re: #206 Joo-LiZ

Barry Rubin adds another piece of news into the regional puzzle:

He doesn’t state who his sources are, but connects this to the governmental link noted in the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report released today.

It would help to explain the apparent intelligence lack on the part of the Israelis. Erdogan may well have really and truly set Israel up, and the incident no doubt has the Israeli’s reeling with the implications.

This, if true, would amount to Erdogan revealing his hand to the Israelis, and completely dropping the facade of being a regional honest broker.

Would the perceived gains to the Turkish Islamist IRK party justify such a “coming out” of the Turkish orientation towards Israel?

Arguably, it would. Just look at the outrage Israel is witnessing throughout the world, then consider that this outrage has been greatly mitigated by the (relatively) quick release of the aerial videos. Imagine the reaction if Israel didn’t have such evidence so readily available.

Erdogan may well have expected this incident, which he may have helped to orchestrate, would deal a much heavier blow to Israel’s credibility and image than it actually has.

If that’s true, then we have no business being allied to Turkey at all as long as Erdogen is in charge.