasn’t any attack against Israeli citizens. It is true that the Turkish government got the authorization from the Turkish Parliament to strike targets in Syria whenever it is deemed necessary. However, this does not mean that the government’s judgment can transcend international law.  The latter recognizes the right of any government to retaliate against an enemy strike and even the right to initiate a military action to pre-empt an “imminent threat.” It is true that in the real world it is often difficult to show there is an imminent threat. On the other hand, it is impossible for an attacker who chooses to conceal his identity to argue about anything.