Senator Sanders Earn My Vote and Debate Me

Dear Senator Sanders,

I’m a progressive millennial from New York and you’ve lost my vote. I used to be fan, even a supporter, but now I find myself in opposition to your candidacy. However, I want to offer you the opportunity to win back my vote.

Although many of my friends have implored me to go to one of your rallies, I’m not interested in hearing you rehash the same old tire rhetoric you’ve been promoting throughout your campaign. Nor am I interested in re-reading your policy proposals.

If you want to win back my vote come and debate me.

Forget about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. It would be just the two of us and the issues. If you want to win back my vote, earn it by convincing me to vote for you. Find me in Queens at any time between now and April 19^th.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Justin Wax Jacobs

Bernie Sanders is Now Donald Trump's Best Friend

By Justin Wax Jacobs

Bernie Sanders just became Donald Trump’s best friend. Strange as it may be that a humble rural Vermont socialist would have anything in common with an over the top New York City real estate tycoon/demagogue billionaire, but the two candidates’ path to the Presidency are now intertwined. And that path runs straight through Hillary Clinton.

With the results from “separation Tuesday” in, the political landscape has become much clearer. Clinton has a sizeable lead against Sanders amongst delegates with 1,139 pledged and 467 superdelegates promised. According to FiveThirtyEight, Clinton has over performed on her electoral targets racking up 108% of the delegates she’s needed to win the Democratic nomination thus far. Comparatively, Sanders has underperformed winning only 83% of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. As Nate Silver points out Sanders needs to not only win in states like New York, Pennsylvania, and California but he needs to win by sufficient margins to have any chance at the nomination.

Mathematically Sanders hasn’t been eliminated from the competition but Tuesday’s results have made his path to the nomination improbable if not precarious. While his continued presence in the race will do little to help the viability of his own candidacy it does clearly benefit the leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

Although Sanders claims that he has never engaged in a direct personal attack on Secretary Clinton, the continuing barrage of indirect attacks implying deficiencies of character and her untrustworthiness have eroded support and enthusiasm of Clinton’s candidacy on the far left and within the Democratic base.

Evidence of this attrition can be seen in the growing “Bernieor Bust” movement whose subscribers have pledged their support to Bernie Sanders, and only Bernie Sanders, vowing not to vote for anyone but him. The members of this movement tend to be younger voters who serve as a key demographic for any Democratic White House hopeful.  They would also represent an important and significant plurality of any anti-Trump coalition that may emerge in the fall. Their opposition to Clinton may undermine her electability creating an electoral opening for the probable Republican nominee.   

But Sanders’ inadvertent support for Trump doesn’t end with questions of character and trust. Instead it continues into the realm of substantive policy and issues ubiquitous among the two campaigns.

As I mentioned earlier it may be hard to imagine that two men from polar opposite points along the political spectrum would have anything in common. This understanding is based on a conceptualization of the American political spectrum as a straight line infinitely continuing in opposite directions that never meet. However, the American political arena is more akin to a circle which meets at two distinct points, one in moderation and the other in radicalization. The further to the radical right or left one moves the closer that person gets to their political counterparts on the other side. A point illustrated earlier this month when Conservative stalwart and billionaire Charles Koch penned an op-ed supporting many of Bernie Sanders’ political positions.  

Trump and Sanders share many common positions including their mutual disdain for the current political establishment in their respective parties (or adoptive parties), their disapproval of the current state of campaign finance, and their fierce opposition to free trade deals. It’s their shared position on the latter issue where Trump stands to benefit the most.

Throughout the campaign both candidates have continuously bemoaned the loss of American jobs to competing markets overseas. And both candidates have pointed the blame squarely at the various Free Trade Agreements the United States has entered into.

In Michigan, Sanders channeled the residual resentment to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which many blame for the decrepit condition of that state’s economy, to propel him to an upset victory over Clinton. His campaign’s ability to tie Clinton’s past support of NAFTA and tacit support of the Trans Pacific Partnership (a new free trade agreement currently being negotiated by the United States) proved effective in detracting voters from casting a ballot for the former Secretary of State. 

