Turkish Prime Minister: No Normalization With Israel Without Apology, End of Gaza Blockade

Don’t give in to this mad man …

By Barak Ravid – “Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that his country will not normalize its relations with Israel as long as Israel does not apologize for the killing of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists during the takeover of the Mavi Marmara ship last year.

Erdogan, who spoke at the “Palestinian Ambassadors’ Conference” in Istanbul, added Israel should compensate the families of those killed and end the blockade of the Gaza Strip. ‘No belief can make killing innocent people legitimate,’ Erdogan said. ‘I salute the Palestinians, and those who are dedicated to the Palestinian cause. I remember the nine martyrs who were killed by Israeli soldiers in May 2009, and I hope God will have mercy on their souls.'” Read more.

UN report: Israel’s blockade of Gaza legal, does not have to apologize to Turkey – “The UN committee investigating the events of last May’s Gaza flotilla, headed by former Prime Minister of New Zealand Geoffrey Palmer, convened Wednesday in New York to conclude the report.

According to a political source in Jerusalem, the final findings of the Palmer Report show that the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza is legal and is in accordance with international law.

The report also sharply criticizes the Turkish government’s behavior in its dealings with the committee. Palmer, an expert on international maritime law, added in the report that Israel’s Turkel commission that investigated the events was professional, independent and unbiased.

His findings on the Turkish committee were less favorable, with Palmer concluding that the Turkish investigation was politically influenced and its work was not professional or independent.” Read more.

Flashback:

One Week After Norway Announces Backing Palestinian Bid for UN Recognition, Israel May Have To Call Off Oslo Accords

July 17, Reuters – “Norway, host of the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli peace accords, said on Monday it was ‘perfectly legitimate’ for Palestinians to take their case for statehood to the United Nations for voting in September.

‘We will consider very carefully the proposed text that’s to be put forward by the Palestinians in the coming weeks,’ said Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas beside him at a press conference.

‘Norway believes it is perfectly legitimate for the Palestinian president to turn to the United Nations with such proposals,’ Stoere said, adding that continued negotiations with Israel will be required in any case.

The United States and Israel have opposed Abbas’ plan, backed by the Arab League, to bring the Palestinians’ long quest for statehood to a vote in New York.

Abbas said on Monday the plan was still on.

‘We will seek to go to the UN next September in order to obtain membership for the state of Palestine,’ he said.” Read more.

Israel looking into calling off Oslo Accords in response to Palestinian UN bid – “A team headed by National Security Adviser Ya’akov Amidror is looking into calling off the Oslo Accords in response to the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral plan to gain United Nations recognition for an independent state. The Prime Minister’s Bureau confirmed yesterday only that the NSC was discussing many alternatives ahead of September, and would be presenting them to the political echelon for a decision when it was done.” Read more.

Melanie Phillips – Islamism in Europe

British journalist and author Melanie Phillips, winner of the Orwell Prize for journalism in 1996, gives an excellent breakdown of the problems inherent with Islamism and the catastrophic irrational thinking of leftist enablers and sympathizers that exists within Britain today and how political correctness is leading Britain down a path of cultural destruction …

Melanie Philips – “I’m going to speak to you today specifically about Britain, which is ‘in Europe’ but very much not ‘of Europe’, and I was particularly struck by the Pew Poll which we’ve been hearing about this morning which said, among other things — which found among other things — that Britain was the least ‘Islamophobic’ of all the European nations that were studied and that Britain, nevertheless, was the country where British Muslims hated their host country the most.  And I don’t think that this is a coincidence.  I think these two things are intimately connected, and I think that what we’re looking at is an interface between the encroachment of militant Islamism in Britain, with what I would consider, should be called, ‘Britain’s cultural lobotomy.'”

Two Strong 6.2+ Earthquakes Strike East Coast of Japan in 24 Hours

“A 6.2-magnitude earthquake has jolted northeastern Japan in the same region that was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the earthquake hit Fukushima prefecture early Monday. It says the epicenter was at a depth of about 35 kilometers in the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Japan’s Honshu island, 280 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

A magnitude-6.4 quake struck the same area on Saturday. There were no reports of injuries or damage from either quake, and no tsunami warnings were issued.

More than 20,000 people were killed or left missing after the March 11 twin disaster in the region. Another 80,000 have been forced to evacuate their homes because of the radiation threat from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.” Read more.

Something Rotten in the State of Norway

“… Many of these agencies and individuals later changed their articles to reflect the developing ‘lone nut right-wing anti-immigrant extremist’ theory. Fast forward to a few hours later, and The Atlantic Wire has changed its site to include the following disclaimer:

From BBC News: ‘A terrorism expert tells the BBC that Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, a terror group that claimed responsibility for the explosion in Oslo, was not behind the attack.’ Previously, a New York Times story cited a terrorism expert who mentioned that the group claimed credit for the attack. But the paper also noted: ‘It is not uncommon for terrorist groups to advance claims of responsibility for high-profile attacks, only to have the claims prove to be spurious.’

Some wag might suggest that the accusation of Islamists deliberately lying in this manner is ‘Islamophobic.’

In any case, the latest news from Yahoo is that the ‘lone nut’ bought six tons of fertilizer–an amount that one might think would elicit some suspicion in consideration of the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as that fertilizer bombs are evidently a favored Islamist method of massacre. Moreover, instead of one ‘lone nut,’ it is reported that ‘police investigated witness accounts of a second shooter.’

This current attack does in fact resemble the McVeigh situation, as pointed out by Gates of Vienna:

I’ve read several accounts that describe the Oslo murderer as ‘a Norwegian Timothy McVeigh.’ The crime in downtown Oslo does resemble the Oklahoma City atrocity–a powerful vehicle bomb, possibly a fertilizer bomb, detonated near a government building for the purpose of causing mass casualties. Then, after initial alarm about Islam, we hear that the alleged perpetrator is a crazed right-wing zealot bent on killing as many of his fellow citizens as possible.

Yes, Oslo and Oklahoma City definitely have a lot in common in this regard.

But one thing many people seem to forget–and which they may never have known, thanks to the American government’s actions and the media spin that followed–is that there almost certainly was an Islamic terror connection to the Oklahoma City bombing.” Read more.

Dominican Republic Cholera Death Toll Climbs to 87

“SANTO DOMINGO – THE DOMINICAN Republic’s death toll in the cholera epidemic that spread from Haiti has risen to 87 out of more than 13,000 suspected cases, authorities said on Friday.

The country shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, where the epidemic has killed more than 5,500 people.

The Dominican health ministry reported that the death toll had risen by 16 since July 8 to 87.

According to the ministry, there have been 773 new cases in the past week, for a total of 13,200 since the beginning of the epidemic, which spread to the Dominican Republic from Haiti in November 2010.

An epidemiological study published at the end of June by the US Centers for Disease Control established that UN troops from Nepal were responsible for the epidemic.” Read more.