October 5, 2009 Temple Mount Riots- Again

Today was a confusing day in Israel Turkish relations. On one hand, relations continued to deteriorate, with Israel officially protesting the showing on Turkish television of an extremely inflammatory movie. The Turkish produced a show depicting Israeli soldiers massacring Palestinian children. The movie was shown on Turkish government television. As a result, the deputy Turkish Ambassador (a new Ambassador is about to arrive) was called into the Israeli foreign ministry in protest. The Turkish Prime Minister re-iterated today (after his visit to Syria) that the decision to uninvite Israel to the joint Air Force maneuver was a political decision. After his visit to Syria, Erdogan is on his way to Iran for a state visit. On the other side of the coin, Turkey announced the arrest a of large number of Al Queda associated terrorists today. They were charged with plotting to attack, American, Israeli and NATO targets in Turkey.

The political wing of Hamas from Damascus officially announced that it rejected the Egyptian plan for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. The decision came as a surprise, as many observers believed that an agreement might be possible now.

The Goldstone Report was officially brought before the UN Human Rights Commission today, with an added Palestinian demand that Israel end the non-existent archeological dig under the Temple Mount. This is not going away any time soon. One of our readers suggested reading Goldstone:Israel's Frankenstein's monster.