Although the message wasn't as successful in Ohio, where Clinton beat Sanders by 13 percentage points, it is clear that the Sanders campaign intends to take that message to Wisconsin which holds its primary election in early April. 

Bernie Sanders' target audience in the Midwest, unemployed and underemployed white voters, is the same target population for Trump nationally. Sanders' primary message in the Midwest, an anti free trade agenda, plays straight into Trumps protectionist trade rhetoric. If Sanders fails to make it to the general election the residual affect of his primary campaign may be to irreversibly deter voters from supporting Clinton in a politically important geographic region. 

Along with the Northeast and Pacific Coast, the Midwest has long been a region which Democrats could rely on in Presidential contests.  Over the last 28 years Wisconsin and Minnesota have voted for the Democratic candidate in every Presidential election, Michigan and Illinois haven’t swung for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988, while Ohio is four for seven voting both times for Bill Clinton and Barak Obama in 92’, 96’, 08’, and 12’. Indiana, which is more conservative than its Great Lake brethren, is the lone outsider voting for a Democrat only once in that same time span.      

Constituting much of the rust belt, states like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota all sport strong manufacturing sectors with a large blue collar workforce that is often unionized. Fertile ground for Democratic Party support.

With fewer union jobs and an already declining economy hard hit by the 2008 recession, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin have experienced a rightward political shift in recent years. In all three states the Republicans constitute a majority in both houses of the state legislatures and occupy the state’s Governor’s mansion. Each state’s congressional delegation is dominated by Republicans (Wisconsin: 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats; Michigan: 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats; Ohio: 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats) while the Senate contingencies are split evenly with the exception of Michigan which has two Democrats serving in the upper chamber of the federal legislature.  

A Republican presidential candidate, like Trump, could exploit this political shift by focusing on the antagonism many voters will have towards candidates with any ties to free trade agreements. An antagonism based on a resentment whose groundwork has already been laid and established by the Sanders campaign. Were a Republican like Trump able to take advantage of that strategic opening it would have severe consequences for the outcome of the election. 

Together, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin represent 44 electoral votes which can sway the 2016 election one way or the other. Had Mitt Romney won these three states plus perennial swing state Florida he would have been President of the United States. 

It is not a stretch to say, but rather a fact, that Sanders' sustained attacks on Clinton over her support for free trade policies is doing nothing more than poisoning the well for Hillary's general election run. His advertisements and stump speeches reminding voters of the harm NAFTA brought to the manufacturing sector will continue to reverberate amongst the electorate long after the primaries end. 

As my pro-Bernie friends would undoubtedly point out, Clinton would be susceptible to the same attacks during the general election regardless of Sanders' current political messaging.

But that argument ignores the simple fact that Trump's messaging has a limited scope within the electorate which can be supplemented and expanded with Sanders' aid. Trump's attacks to date have mostly focused on the personal and rarely on the substantive. Instead of making poignant policy remarks, Trump relies on general and vague statements. On the other hand, Sanders articulates a practical message which can resonate and reach voters who would normally be outside of the scope of Trump's influence.

Without a clear path forward it may be time for Bernie Sanders to rethink his campaign and call it quits lest he hands the election to Donald J. Trump on a silver platter.  

Why Iowa Makes Sense

By Justin Wax Jacobs

It’s Caucus day in Iowa. The first votes of the 2016 Presidential election have been cast and the first delegates will be assigned. It is the official start of an election process which, by some estimates, began the morning after Election Day 2012.

Do to their status as early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire have an oversized impact on the primary process. Presidential candidates from both parties are usually chosen from a field narrowed by the voters and caucus goers in these states.

Iowa and New Hampshire can make or break a Presidential campaign. In 2004 Senator John Kerry’s campaign for the Democratic nomination was buoyed by his success in the Hawkeye state, even though many viewed him as a long shot for the nomination prior to the caucuses. In 2008 Rudy Giuliani’s strategy to forgo Iowa and New Hampshire completely, instead choosing to focus his campaign efforts in Florida, derailed his bid for the Republican nomination.

