tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76896798974538288272024-03-28T01:02:46.277-07:00Istanbul-New York-Tel AvivNamed after the three cities I live in, this blog will focus on Israeli, Palestinian, and Turkish politics and social issues. In addition, I will periodically cover other topics related to the Middle East.Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-22705607629332867202019-06-27T01:41:00.003-07:002019-06-27T01:41:42.697-07:00Erdogan Just Suffered a Humiliating Defeat. And Thanks to Istanbul, Turkey’s Democracy Just Won a Famous Victory*
Haaretz: "Denied his first victory in Istanbul’s mayoral elections on dubious grounds, Imamoglu has now won by a far larger margin of victory. He’s humbled Erdogan big time – and offered new hope for Turkey’s embattled democrats."
ISTANBUL - “You protected the reputation of Turkish democracy in front of the whole world. You protected our tradition of democracy, one that has existed for Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-26848073005879038762019-06-27T01:19:00.000-07:002019-06-27T01:19:38.183-07:00Turkey Holds Its Breath: Is Erdogan About to Lose, Again?*
Haaretz: "Turkey’s president once said: 'If we lose Istanbul, we lose Turkey.' What happens if he loses Istanbul twice? And to Ekrem Imamoglu's unprecedented liberal, secular, Kurdish, nationalist and conservative Muslim coalition?"
No race to the polls in Turkey has ever been scrutinized like this one. The rerun of Istanbul’s mayoral elections takes place Sunday, after the unprecedented Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-53233343914732121692019-05-30T07:45:00.000-07:002019-06-27T01:47:01.635-07:00Erdogan Has Just Made a Huge Mistake
Haaretz: "By cancelling the Istanbul elections, Erdogan has annulled a core tenet of democracy in Turkey. But it’s not an act of power: it’s an act of weakness, over-reach and exposes his increasing vulnerability"
The banging on pots, pans and saucepan lids, the whistling and the hooting from cars started almost immediately in neighborhood after neighborhood of Istanbul last night.
Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-49127066165759317232019-04-08T04:49:00.000-07:002019-04-08T04:51:00.677-07:00Netanyahu and Erdogan Agree: Their Political Foes Are Traitors and Terrorists* [Or a look into how the Israeli and Turkish political systems are more similar than you might think]!
Haaretz: Both Turkey and Israel face elections, and both leaders are playing from the same ethno-nationalist political playbook. But in Turkey, the leftist opposition is still alive and kicking - even from jail."
It was a rare occasion: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - famously averse to being grilled by Israeli reporters – late last week made a surprise visit to Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-701839574906962452019-04-08T04:31:00.000-07:002019-04-08T04:31:35.869-07:00Istanbul's 'Fake Auschwitz': What Happened When a Turkish Movie Gala Recreated a Nazi Death Camp on the Red Carpet*
Haaretz: "The 'Cicero' movie premiere's red carpet led past a makeshift death camp, with SS guards, barking dogs, barbed wire and Achtung! sign. The backlash, which came not just from its tiny Jewish community, tells us something about Turkey today."
For the last few months, Turkish cinema buffs have anxiously been awaiting the opening of a home-produced World War II spy thriller.
The Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-90956068902787095922019-04-08T04:16:00.000-07:002019-04-08T04:16:57.510-07:00On Khashoggi, U.S. Journalists Are Falling for Turkey's Conspiracist, State-run Media
Haaretz: "In its breathless hunt for grisly, sensational details, the Western media is embracing evidence-free, state-curated ‘scoops’ from the same Erdogan-obedient sources that spread lies and hate towards Turkey’s own journalists and political dissidents."
All eyes were on Turkey on Tuesday morning, in anticipation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s promise to reveal the "Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-30322551724529800152019-04-08T03:45:00.000-07:002019-04-08T03:45:26.540-07:00Discontent Can Still Bring Down Erdogan - and Turkey
Haaretz: "Erdogan can now crush Turkey's democracy – but not the deepening dissent with his rule. His only real means of assuring his pre-eminence is the further imposition of punitive and oppressive measures on civil society."
A week has passed since Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erodganachieved one of his lifetime goals: to be president in 2023, the year that marks a century since&Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-37501772299532244562019-04-08T03:22:00.000-07:002019-04-08T03:22:03.766-07:00How the anti-Erdogan Opposition Can Win Sunday's Elections in Turkey*
Haaretz: "For years, Turkey's opposition has been fractured and defeatist while the president consolidated power. But the opposition now has a wildly popular, charismatic and sharp-tongued leader – and a lackluster Erdogan doesn't seem invincible any more."
