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In January 2016, I paid a visit to Diyarbakir, the largest city and de facto capital of Turkey’s Kurdish-majority south-east. The previous month, its ancient centre, known as Sur, and more than a dozen other regional cities had been put under a 24-hour curfew as the Turkish military moved against the urban positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Labelled a terrorist group by the US, EU and Turkey, the PKK has fought an insurgency in the south-east since the mid-1980s. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) initiated a peace process with the militant group in 2013, which made considerable progress leading up to the June 2015 parliamentary elections.
After the Trump administration did its best to turn off the cash pipeline to Islamic terrorists in Israel, the Biden administration is turning it back on. But quite stealthily, it came out that America is preparing to transfer as much as $100 million in aid for Palestinians a sum that could reach $125 million, according to some sources. Foreign aid isn t a single big check, it s death by a thousand cuts with money being directed across a dizzying variety of agencies and departments. That s why it s been so hard to stop aid to the PLO and Hamas because even keeping track of which money is going where is challenging.
Although many of the details of the violent clash that took place on the morning of May 31, 2010 on board the
Mavi Marmara remain in dispute, there is no doubt that it was an affair of profound and far-reaching consequence and not only for the parties involved. Most of the committees formed to probe the incident have had their say,
1 yet all seemed to lack either the ability or the intention to situate it in its broader context, and to suggest its global ramifications. While investigations of Israel’s decision-making process before and the Israeli military’s conduct during the operation are essential, as is the strategic discussion of the situation in the Gaza Strip and the future of Israel-Turkey relations, it is no less crucial to consider what lessons may be learned regarding the objectives and influence of some of the leading players in today’s global arena: the international non-governmental organizations (INGOs).