But why should these two states be given the power to decide who gets nominated to represent their parties as candidates for President of the United States? Iowa, with a population of 3.5 million and six electoral votes, and New Hampshire, with a population of 1.3 million and four electoral votes, are relatively small states. Even Puerto Rico, an American territory which participates in Presidential primaries but not general elections, has a larger population of American citizens. These two sparsely populated states also have a demographic makeup which are not reflective of the country’s as a whole, with 88.7 percent of Iowans and 92.3 percent of New Hampshirites identifying as non-Hispanic White compared to 63.7 percent in the United States overall.

For those on the left an additional grievance may be tallied. The core support for the Democratic Party emanates from the country’s large urban areas. Cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia have long been known, as Senator Ted Cruz has recently implied, for their liberal constituencies. By contrast, Iowa and New Hampshire have few urban centers. Only three cities, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Manchester, from these two states have populations over 100,000. The largest of the three, Des Moines population 203,433, doesn’t even crack the top one hundred list of American cities by population. It is safe to say that the Democratic voters in these two states are not indicative of the broader urban liberal base throughout the nation.

While foreigners may have legitimate grievances against both Iowa and New Hampshire for their oversized role in the candidate selection process, many overlook the positives of having these two states leadoff the election calendar.

Iowa and New Hampshire’s place at the head of the voting schedule insures a larger array of potential Presidential candidates. Due to their size both states are populated by relatively cheap media markets. Compared to states like New York, California and Florida which have the expensive markets of New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami, Iowa and New Hampshire offer candidates a cheaper conduit to communicate with voters. Less expensive fees to air television commercials provide those potential candidates without a strong financial backing the opportunity to voice their message to the people. Whereas in states like New York and California those candidates would have been priced out of the election before it even began.

Had the 2016 election cycle begun in New York, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio would have had an unmistakable advantage against their opponents. Possessing large campaign war chests, these candidates would have been able to corner the media market and sideline their opponents early in the process. The high cost for media advertising might have dissuaded candidates with less financial backing from even entering the race. Doctor Ben Carson, and former Governors Martin O’Malley and John Kasich may never have thrown their hat into the ring.

In addition, Iowa and New Hampshire’s small population give grassroots campaigns the opportunity to be successful. A smaller population mutes many of the advantages a well-funded established candidate may have over a grassroots candidate.  Grassroots rely heavily on personal interaction with voters. A smaller general population means that candidates have to convince a smaller plurality of the population to vote for them. If a candidate were only physically able to reach 100,000 voters in a state with 19 million people that candidate would make only a small dent in the overall election results. However, in a state with a population of just over 3 million, those 100,000 interactions may propel the candidate to a strong finish.

Although Iowa and New Hampshire’s ethnic demographics may not be representative of the rest of the country, their political demographics are more reflective. Iowa and New Hampshire are not the only states with small populations and relatively cheap media markets, but their status as swing states ensures that their caucus and primaries will serve as an adequate litmus test for the politicos in both parties.

States with small populations tend to be more politically polarized than others. States like Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming are overwhelmingly conservative and are deeply loyal to Republican candidates. Were any of the three aforementioned states chosen to replace Iowa as the first state to vote for a Democratic nominee the results would most likely be ignored as irrelevant by the larger liberal base. By contrast Iowa and New Hampshire’s almost even split of registered Democrats and Republicans means that the electoral contests in both states will be seen by out of state voters as a legitimate indicator of their party’s preference for the nomination.

While citizens of the other forty-eight states may resent Iowa and New Hampshire’s electoral power as early voting states, it should be noted that these two states provide a more egalitarian environment with enough of a representative sample vote for both parties than any of their other peers could in the selection of Presidential candidates

I Am A Second Class Jew

I am a Jew. When I was eight days old I was circumcised. A few weeks after my 13^th birthday I made my first aaliyah to the bimah to read from the Torah. After my Bar Mitzvah I continued attending Hebrew school and received my confirmation when I was 16. I don’t eat pork, or shell fish. I fast on Yom Kippur, keep strictly kosher during Passover, throw bread in the water for Tashlich, say the Shema every night, and light candles on Shabbat.

