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The conflict is part of a power struggle between the military, at the head of the secular state establishment enshrined at the founding of the modern Turkish state, and Mr. Erdogan’s government. Most recently the struggle has taken the form of legal battles over what prosecutors portray as several plots to overthrow the government.

The struggle has caused deep political divides in Turkey, an 87-year-old republic whose military has ousted at least four governments. Rogue members of the military were accused in many extrajudicial killings before the A.K. came to power in 2002.

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He made the remarks when asked to compare the attitude of other Muslim countries to Turkey’s vehement outbursts against Israel over its devastating war on Gaza last year and its ongoing blockade of the impoverished enclave.

“The governments have failed to display the reactions that the world’s Muslims expected from them. And this has been a pitiful aspect of the matter,” Erdogan told reporters.

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After the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Ankara, many in the West referred to a new Turkish foreign policy called “neo-Ottomanism”, suggesting a revival of the intellectual, political and social influence of the Ottoman Empire, which departed the scene 92 years ago.

That policy was attributed to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his advisor, now foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Quickly, however, the term “Ottomanism” began to fade, given that it was difficult to market in countries formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire due to continued indoctrination against Ottomanism by the Arabs over nine decades.

Some, however, continued to stand by the term, including Cuneyt Zapsu, an advisor to the Turkish prime minister, who said: “A new, positive role for Turkey in the world requires a reconciliation with its own past, the overcoming of societal taboos, and a positive new concept of Turkish identity. We are the Ottomans’ successors and should not be ashamed of this.”

Decision-makers in Turkey had once tried to hide their Ottoman past, ashamed of it during the heyday of Kemal Ataturk because it looked backward and was too Islamic for the secular state that was being carefully erected in Turkey. That is now a thing of the past thanks to the steady policy of the AKP, which has been opening up to countries such as Syria and, more recently, Lebanon.

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Turkey demands Israeli apology for petty public humiliation of its ambassador as ties worsen.

Turkey summoned Israel’s ambassador to Ankara Tuesday to demand an apology over the treatment of its own envoy to Tel Aviv as a row between the regional allies over a television drama series escalated.

Israel’s ire had been sparked by the broadcast of an episode of the Turkish espionage drama, Valley of the Wolves, which the foreign ministry said depicted “Israel and Jews as baby-snatchers and war criminals.”
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Rather than summoning Celikkol to the ministry as is the norm, Ayalon saw him in his parliamentary office after making him wait in the corridor and telling staff to remove the Turkish flag and refreshments from the table.

“The important thing is that people see that he’s sitting low down and we’re high and that there is one flag,” Israeli television aired Ayalon telling invited photographers and camera crews in Hebrew.

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That’s a commendable change of heart for Iran, considering that 12 years ago it had over a quarter million troops massed on its border with Afghanistan, and the UN and the rest of the world were working hard to head off the perceived threat of an invasion of Afghanistan.

This was taken very seriously at the time, as this Iranian writer communicates:

I don’t want another war, no matter what the excuse. I don’t want us to march on Herat or further afield. No reason that has been stated by the Iranian government is good enough basis for an invasion of Afghanistan. I was devastated when I read the Amnesty International report stating that the 11 Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif were killed after the fall of the city. The image of the bodies left in the Consulate for two days without burial shattered me. I thought of the rubble, I thought of the sound of artillery in the background and of rivers of blood. But even this atrocity and the humiliation attendant to it is not a reason good enough for a war. Nor is the Iranian government’s crying foul of the brand of Islam practiced by the Taleban. It is NONE of their business.

That was during the time that the Taliban had taken control of the major city of Herat – predominantly Shiite and Farsi-speaking – and were engaged in their now infamous acts of ‘forced reIslamization.’ There was a concern that if Iran engaged with the Taliban it could draw in Pakistan (Iran had believed the 11 murdered diplomats had the protection of ISI personnel who were traveling as military advisors with the Taliban).

One way for Americans to look at this is that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan to let some other military power step up that is convinced it cannot live with a Taliban government such as Iran or Russia would be just fine.

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Tomb of great Muslim scholar Imam-I Ghazali has been discovered in Tus city of Iran’s Khorasan province, Turkish state TV said.

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10. Saudi Arabia opened its first coeducational college campus, the King Abdullah Science and Technology University.

9. Qatar is on track to average 7.5 percent per annum growth for the next few years.

8. A Pew Forum on Religion and Life poll finds that American Muslims are unusual in the degree to which they are integrated into mainstream American society and demonstrate moderate attitudes, condemning religious extremism and violence.

7. The information revolution is making strides in the Arab world.

6. Albania has averaged 10 percent a year growth for each of the last four years, and was the fastest-growing economy in Europe in 2009.

5. The small Gulf oil monarchy of Kuwait took steps toward greater democracy and rule of law.

4. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world at about 230 mn., had successful parliamentary elections in 2009, further consolidating the country’s decade-old democracy.

3. Turkey, which averaged 5.8 percent a year economic growth between 2002 and 2008, was slowed but not devastated by the world’s financial crisis.

2. Stability returned to Lebanon.

1. The greatest political awakening in Iran for 30 years.

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“Neseli Hayat” or “A Cheerful Life” is the story of a down-on-his-luck, working class Turk who is hired to work as a mall Santa.

The trouble is he doesn’t really know who Santa Claus is, and needs some very basic lessons.
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Riza then spends much of the film, embarrassed and hiding his job and costume at a posh Istanbul mall glittering with holiday decorations, from his wife and family in a shanty neighborhood where one would be hard pressed to find a single piece of tinsel.

The writer, director and actor who played Riza, Yilmaz Erdogan, says his character is a metaphorical bridge between two worlds in Turkey: wealthier, upper class Turks who live a “Western” lifestyle and have adopted the trappings of Christmas to celebrate the new year, and poorer Turks who have emigrated from the Anatolian heartland to the big city and are more familiar with traditionally “Middle Eastern” customs.

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