This coming Sunday, Turkey will go to the polls to elect a new parliament and president, and, for the first time in 16 years, Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-82399937400711702952018-05-27T07:55:00.000-07:002018-05-27T07:57:19.674-07:00Occupier! Murderer! The Hypocritical War of Words on Gaza Between Israel and Turkey*
Haaretz: "The verbal volume of Erdogan’s attacks on Israel reflects genuine Turkish popular support for the Palestinians. But in a perilous election season it’s also cover for Turkey to maintain essential economic ties with Israel"
In what has become an almost scripted scene since the days of the 2010 Gaza Flotilla incident, Turkey recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv in a Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-16175842090166747872018-05-22T20:15:00.000-07:002018-05-22T20:15:40.419-07:00After 15 Years, Is Turkey Saying 'Enough' to Erdogan?*
Haaretz: "If one day our nation says 'enough,' then we will step aside.' Erdogan's gaffe opened the gates of Turkish social media derision and gifted a slogan to a re-invigorated political opposition. But he won't give way without a fight."
"If one day our nation says 'enough,' then we will step aside," Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday in a speech in parliament, Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-16562337627503673422018-02-18T04:39:00.000-08:002018-05-22T19:59:22.621-07:00On Ahed Tamimi: Once, Israeli Pop Culture Icons Publicly Criticized the Occupation. What Silenced Them?*
Haaretz: "One iconic but solitary Israeli poet celebrated Ahed Tamimi’s heroism: The backlash he endured means there'll be even less mainstream dissent in the future."
A rare voice of opposition rose up recently in Israel against the wave of justifications for the arrest of the young 17-year-old Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, who slapped an Israeli soldier in her West Bank home town of Nabeh Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-286033789196118832017-12-27T11:49:00.000-08:002017-12-27T11:49:28.118-08:00Are Official Bans and Slurs the Start of Full-on Persecution for Turkey's LGBT Community?*
Haaretz: "Turkey's LGBT community is a tangible, visual challenge to Erdogan's vision of an Islamically 'pious generation' – and now he's cracking down on them, with enthusiastic support from other Islamists and ultra-nationalists."
A week ago, the governor of Turkey’s capital city banned all events - "cinema, theater, panels, interviews, exhibitions" - relating to the gay, lesbian and Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-31613425527697347862017-11-01T16:43:00.000-07:002017-11-01T16:43:55.269-07:00'Be Careful': If You're Visiting Turkey, Don't Provoke the State*
Haaretz: "If Turkey hadn't directly provoked the U.S., reports of its human rights violations would be collecting dust. Now, with red lines being crossed and Americans targeted, Congress is upping the ante."
It's been more than two weeks since the United States suspended the issuing of all non-immigrant visas in Turkey, halting the travel to the U.S. of thousands of Turkish citizens. Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-59667697646727209842017-11-01T16:33:00.004-07:002017-11-01T16:33:57.685-07:00'This Is 1940s Germany': Can Turkey's Revitalized anti-Erdogan Opposition Prevail?*
** This article is from July 2017 and was written in wake of the masive Justice rally held by the CHP in Istanbul.
Haaretz: "This week, one million people in Istanbul demanded civil rights, law and justice. As Erdogan's purges intensify, can a fragmented opposition sustain that momentum?"
"This is the era of dictatorship. This is the era of 1940s Germany."
Such explicit fighting Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-24143856073580440462017-04-27T08:28:00.000-07:002017-04-27T11:38:57.509-07:00Post Turkish Referendum Analysis: Its not Yet Game Over*
Haaretz: "It's too early to declare the Turkish Republic dead and buried. The president's popularity has maxed out at 50 percent of the population, and the anti-Erdogan opposition won't be silenced"
Walking the streets of Istanbul just a week before the country’s fateful referendum, from any and every point I could see the larger-than-life faces of the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-77866011487759064742017-03-24T19:27:00.002-07:002017-03-30T13:58:09.903-07:00Three Days in Lima Peru: A Photographic Journey*
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to accompany the Brooklyn College debate team to Peru. While Lima never topped the list of places I thought I'd visit one day, I have wanted to explore Latin America for sometime, so learning that I would be going there came as a nice surprise.
Lima's history is actually quite relevant to one of my classes, topping a section of my Shaping of the Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-43216023665894978962017-02-22T10:07:00.000-08:002017-02-22T10:07:56.142-08:00The Cultural, Political and Intellectual Hollowing Out of Turkey*
Haaretz: "The delegitimization, if not criminalization, of any opposition – political, media or cultural – by Turkey's ruling party coincides with a crucial referendum on expanding presidential power even further."