Yet according to MK David Azoulay I am not a Jew, or at the very least a sinner. Why? Because I am a Reform Jew. Last week Minister Azoulay stated “as soon as a Reform Jew stops following the religion of Israel, I can’t allow myself to say that such a person is a Jew.” He later clarified his statement asserting “all Jews, even though they sin, are Jews” but supplemented his initial remarks by adding “it is with great pain that we view the damage caused by Reform Judaism, which has brought the greatest danger to the Jewish people: the danger of assimilation.” In other words Reform Jews either or not really Jews or are Jews who sin.

Reform Judaism may not strictly employ Talmudic teachings or enforce Halakah law but that doesn’t mean that Reform Jews aren’t Jews. I abide by the Torah and its laws to the point in which I believe they are logical and consistent with my religion and the advancement of technology and society. Does that make me a Christian, or a Muslim? It definitely doesn't make me a Hindu or a Buddhist. I cannot be an Atheist since I believe in a single omnipotent deity. The fact is out of the seven billion plus people living on this planet only a small percentage of the approximately 14 million strong worldwide Jewish community would see me as anything but a Jew. 

Am I sinner? I have sinned, but being a Reform Jew and adhering to the religious practices of the Reform movement is not one of them. My observance of Judaism may not conform to a single standard which may appease MK Azoulay, but I have arrived at this destination by taking the teachings of many Rabbis from different movements and different periods in history compiling them into an amalgamation which I feel comfortable practicing.

Yes I eat dairy and meat together because I choose to follow the Kashrut laws which are forbidden by the Torah and not those which are Rabbinically prohibited, or have been given an overly broad interpretation. When my cheese comes from upstate New York and my meat from Texas I don’t think there’s a chance that I will violate the biblical tenant not to cook “a young goat in its mother’s milk.” Yes I drive and use electronics on the Sabbath. While G-d may have been able to take a day to rest I am neither omnipotent nor omnipresent which means I lack the opportunity to take a full 24 to 26 hour break from the real world. And no I don’t add an extra day to biblical holidays even though I am in the diaspora. I am pretty sure time keeping and solar records have advanced significantly enough for us to be sure that we have observed the holiday for the necessary time, as specified in the Torah, even though we don’t actually live in Israel.

While I may not strictly observe every aspect of my religion I am every bit as much a member of the Jewish community as the Orthodox, both ultra and modern. That communal connection is why I cooked latkes on the floor of my friend’s dorm room, held Havdalah services on my quad, and affixed a mezuzah to my room’s doorframe during my undergraduate collegiate years. It’s that same connection which compelled me to wake up at 4am in the morning to travel across Beijing to the Chabad synagogue so that there would be enough men for a minyan in the morning, even though I would show up to work late and have to stay a few hours later each day to make up for the lost time.

That connection has also inextricably linked me to the only Jewish state, the State of Israel. When I was in high school I lobbied my congressman to support Israel politically and financially. I continued to stress that point when I ended up working for him my senior year. I confronted angry protesters at a pro-Palestinian rally on my undergraduate campus and successfully challenged them on the many  weaknesses and inconsistencies in their allegations. As an international legal fellow, I have constantly used my knowledge of international law to analyze and counter erroneous legal arguments asserted by those opposed to the existence of the Jewish state and Israeli policy both foreign and domestic.

Azoulay’s remarks aren’t new or something out of the blue. Unfortunately I am used to receiving disapproving looks, which border on stares of disgust and utter contempt, from members of the Orthodox community, the Satmars in particular. But Azoulay is a member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and serves as the Minister of Religious Services in Israel. As such his statements represent not only his own beliefs and positions but are imputed upon Israel’s government itself. Which begs the question: why should I continue to support the Jewish state when it doesn’t consider me to be a Jew, sees me as a sinner, and doesn’t support my views or my freedom to have my own views of Judaism?

