Is There a Thaw in Sight for Turkey and Israel, or Is It Just a Mirage?
Publisher
Global Views 360
Publication Date
July 31, 2020
URL
Mavi Marmara on the way to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza | Source: Hevesli via Wikimedia
The Gaza Attack soured the relationship so much that Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Israeli former President Shimon Peres had a showdown during the World Economic Summit 2009 in Devos, Switzerland.
The relationship reached its nadir when 10 Turkish social activists were killed aboard a ship Mavi Marmara by the Israili commandos in the international waters. Mavi Marmara was part of the flotilla which was going to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Palestinian enclave barricaded by Israel.
As a reaction to this action Turkey recalled its Ambassador from Israel and downgraded the diplomatic status. The relationship was restored after a lot of back channel meetings and the ambassadors were reappointed by both the countries in Sept 2016.
However after another deadly attack in May 2018 by Israeli forces in Gaza ,Turkey recalled its ambassador and expelled Israel’s ambassador from Turkey. In July 2018 there was a report that Israel and Turkey were holding backchannel talks in a bid to restore the fragile diplomatic relations between the two nations. However nothing came out of these discussions and these countries have still not restored full diplomatic status.
In mid-May 2020, there was some unverified news on a delimitation deal between Turkey and Israel, something these countries could not achieve in the 1990s when the relationship was excellent. However, the joy could not last for long and the news was denied by an Israeli official who called the claim a “complete nonsense” but at the same time said that Israel is looking to establish full-fledged diplomatic relations.
There were continuous backchannel efforts by the USA, EU, NATO and international bodies for the normalisation of Turkey and Israel relationship. A large segment of citizens in both the countries also want the relationship to improve.
According to the survey entitled “The 2019 Israeli Foreign Policy Index of the Mitvim Institute,” the number of Israelis seeking improved ties with Turkey increased to 53% in 2019 from 42% in 2018. It included 50% of Jewish Israelis and 68% of Arab Israelis.
Turkish media which was so critical of Israel has also been discussing a possibility of better relations, and both these point to a desire for reconciliation.
However all the positive news so far have turned out to be false starts. The key hurdle which time and again has put a spanner in any effort to bring the relationship back to normal is the Palestine issue in general and Israeli blockade of Gaza in particular.
As far as the possibility of an early thaw is concerned, a report of “The Middle East Eye” is a rude jolt of reality. As per this report, the Turkish officials who were asked about a thaw responded that it would be impossible as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is the prime Minister under whom oppression of Palestinians has increased manifold.
As Turkey under President Recep Erdogan and Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue to play to their respective bases and keep the rhetoric high, any thaw in the frigid relationship between these two countries is likely to remain just a mirage.
Support us to bring the world closer
To keep our content accessible we don't charge anything from our readers and rely on donations to continue working. Your support is critical in keeping Global Views 360 independent and helps us to present a well-rounded world view on different international issues for you. Every contribution, however big or small, is valuable for us to keep on delivering in future as well.
Vilification of Muslims in India during COVID-19: From Tablighi Jamaat to the Bombay High Court judgement
March 2020, when coronavirus was a new occurrence in India, an Islamic organization—Tablighi Jamaat—was accused of spreading it across the country. Criminal proceedings were registered against Tablighi Jamaat members—some of them belonging to foriegn countries as well—for acting against law during the pandemic. This accusation was then used to further spread hate against the whole Muslim community of India.
On August 22, 2020 however, the Bombay high court struck down all criminal charges against Tablighi Jamaat’s members stating that they were scapegoated by the government.
The Bombay high court mentioned in their judgement:
"A political Government tries to find the scapegoat when there is pandemic or calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them scapegoats. The aforesaid circumstances and the latest figures of infection in India show that such action against present petitioners should not have been taken. It is now high time for the concerned to repent about this action taken against the foreigners and to take some positive steps to repair the damage done by such action."
Let us understand how the events unfolded in the Tablighi Jamaat saga and its impact on Muslims of India.
The Markaz Nizamuddin Event
Tablighi Jamaat is headquartered at Alami Markaz, Banglewali Masjid in Nizamuddin, New Delhi which is often referred to as Markaz Nizamuddin. Markaz Nizamuddin is where members of Tablighi Jamaat often congregate to discuss and deliberate about their outreach plans.
