Israel has formed a “sharp response” to Turkey’s announcement of a trade ban against Israel, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Earlier this week Turkish exports to Israel — specifically to the ports of Haifa and Ashdod — were banned by the Ankara government, while Israeli goods arriving at Turkish ports are no longer allowed to unload their cargoes. By Friday, Turkey had officially announced it will not resume trade with Israel, worth $7 billion a year, until a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid are secured in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Katz, the ministry’s director general and other senior officials, plus senior representatives of the Economy Ministry and the Tax Authority decided in response to take a number of steps to ensure the Jewish State cannot be hamstrung by the move.
“In the discussion, it was decided to promote, in inter-ministerial cooperation, a number of significant and operative decisions as a sharp response to [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s unilateral decision to stop trade with Israel,” the Foreign Ministry announced.
Among the main steps agreed upon were:
• Action to reduce any economic relationship between Turkey, the Palestinian Authority and Gaza (Turkey is the largest importing country to the Palestinian Authority, with imports totaling approximately 18 percent).
• Appeal to international economic forums to examine sanctions against Turkey for violating trade agreements.
• Building a broad alternatives bank, in cooperation with the Economy Ministry, to find alternatives for the Israeli economy in a variety of fields and products in the immediate time frame.
• Assistance to Israeli export sectors that were affected.
Katz appealed to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to promote an aid package for export sectors in Israel that may be harmed by the Turkish decision.
Katz wrote in a post on the X social media platform Thursday that Erdogan “is breaking agreements by blocking ports for Israeli imports and exports.
“This is how a dictator behaves,” Katz wrote, “disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements.
“I have instructed the Director General of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs to immediately engage with all relevant parties in the government to create alternatives for trade with Turkey, focusing on local production and imports from other countries.
“Israel will emerge with a strong and daring economy,” Katz added. “We Win and They Lose.”
Al Jazeera has reported that a Qatari delegation left for Cairo to participate in indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, following reports of progress in the talks for a ceasefire-prisoner swap deal.
According to Asharq Al-Awsat, Hamas agreed to the deal after Israel removed its opposition to releasing a number of senior terrorists from prison, and following a commitment from the US that it would ensure Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza at the end of the second and last stage of the agreement, as well as the full cessation of the war.
Asharq Al-Awsat also reported that in the coming hours, Hamas is expected to announce that it has accepted the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, following intensive talks between Egypt and Qatar and between Israel and Hamas.
Al Quds quoted Arab sources as estimating that by the end of next week, is probable that there will be an agreement for a ceasefire.
Earlier on Saturday, an Egyptian channel reported that Hamas has given up on its demand for guarantees from the mediators for a permanent ceasefire in the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza.
The Islamic Republic is not only a threat to Israel but to the entire world, and it will continue on its path until it has a bomb in hand or the world finally wakes up and puts a stop to it.
By DAVID BEN-BASATUpdated: MAY 4, 2024 07:55INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC Energy Agency director-general Rafael Grossi at an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, September 13.(photo credit: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)
Iran is clearly a nuclear threshold country today, according to a great majority of scientists. What is unclear is exactly when we can expect a fully nuclear Iran.
The chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, claimed this week that Iran is not months but weeks away from possessing enough enriched uranium to develop a nuclear bomb. He clarified, however, that this does not signify that Iran will avail itself of nuclear weapons within that time frame.
While the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly claimed that it does not intend to enrich uranium to the level required for a nuclear bomb, statements from Tehran testify to the contrary.
The obvious question arises: What exactly did Israel do to Islamic Iran and the belligerent Arab states that so despise us and wish to destroy what they term the “Zionist entity”?
Root of the conflict
In an interview with Epoch Times, Rabbi Oury Cherki explained that to understand the essence of the conflict, it was necessary to go straight to the source, to the biblical story of Ishmael, borne to Abraham by Sarah’s immigrant slave girl. Once Sarah realized that she was not able to bear children of her own, she selected the Egyptian princess Hagar as a surrogate so that Abraham could father a son and heir.
Peter Paul Rubens, The Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau, 1624 (credit: WIKIPEDIA)
Rabbi Cherki said that the moment Isaac was born, the birthright and the inheritance went straight to him, even though he was 13 years younger than Ishmael. This was in accordance with the Code of Hammurabi, the legal codex in force at the time.
But Ishmael refused to recognize Isaac, his younger half-brother, as their father’s heir.
Most Arabs see themselves as descendants of Ishmael and are unwilling to accept the validity of Judaism. As far as Islam is concerned, since the arrival of Mohammed (born as late as the 6th century CE) all other religions, including Christianity and Judaism, are unimportant and Islam is the one true religion.
Before Islam, the Arabs were idolaters and they themselves divide their history into two periods: the period of the Enlightenment and the period of Islam. Islam is a return to the God of Abraham but not to the God of Isaac.
Thus, essentially, the debate centers on to whom the land, the inheritance of our father Abraham, actually belongs.
Some of us still recall the good relations that existed between Iran and Israel some 50 years ago. Israel invested heavily in nurturing the relations between the two countries and provided Iran with weapons, defense, and agricultural expertise.
Israel’s relationship with Iran has experienced ups and downs. The political alliance, “the Alliance of the Periphery” died along with the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty following the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution and the return of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from exile.
Khomeini’s Iran embraced Muslim radicalism and anti-Western and anti-Zionist ideology and gave birth to the “Axis of Resistance.” Iran began to establish its grip on Syria, supporting it against Israel and assisting it with weapons.
Iran has made Lebanon its forward military base against Israel, while equipping itself, according to estimates, with around 150,000 missiles and rockets, some of which are precision-guided, in order to advance its murderous plan of hitting us as hard as possible.
Iran’s anti-Western ideology, which sees the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan,” and is bent on harming Western interests, has caused countless murderous attacks. The fingerprints of Iran and its proxies were found in the horrific 1994 attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish community building in Buenos Aires.
In September 1992, a terror attack took place at a restaurant in Berlin, Germany’s capital, in what was deemed the most serious attack by a foreign country on German soil since World War II. At the time, the court ordered the arrest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) agents.
In August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed information about the existence of secret nuclear reactors in Natanz and Barak, in violation of the bilateral agreement between Iran and the IAEA regarding the implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Notwithstanding Iran’s threat to destroy a United Nations member country, the Western world is silent and thus complicit as sinister and envious Shia leaders race to achieve their murderous hegemony and world domination by means of terror and the development of a nuclear bomb.
Economic sanctions have affected Iran only slightly since many companies in France, Germany, and the UK have known how to circumvent them. Additionally, the Western embargo on weapons and spare parts for Iran’s nuclear project has clearly been ineffective.
Via its Houthi proxy, the Islamic Republic also threatens and harms Gulf countries. This nuclear-threshold country is also equipping the worst of our enemies with the best of weapons.
THE DESTRUCTION of Soviet missile batteries designed to protect the nuclear facility in Iran was a message to Tehran that Israel will not put up with its nuclearization – and perhaps also a signal to the United States that if it does not act to destroy the nuclear threat, Israel may well do so.
Israel and the US were mistaken in allowing this monster to grow to such terrifying proportions and achieve the ability to threaten Israel directly and through its Middle East proxies. Iran continues to develop its nuclear capability while ignoring the demands of other countries to stop.
The Islamic Republic is not only a threat to Israel but to the entire world, and it will continue on its path until it has a bomb in hand or the world finally wakes up and puts a stop to the evil and terrorist regime’s intention of destroying the State of Israel.
The writer is CEO of Radius 100fm, honorary consul of Nauru, deputy dean of the Consular Staff in Israel, and vice president of the Ambassadors Club.