This anti-Reform Jewish sentiment in Israel cuts deeper than Azoulay or Shas, the ultra-orthodox Israeli party Azoulay is a member of. The Reform and Conservative Jewish movements are not represented on Israel’s Chief Rabbinate council and therefore does not have a say in that body’s strict control over Jewish weddings, divorces, or conversions in Israel. As a Reform Jew I cannot get married in Israel because the Rabbi I would want to officiate my wedding is a Reform Rabbi.,Even tough he is the same Rabbi who presided over my Bar Mitzvah and instructed me on the Torah and Talmud he is not allowed to wed two Jews in Israel. Under the current Chief Rabbinate Jewish weddings officiated by Reform Rabbis are not recognized in Israel. Reform and Conservative Jews (the secular denominations) are considered and treated like second class Jews in the very country established because Jews of all denominations were treated as second class citizens, and all too often worse, by the gentile governments of Europe, Asia and Africa.

I am aware that Azoulay’s psition is not representative of the entire country or of the entire government. I am also awareo of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements rebuking Minister Azoulay’s assertions. However, Azoulay continues to occupy a key ministerial post in the Knesset and the newly formed coalition government continues to rollback many of the domestic reforms instituted to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into Israeli society. Rather the policies which have recently been adopted show a clear intent to provide discriminatory privileges to the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community at the detriment of Israel’s secular Jewish community which includes Reform and Conservative Jews. The current coalition government shows a clearly negative legislative animus towards secular Jews while Azoulay’s continued occupation as Minister of Religious Services is strong circumstantial evidence of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s tacit support for his statements.

I have been steadfast in my political and financial support of Israel, even though I haven’t always agreed with Israeli policy, but I cannot support a government which not only marginalizes those within its own borders who share similar approaches to our shared religion but also seeks to extraterritorially diminish my own faith, heritage, and Jewishness.  

Alienating an entire section of a religious community is never a moral or prudent thing to do but the timing of this political excommunication can be perilous to Israel. Considering the current international animosity towards Israel and the gaining momentum of the BDS (Boycott Divest and Sanction) movement towards Israeli products and companies, Israel needs all the friends it can find abroad. That includes members of the Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism. Israel doesn’t have to buy our allegiance but it does have to respect us if it desires our continued support.

It should be noted that Azoulay did touch upon one important issue during his condescending statements. Assimilation is a problem in the Jewish community as a whole but it is more pronounced in the Reform and Conservative communities than it is in the Orthodox. Resistance to assimilation is not futile, as Captains Picard and Janeway show us on Star Trek, but it is exacerbated by the hostile approach many in the Orthodox community take towards secular Jews (i.e. Reform and Conservative Jews). A perfect example is the plain fact that I feel more comfortable walking in the streets of South Jamaica, Queens and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn than I do walking in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens or Williamsburg, Brooklyn (both neighborhoods have a high volume ultra-Orthodox Jewish population). As the Orthodox claim to represent the entire Jewish religion and then shun its secular members it is no wonder that many prefer to convert or become non-affiliated.

One of the Hasidic dynasties, Chabad, has adopted a more open and conciliatory approach towards secular Jews. They provide services and reach out to members of the entire Jewish community, secular or Orthodox, and accept Reform and Conservative Jews  without the condescending or dismissive tone that are held by many of their peers. I can honestly say that without their guidance and insight during college and my residency in China I may very well have lost faith in my faith and would most likely have become estranged from Jewish roots. Acceptance, not rejection, is the answer to combat assimilation in the Jewish community, a truth which Azoulay, Shas, and the Israeli government seem not to understand.

