Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu must have been too busy isolating (now)
Russia and China (after Israel) to notice that his favorite brothers in
the Middle East, the Palestinians, recently sounded an alarm when they
found out that they were incapable of paying June salaries to 160,000
employees on time.
The shortfall was considered the biggest crisis in Palestinian history,
and the authorities said they heavily relied on the availability of Arab
and international aid. It is bizarre that Ankara did not pay any attention to the Palestinian cry.
Which other nation in recent history has been the loudest supporter of
the “Palestinian cause?” Where are the Turkish brothers of our
Palestinian brothers? Some facts and figures I recently came across
might shed light on the situation. In the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara tragedy, Mr. Davutoğlu said this was “Turkey’s 9/11,” that more Turkish-led flotillas would be on their way to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, that Turkish military planes
and ships would protect these “aid vessels” and that Israel would
eventually be entirely isolated.
That challenge was followed by numerous other promises for every manner
of possible Turkish aid for our Palestinian brothers, including a
revelation that Minister Davutoğlu was dreaming about “praying at the
al-Aqsa Mosque in the Palestinian capital Jerusalem.” Naturally, all
that made Mr. Davutoğlu and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan heroes
in the Palestinian lands – for some time.Two years later, the Palestinians may be feeling differently. A Palestinian friend who lives in a European capital and has never hidden his admiration for his nation’s greatest Turkish saviors now thinks that
the Turks used the Palestinians in an Orientalist power game.
“We’ve been deceived by many nations, and now, once again, by the
Turks,” he wrote to me recently. I replied that I was not the right
person to contact and gave him Minister Davutoğlu’s office number. Facts and figures... Yes.
Every new day we hear from the prime minister
that “we are the world’s 17th – and sometimes 16th – biggest economy and
we are running fast to become one of the top 10.” Yet, at an
international donors’ conference for Gaza in March 2009, the Turkish
pledges stood at a mere $93 million (no typo here, ninety-three million
dollars).
That pledge accounted for only 2.1 percent of all
international (mostly Christian!) pledges made at that conference which
totaled $4.257 billion.If you examine the source country data of all 216 approved projects in the Gaza Strip, you will see a breakdown that is not really proportional
to the Turkish extravaganza of boasting one of the world’s biggest
economies as well as its brotherhood with Palestine. Of those 216
projects, 180 are run by international aid organizations, three by the
World Bank, three by the Red Crescent, 13 by Germany, two by France, and
one by each of Belgium, Egypt, Holland and Sweden.
Turkish projects? None. Zero.
Ah, but there once was one.
In the late 2000s, a Turkish business
organization, TOBB, launched an “industry for peace” project which would
have built an organized industrial zone in Jenin and created 5,000
jobs. In 2009, a memorandum of understanding was signed, with all the
dignitaries smiling in Kodak-moment happy pictures. Another signature
ceremony in 2010 and a pledge to build a similar industrial zone in Gaza
followed. More Kodak-moment happy faces. The most recent news on the
Jenin project appeared a few months ago when a Turkish official briefed
Palestinian journalists on “the latest developments.” We journalists
have the immediate reflex to know that this simply means there is no
real progress to speak of. <
And, by the way, any ideas about the Turkish-Palestinian foreign trade?
After I saw that the annual two-way figure for 2010 was $29 million and
that Palestinian exports to Turkey stood at $270,000, I didn’t bother
checking the 2011 numbers.
It isn't only Turkey. Every Arab and Muslim nation uses the "Palestinian
cause" to distract their people from what's happening at home, but when
it comes down to it they do little. Except for Iran, which is happily arming any terror group who claims to want to destroy Israel. Hat tip : Elder Ziyon