One such meeting was held in early-March 2020 which drew members not only from various parts of India but also from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries. The people from foriegn countries entered India on a valid tourist visa to attend the congregation much before the time March 13, 2020, when Indian Health Ministry claimed “COVID-19 is not a health emergency, no need to panic.” In fact most of the attendees left Delhi around March 11, 2020 itself.
However, on March 24, 2020 the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown so some of those attendees who were still staying at Delhi Markaz got stranded as they could not leave in the wake of sudden nationwide lockdown of transportation services.Tablighi Jamaat officials asked for permission to send stranded members to their destination but the permission was denied.
This was then followed by a series of fake news stories of which major Indian media houses were a part of. Sudheer Chaudhary of Zee News claimed that Tablighi Jamaat members are somehow linked to Al Qaeda and are working similar to the “suicide bombers” by spreading COVID-19 deliberately. The stories about Tablighi Jamaat members misbehaving with Quarantine center staff and spitting in the open were broadcasted on Times Now and several other news channels. This story was proven to be incorrect by fact checking website AltNews.
Rohini Chatterjee (2020) describes India TV News coverage of Jamaat in these words “In a video, one of India TV’s anchors says, “God knows how many members of the jamaat are roaming around in the country like corona bombs”. The other anchor chimes in, ‘they can detonate the virus bomb at any moment, putting large numbers of people in danger.’ All of this was also announced in high-pitched, dramatic tones aimed at spreading fear and panic in the minds of viewers”.
Cartoon published in Indian leading news paper, Dainik Jagran portraying Tablighi Jamaat members as willful spreaders of COVID-19 pandemic | Source: Indian Journalism Review
Indian print media also ran hoax news reports. For instance Danik Jagran—India’s leading Hindi Daily—published 156 stories, eight editorials, and five cartoons over 15 days spreading misinformation and half truth about the Jamaat. Another widely read Hindi daily, leading, Amar Ujala, claimed Tablighi Jamaat members defecated in the open after being denied non-vegetarian food at quarantine centre. This story was again proven incorrect by the fact checking website AltNews.
The fake news on the Jamaat further led to more structural forms of violence against Muslims in India. Islamophobic hashtags like #CoronaJihad were over twitter in hundreds of thousands. Time Magazine reported that over 165 million people saw the hashtag #CoronaJihad on Twitter—which as explained earlier was done at the behest of the Indian media.
These include countless incidents like that of Mehboob Ali—a 22 year old who attended the Jamaat’s function—and was brutally thrashed over rumours of deliberately spreading COVID-19.
30-year-old Rizwana Khatun lost her child to hate infodemic. She writes “I was abused on the lines of my religion and was asked to wipe the blood. I could not because I was shivering. I was beaten up with slippers. I was shocked and rushed to a nursing home.there it came out that my child had died.”
BJP Legislator Suresh Tiwari with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath | Source: Dainik Bhaskar
In Indian state of Karnataka, Muslims distributing food to migrant labourers were beaten over a rumour of them spreading COVID-19 through food distribution. In Uttar Pradesh—the most populated state of India, the ruling party—Bharatiya Janata Party’s elected legislator—named Suresh Tiwari—appealed to people not to buy vegetables from Muslim vendors.
The way Tablighi Jamaat was vilified and blamed for spreading coronavirus in India may seem to be atrocious and plain hate speech as per any globally acceptable norm. However in Indian context, this is just one more example of the continued onslaught of misinformation; disinformation, half truth, plain lie, and slander, which in the last few years, has become acceptable to be peddled by the mainstream print and electronic media.
Let us hope that the Bombay High Court judgement on Tablighi Jamaat will create enough pressure on the mainstream media which will make them scale back the blatant Islamophobic fake news pedling on their platform.
During the time contemporary to the Tablighi Jamaat controversy, I was part of a research group that was working towards archiving COVID-19. We also did a case study on Tablighi Jamaat (this part was handled by me), so some parts of the article are referred to and reproduced from this archive, to learn more visit archivingthetimes.webflow.io.