Assimilation is a threat to Judaism, more so than any other world religion, but the greatest threat is and has always been our unique propensity to fight among ourselves. After miraculously defeating an invading Roman legion at the Battle of Beth Horon in 66 CE, the victorious Jews returned to Jerusalem. Instead of consolidating governance and preparing the country’s defenses for the Romans’ next military offensive the different sects and divisions of first century Jewish society began to fight openly, both politically and physically, among themselves. Facing an uncoordinated resistance on their second attempted invasion, the Romans were able to lay siege to Jerusalem, burn the Second temple, and quell the Jewish revolt, setting in motion the Jewish Diaspora and alienation from our homeland. Thankfully, we have been given a second chance to have a state of our own in our ancestral homeland in the face of continual and growing opposition. Yet, there are those who are entrusted with the governance of that state who have clearly missed a crucial historical lesson.  

The biggest threat to Judaism and Israel isn’t Reform Judaism but rather it is the contempt and hostility held by many in the Orthodox community towards Reform and Conservative Jews which Knesset Member Azoulay has publicly displayed. 

Norwegians Boycott Holocaust Event After Jews Are Invited

By Ludovica Iaccino
From The International Business Times

Anti-racism activists in Norway have refused to participate in a Holocaust commemoration after
members of the Jewish community were put on the guest list, a Norwegian blog has claimed.

According to Norway, Israel and the Jews, Norwegian activist organisation New SOS Racisme
-- which claims to reduce racism in society -- asked for the "Zionist Jews of Bergen" to be
banned from attending the Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass, an event aimed at
remembering the escalation of the persecution of Jews in Germany, between the nights of 9th
 and 10th November 1938.

They "refused to participate in the Kristallnacht commemoration since a representative from
the Mosaic Congregation [a conservative Jewish Congregation ] was invited. Yes, they balked
at a Jew participating," the blog added.

The incident occurred a few days after Denmark's ceremony in Norrebro district marking
the Holocaust was used to raise money for Gaza, following the 2014 Israel-Gaza war which
killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.

A local leader of the Jewish community criticised Denmark's decision to raise funds for Gaza. 

"When the profits from the Norrebro event go to Gaza, whose government is at war with Israel,
 I think that there is an inappropriate confusion," Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, president of the
Jewish Community in Copenhagen, told the Kristelig Dagblad newspaper.

"I do not know if this is a deliberate attempt to draw a parallel between the actions of Germans
 then and those of Israelis today – a parallel drawn before by people on the left and one which
 I strongly reject. If it's a coincidence, I think it is unfortunate."

Enemy, Thy Name is Turkey

Former Turkish Prime Minister and newly elected Turkish President Tayyip
Erdogan. Picture from Faz.net.

If the enemy of our enemy is our friend, then is the friend of our enemy our enemy as well? That inverted logical reasoning is the question that we must now ask ourselves given the current situation in Turkey.

As a secular Muslim majority state straddling the continents of Europe and Asia，Turkey would seem to be a natural adversary to the fundamentalist Islamic State or ISIS. 

“ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, but rather consists of militants who are drug addicts” were remarks made by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in reference to the Islamic State, a week after he lambasted Western nations at the United Nations for not doing enough to stop the surge of foreign recruits from swelling the Islamic State’s ranks. A bit of irony considering, as Syria’s foreign minister noted, that the vast majority of Islamic State (IS) recruits enter Syria via the land border his state shares with Turkey.

Turkish intransigence is  not just limited to its passé reaction towards foreign fighters crossing its borders to join the Islamic State.  When the Islamic State expanded its Syrian insurgency to neighboring Iraq an American- led coalition of Western and Arab states responded by launching air strikes against ISIS targets in the region. Noticeably absent from the coalition was Turkey. Even after IS brought its holy war to the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkey refused to engage the encroaching militants. Instead, the Turkish military targeted Kurdish forces: the one reliable Western- backed group which has continuously engaged Islamic State fighters on the ground. Furthermore, Turkey blocked Kurdish fighters from joining their brethren in defending the Syrian-Turkish border town of Kobane from IS and refused to allow the United States and other NATO allies access and use of key Turkish airbases, including the strategically important one in Incirlik, as bases of operation for the coalition to launch airstrikes against ISIS.  

So why would Turkey, a secular Muslim nation and member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), not only balk at joining the coalition against IS but also attack the Western backed forces fighting them?

