In this issue:

Cordesman: Israel Cannot Be a Strategic Liability for the U.S.

PKK Terrorists Attack Turkish Naval Base

Cordesman: Israel Cannot Be a Strategic Liability for the U.S.

June 3 (EIRNS)—In a column released on June 2, strategic analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, hits hard at Israeli behavior vis-à-vis the United States. America's commitment to Israel is one that will not be abandoned, writes Cordesman; however, the depth of that moral commitment "does not justify or excuse actions by Israel that unnecessarily make Israel a strategic liability when it should remain an asset." It does not mean that the U.S. should extend support to a long list of actions noted by Cordesman, including the expansion of settlements, its attacks on Gaza "or sending commandos to seize a Turkish ship in a horribly mismanaged effort to halt the 'peace flotilla' going to Gaza."

Israel needs to realize it has obligations to the U.S. as well, and needs to be far more careful in testing the limits of U.S. patience and its exploitation of American Jews. "Israel's government should act on the understanding that the long-term nature of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship will depend on Israel clearly and actively seeking peace with the Palestinians," writes Cordesman. "This Israeli government in particular needs to realize that as strong as U.S.-Israel ties may be, it is time to return to the kind of strategic realism exemplified by leaders like Yitzhak Rabin."

PKK Terrorists Attack Turkish Naval Base

June 1 (EIRNS)—The Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) once again showed its British stripes on May 31, when it carried out the bloodiest terrorist attack inside Turkey in more than a year, killing six Turkish troops at a naval base in southern Turkey. The PKK's attack, using sophisticated rockets, took place on the same day that Israeli commandos assaulted a Turkish-flag ship leading a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza, on the high seas, killing at least nine people (eight of them Turkish, and the other Turkish-American). Turkish government spokesmen said that another seven soldiers were wounded, with three of them in critical condition.

On May 29, five Turkish security officials were killed by the PKK, in a series of smaller terrorist attacks. On May 31, the PKK's jailed leader, Apo Ocalan, announced that he was ending ceasefire talks with the Turkish government. PKK's threatened internal war is timed to coincide with Anglo-Israeli criticisms of Turkey because of its relations with Iran, and for its criticisms of the December 2008 Israeli attacks on Gaza where 5,000 people—most of them civilians—were killed.

There is no doubt about the PKK's pure British pedigree. In 2008, it was declared a narco-terrorist and "drug kingpin" group by the U.S. government, because of its key role in trafficking the Afghanistan opium being grown under British occupation. In 1995, the PKK held its founding "parliament in exile" in Belgium, and three members of the British House of Lords either attended or sent personal telegrams of endorsement. The three were Lord Hylton, Lord Avebury, and Baroness Gould. The case of the PKK is one of many documented by EIR in its call to "Put Britain on the list of terrorist sponsors."