Cameron: A turkey on Turkey, ga-ga on Gaza

Cameron's comments were stupid and ignorant and I will be writing to my MP to say that.

turkey has always been very good to the jews

turkey is part of europe, and for most of the last 500 years has treated jews far better than the rest of europe did

turkey even treated conquered christians better than christians treated conquered muslims (there were no turkish expulsions or inquisition)

turkey encouraged jewish settlement in turkish palestine

the friendship between the turkish and jewish peoples is not to be discarded over a temporary disagreement

turkish membership of europe is good for tolerance and good for democracy

Great blog, Ray - I've been on there to say so.
My friend Daph has recommended your blog on hers
http://www.daphneanson.blogspot.com/
Good on yer, Daph - great minds think alike :~P

HG there is no problem with the friendship between Turkey and Jewish peoples. That is as strong as ever. What has deteriorated is the relationship between Israel and them. But this is perfectly natural because a huge gulf has opened between Israel and the majority of Jews who don't live there. This gulf be fairly described as a chasm.

Good luck calling the PM ignorant Jonathan, like to see how well that goes down. I disagree with most things he says but I wouldn't call him uninformed.

Anyway, hate to say I told you so but I do seem to remember writing on these boards that any Tory pro Israel talk prior to the election was just that.... talk...

At least I don't have voting for him on my conscience.

According to the Office for National Statistics in the UK.
January 2009 records show 2.4 million Moslems in the UK, (and rising into the stratosphere) and 280,000 Jews in the UK, (and declining).

Isn't it that simple?

No it is not that simple, although you might like it to be.

_____

Hopefully, Jon and John, you won't be quite so quick and keen to throw your lot in with the Tories next time.

Jon, and if Turkey enters the EU as Cameron wants, it's Goodbye to Old England Forever.

Yvetta, exactly, we can already hear the excuses when we have an influx of (1 - 2 million) Turkish immigrants into the UK - oh but they're EU members!, they are entitled to come here!
And they're entitled to:-
Houses, benefits,jobs,cash handouts etc etc

DLE

The Conservatives were the best option and still are - despite Cameron's crassness in Ankara.

So who did you vote for then?

May I remind everyone that we don't actually have a Conservative government; there is the little matter of the Lib Dems soiling, sorry, spoiling the show.

Not one person in the UK voted for a coalition.

Cameron not only has to appease Clegg and his cronies (I like Vince though) but he has to appease Obama as the UK is the 'junior' partner and he has to appease the Islamists.

Poor old Dave.

And it's no good those of us who voted Labour to be crowing and 'told you so-ing'. Let's face it, Miliband wasn;t much better - remember the Mossad passport hooha?

If love of Israel were the only criterion on which to vote in a UK election I'd have voted for the EDL LOL. Sorry, just had to spit out something nasty that stuck in my throat.

@Yvetta - I have visitied Daphne Anson's blog many times and who highly commend it to any regular JC blog poster who wants to see how to construct a good, well-written, well-researched article.

My conscience is clear - I voted tactically, to try to keep the Lib Dem out.
It didn't work. His majority WAS just over 100. His majority IS in excess of 15,000!
Incredible but true.
And he's a PSC sympathiser to his fingertips :~[

Ooh - thanks, Ray. Our Daph's ever so shy, much too bashful to show her face over here in person. So her trusty friend Yvetta (thinking about it, I suppose I could rightly say we're closer than sisters) has to do the plugging for her.

Some interesting thoughts from "Call Me Dave" in
The Observer, 13 May 2007
.... I wrote in these pages in January that we cannot bully people into feeling British: we have to inspire them. Last week, I spent two days staying with Abdullah and Shahida Rehman and their family in Birmingham. The experience has strengthened my conviction about the right way to build a more cohesive Britain.
First, a concerted attack on racism and soft bigotry. You can't even start to talk about a truly integrated society while people are suffering racist insults and abuse, as many still are in our country on a daily basis. We must also be careful about the language we use. No Muslim I've ever met is offended by Christmas, or supports its replacement with 'Winterval'. But many Muslims I've talked to about these issues are deeply offended by the use of the word 'Islamic' or 'Islamist' to describe the terrorist threat we face today.

We do need greater understanding of the true nature of the terrorist threat. There's too much complacency about it among non-Muslims, and too much denial of it in the Muslim community. But our efforts are not helped by lazy use of language. Indeed, by using the word 'Islamist' to describe the threat, we actually help do the terrorist ideologues' work for them, confirming to many impressionable young Muslim men that to be a 'good Muslim', you have to support their evil campaign.
There's no easy answer. I don't think this is something that can or should be addressed through a government edict, but the BBC, as our national broadcaster, has both the responsibility and the opportunity to give a lead....
... those who say that faith-based schools hinder integration are wrong. The three Muslim children in the household I stayed with go to a local faith school - a Jewish faith school, which is massively oversubscribed, has a mixed roll with some 60 per cent of pupils from Muslim families, around a third from Birmingham's Jewish community and the rest a mixture of Christians and Sikhs. My obvious question to Abdullah - why do you, a practising Muslim, send your kids to a Jewish school? - does not get just the obvious answer: good discipline and good results. On top of that, the very fact that the school has a faith and a strong ethos is seen, at least by Abdullah and his family, as a positive advantage.
.... Asian families and communities are incredibly strong and cohesive, and have a sense of civic responsibility which puts the rest of us to shame. Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around.
....

"But many Muslims I've talked to about these issues are deeply offended by the use of the word 'Islamic' or 'Islamist' to describe the terrorist threat we face today."

So what would they call it then? Do you prefer 'Islamo-Fascism', perhaps. This is part of the problem, the Muslims are in denial and the politically correct hide behind euphemisms. If anyone dares to actually tell the truth, they are racists or bigots.

Many of these same people would have no compunction in using 'Zionist' as a term of abuse or dreaming of a Judenrein Palestine.

It is true that all sterotypes are evil and there are always examples of different groups rubbing along together. But if a significant percentage of Muslims believe 9/11 was a US plot or a Mossad plot then the Muslim community needs to examine itself. The only way Islamism, yes, Islamism can be eradicated in this or any other country is by Muslims.

I voted with my conscience JH, it wasn't lib dem ...sorry... or tory or Labour...

It also wasn't a wasted vote.

Good points, Ray.

Ray I agree with you 100%. Islamism has little to do with Islam in my view, but it is a virulent political ideology in itself that is being spread throughout Islam through violence and intimidation. We just need to look at Malaysia, Sudan, Gaza, for clear examples of this trend.

It really p*sses me off that I cannot even discuss this rationally without some lunatic calling me a racist or an Islamophobe. It worries me, and makes me concerned about the future, and yet no politicians even want to mention it. It's as if 7/7 didn't even happen. And all the while it's groups like MPAC and the MCB - groups that have a clear political agenda - that have the government and media's ear.

And I'm sick and tired of nasty bigoted little turds (pardon my French) like Nick Griffin hijacking this issue to turn it into a race one. It's not a race issue. It's an issue of an ideology being spread through violence and how we as a nation (and that includes our Muslim citizens) can deal with it intelligently and with compassion.

Matt well said.