Only two actors are actively engaging the Islamic State directly, the Syrian Government under Bashar al- Assad and Kurdish paramilitary forces known as the Peshmerga.  A third actor, the free Syrian army, have engaged IS. However, they have done so on a limited basis and are focused more on engaging the Syrian army in a few urban areas.  While coalition forces have engaged ISIS targets through aerial bombardment, the Syrian military and Peshmerga have been actively waging a ground campaign to physically dislodge IS from its positions in Syria and Iraq. 

Even though the Syrian Government and Peshmerga are the only forces actively fighting and resisting IS, they represent the two actors which the present government in Ankara view as the greatest threats to Turkey and Turkish interests.

Syria and Turkey have been historic adversaries since the partition of the Ottoman Empire following the conclusion of World War One. As a founding member of NATO, an ally of the United States, and the secular Muslim nation, Turkey has been viewed skeptically by its Arab neighbors who were more closely aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Furthering the skepticism was Turkey's recognition and relatively good relations with the Jewish state which Syria had opposed militarily during the Israeli War of Independence, Six-Day War, and Yom Kippur War.

Syrian-Turkish relations have further been soured by Turkish development projects on the upper regions of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The building of new hydroelectric dams limited the volume of water which flows from Turkey into Syria along both rivers, resulting in a decreased water supply in the normally arid eastern portion of the state.

Although relations between Syria and Turkey had warmed somewhat recently, the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War precipitated a re-cooling of relations with Turkey's former Prime Minister and recently elected President, Tayyip Erdogan, declaring that an absolute abdication of power by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was the only acceptable outcome to the current conflict.

While the United States and its allies oppose the Assad regime in Syria, it has refused to militarily engage the Syrian government due to Russian opposition. Furthermore, the West has been slow to support and supply the Syrian Free Army, another opposing force in the Syrian Civil War, due to the group's lack of cohesiveness and the continuing possibility that those supplies may wind up in the hands of radical Islamic groups. Western reluctance to support non-ISIS anti-Assad forces have left ISIS as the only actor willing and able to take on the Syrian government's forces.

Turkish opposition to the Kurds runs much deeper as the Turks view Kurdish nationalism as a threat to the territorial integrity of their country. A majority minority group in the southeastern section of Turkey, the Kurds have been fighting for their own state independent of Ankara and inclusive of areas with a significant population of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Syria, for close to thirty years. The Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) has been at the forefront of the fight, waging a protracted unconventional war against Ankara until a ceasefire agreement in 2013. For its part Turkey has been adamant in both its opposition to the PKK, classifying it as a terrorist organization, and Kurdish independence.

For Erdogan and his party Western support for the Peshmerga and the Kurds as a whole could have the unintended consequence of solidifying Kurdish military power and autonomy while strengthening the Kurdish independence movement. Were the Kurds to prove successful in their campaign against IS in either Syria or Iraq, the result may be the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state from the territory within one or both of the aforementioned states. Considering that approximately half of the entire Kurdish population worldwide lives in Turkey, an independent Kurdistan that emerges from the ashes of Iraq and/or Syria will undoubtedly press for Turkish territorial concessions in the heavily Kurdish populated southeastern portion of the country.

With its military rise in eastern Syria and northern Iraq, areas where the Kurdish populations of those countries are mostly located, the Islamic State has come into direct confrontation with autonomous Kurdish forces. Since Turkey entered into a peace agreement with the PKK in 2012, ISIS is the only actor who engaging Kurdish groups in an active military campaign.

In fact, instead of targeting ISIS fighters or the Islamic State's infrastructure, Turkey has instead turned its weapons on the Kurds. Turkish fighters bombarded PKK positions in southeast Turkey, in violation of the peace agreement, and until recently prevented the Kurds in Turkey from crossing the border to assist the Kurdish forces battling ISIS forces in the Syrian border town of Kobane.

Erdogan's relatively soft position on ISIS is a continuing saga where under his leadership Turkish interests have diverged considerably from that of its traditional Western allies.