It has been just over a week since the police clashed with Ankara University students and teachers who were protesting the latest country-wide purge of 330 academics. In this Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-34690644029990921712016-11-12T09:34:00.000-08:002016-11-12T09:35:49.893-08:00Elegy for Turkey, Now a One-party State*
Haaretz: "The grotesque sight of parliamentarians being dragged into police cars, mouths covered by the hands of the security forces, is the latest sign that [Turkey]...is reaching a point of no return."
In late night raids last Thursday (November 4) , Turkish security forces rounded the heads of the mostly Kurdish HDP party and 11 of its Members of Parliament. The government accused them ofIstanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-70883801097002426912016-09-26T10:18:00.000-07:002016-09-26T10:25:24.084-07:00Turkey’s Opposition Fails a Critical Test: To Challenge Erdogan*
Two months have passed since the July 15 Turkish coup attempt and the purge and arrests have continued unabated, with emergency laws striking at not just those accused of plotting the coup, the Gulenists, but also those with suspected ties to the outlawed Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, as well as a swathe of other staunch critics of the government. In some extreme cases, even Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-12452926679224252462016-09-16T10:03:00.000-07:002016-09-16T10:03:31.141-07:00Netanyahu's Shameful Words: From Judenrein to Ethnic Cleansing
Just a week ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared on social
media a short video, which on his twitter account was shared under the
headline, “No Jews.” In this video, he accuses the Palestinians of supporting
ethnic cleansing of the Jews of the West Bank, stating, “...the Palestinian
leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No
Jews. There is a Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-20961346390275865532016-08-23T08:38:00.000-07:002016-08-23T08:38:27.342-07:00Turkey's Purge of Political Opponents Will Come Back to Haunt It*
Haaretz: Despite a show of almost unprecedented unity at a recent rally – and newfound Turkish nationalism following July’s bloody coup attempt – the purges hark back to a bleak pattern in Turkey’s past.
Louis Fishman, August 9, 2016
Will July 15, 2016 go down in history as the day Turkey tried to wipe the slate clean?
Just three weeks after Turkey was shaken by a Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-7995812486718483052016-07-24T00:15:00.000-07:002016-07-24T00:15:19.213-07:00Why We'll Never Get a Full Accounting of Turkey's Failed Coup*
Haaretz: It was a wild, confusing night of gunfire, unscheduled calls to prayer and sonic booms in Istanbul. But with an nontransparent government, a media that's state controlled or under pressure, and wide-scale purges, Erdogan's narrative will be hard to challenge.
Louis Fishman, July 17, 2017
On Friday night just after 10pm my cellphone started buzzing and the deluge of WhatsApp Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-89095390842481066662016-07-23T23:58:00.002-07:002016-07-23T23:59:13.664-07:00Turkey must get its priorities straight and focus on ISIS*
Haaretz: The country is in a dire situation, and needs to get its act together and fight the real terrorists while holding talks with Kurds.
Louis Fishman, July 1, 2016
Tuesday night seemed like just another Istanbul summer evening as people hurried home after work to make it to the late evening Ramadan Iftar, leaving the city's famous traffic all but a myth. However, later on in the Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-48308330661194882702016-07-23T23:44:00.000-07:002016-07-23T23:44:51.719-07:00Netanyahu's Turkish coup: How Erdogan realized he really does 'need Israel'*
Haaretz: Rooted in the AKP's staunchly anti-Israel past, often tainted with blatant anti-Semitism, rooted in internal Turkish politics, Erdogan has always treated Turkey's relations with Israel with disdain. What changed?
Louis Fishman, June 27, 2016
The renewal of ties between Turkey and Israel marks a major turning point in this history of their bilateral relations, frozen Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7689679897453828827.post-64058743704199062272016-06-12T18:48:00.001-07:002016-06-14T12:58:28.949-07:00Death Watch for Democracy in Israel and Turkey?
Haaretz: "By methodically eroding liberal democracy, Netanyahu and Erdogan could endanger their states' domestic and international legitimacy. At least if the current diplomatic moves bear fruit they’ll have each other."
Louis Fishman, May 25, 2016-Haaretz
For six months Turkey and Israel have been negotiating to normalize the relations that deteriorated so swiftly following the controversial Istanbul-Tel Aviv-New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042479851595915698noreply@blogger.com3