Of considerable note is the increasingly sour relationship between Turkey and Israel. Upon Israel's declaration of independence and statehood, Turkey was one of the first states to recognize the Jewish states, in addition to being one of only two Muslim majority states to do so (the other state being Iran which rescinded its recognition following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, subsequently the Muslim majority states of Egypt and Jordan have recognized Israel per separate peace agreements with the Jewish state in 1978 and 1994 respectively). Turkish-Israeli relations have plummeted to never before seen lows since the botched Israeli commando raid on a Turkish-led flotilla, trying to bring aid supplies to the Gaza Strip by beaching the Israeli blockade, left ten Turkish citizens dead. Since then, Erdogan has openly criticized the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even as he maintains what the Kurds perceive to be a Turkish occupation of Kurdistan. He has also accused Israel of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people, an allegation which has been unequivocally refuted based on facts viewed in the most favorable light for the Palestinians by this blog, while continuing to deny Turkey's commission of the Armenian Genocide in 1915.

On the domestic front, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has infused Islamist values and adopted Islamist influenced policies within a staunchly secular Turkish society. While France has moved to ban the niqab (a cloth or veil worn to cover the face of Muslim women) in a bid to create a more secular society, the AKP has lifted a ban on hijabs (Muslim headscarf) in institutions of higher education.

This perceived attack on Turkish secularism, which had been a strict hallmark of the nation since its foundation at the end of World War 1, launched the massive pro-secular Republic Protests in 2007 and became a focal point of the recent 2013-2014 Protests.

In the end Turkey is not the same secular Muslim nation which the United States and West had relied on during the Cold War. Under Erdogan and the AKP, internally, Turkey is moving towards a society which looks less like Europe and more like the Middle East.  All this continues to beg the question is the friend of our enemy still our friend?

Top American General Says Israel Limited Civilian Casualties

By Lazar Berman
The Times of Israel

Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to prevent civilian casualties during this summer’s conflict in the Gaza Strip, the top US military leader said Thursday.

“I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties,” said General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a forum at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York City.

“In this kind of conflict, where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you’re going to be criticized for civilian casualties,” he added, according to Reuters.

The Hamas tunnels “caused the IDF some significant challenges,” Dempsey said. “But they did some extraordinary things to try to limit civilian casualties, to include… making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure.”

Dempsey listed Israel Defense Forces measures such as the “roof-knocking” and the dropping of warning leaflets as part of their attempts to protect civilian lives.

“The IDF is not interested in creating civilian casualties. They’re interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles out of the Gaza Strip and into Israel,” Dempsey argued.

The American general recounted that an American delegation visited Israel three months

ago to learn lessons from the conflict, “to include the measures they took to prevent civilian 

casualties and what they did with tunneling.”

Dempsey’s statements stand in stark contrast to a recent Amnesty International report accusing Israel of displaying “callous indifference” in attacks on family homes in the densely populated coastal area.

The Gaza war left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, including many civilians, according to Hamas and UN officials. Israel says the number of militants killed was much higher than the figures released by Hamas, and accuses the organization of using civilians as human shields.

On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

During the 50 days of fighting, Hamas fired thousands of rockets and mortars at Israeli towns and cities, including Tel Aviv, and used a sophisticated tunnel network to carry out attacks on Israeli military encampments in southern Israel, close to the Gaza border. Some of the tunnels also had exits abutting Israeli civilian communities, giving Hamas the ability to attack them as well.

For its part, Israeli forces carried out sustained aerial, artillery and infantry attacks on Gaza.

Dempsey also said during the talk that airstrikes on Iran would set back, but not destroy, its nuclear capabilities, as a deadline is looming for a deal between Tehran and major powers.

Israel in the past has raised the threat of military action to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, while Washington has left its options open.

“We do have the capability — were we asked to use it — to address an Iranian nuclear capability,” said Dempsey.

“But… as we look at using the military instrument if necessary to address the Iranian nuclear issue, that would delay it, it will not eliminate it,” he told the forum.