November 22, 2009

Turkey has given Israeli defense contractors 50 days to deliver 10 promised drone aircraft.

Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul sent a letter to Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit demanding that they deliver the unmanned aerial vehicles by the beginning of the new calendar year. The letter threatened to cancel the deal, which was signed in 2005, if the drones are not delivered in time.

“If this letter does not bear fruit either, the tender may be canceled, but there is no cancellation at the moment,” Gonul said Saturday on CNN Turk news, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Turkey signed on four years ago to purchase the surveillance drones known as Herons from Israeli Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems at a cost of more than $180 million. The companies missed the original delivery deadline, and then missed a new deadline to deliver four Herons in August, followed shortly by another two and finally the last four by the end of October.

Turkey recently returned two drones because they did not perform up to expectations.

Israeli officials say the project was slowed down after surveillance equipment supplied by Turkey for the drones was too heavy for the machine.

Israel-Turkey relations have grown tense since the Gaza war, with Turkey taking the lead in some international forums in demanding that Israel be held accountable for alleged war crimes. Last month Turkey prevented Israel from joining a NATO-alliance military exercise that ultimately was canceled due to Israel’s exclusion.

An Australia lawmaker assailed the government for abandoning Israel in the United Nations.

Deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop In Federal Parliament on Nov. 19 accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor government of “overturning Australia’s longstanding bipartisan policy of refusing to support one-sided resolutions against Israel” in an attempt to win a seat on the Security Council.

Her remarks come on the heels of the government’s Nov. 12 decision to support a resolution in the U.N.‘s Third Committee on the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, which Bishop described as “inflammatory and counterproductive” because it made “no reference to the right of the State of Israel to exist.”

Jewish leaders wrote letters last week to Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith saying they were “disappointed” by Australia’s decision.

Bishop said in her Parliament address that “It has not been the traditional practice of Australian governments to adopt or endorse some of the one-sided resolutions against Israel that now come before the United Nations. This government has now voted in favor of three of these resolutions.”

She speculated that the votes are related to Rudd’s “personal crusade” to secure a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

“It is a slippery slope,” Bishop said. “If some principles are compromised, where will this government stop?”

Bishop’s Liberal Party was one of Israel’s staunchest allies at the United Nations during its reign under John Howard from 1996 to 2007.

Police in riot gear broke up a recruiting meeting of the outlawed neo-Nazi Hungarian Guard.

Some 50 uniformed guardsmen were on hand last Friday at a beer hall at Csepel, a poor industrial suburb of the Hungarian capital, when some 200 police arrived to break up the meeting to launch a national recruitment campaign.

The commander of the Guard called for reinforcement, and some 400 guardsmen were rushed to the scene, but diplomatic bargaining ended the confrontation. Police made three arrests.

A landmark court ruling earlier this year banned the paramilitary Guard, the private army of the extreme nationalist Jobbik Party. The Guard displays the colors and marches to the tunes of the defunct Arrow Cross, a Hungarian movement that murdered thousands of Jews, Gypsies and political dissidents during the Holocaust. The ruling also banned the uniform.

Csepel council members are organizing an all-party motion to reinforce an earlier local government decision declaring the Guard “unwelcome” in the district. This follows a brawl last week at Sajobabony in the impoverished northeast of Hungary where hundreds of Guardsmen and their supporters clashed with Gypsy residents outraged by racist attitudes expressed at a Jobbik public meeting.

Krisztina Morvai, a Jobbik deputy at the European Parliament who occasionally wears the Guard uniform, says the Guard’s style innocently reflects Hungarian folk culture. Morvai was scheduled to address a London conference in December organized by the Palestinian Return Centre, but her invitation was withdrawn last week when her extremist attitudes on race relations became known.

Two Pakistanis suspected of helping facilitate the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai were arrested.

The men, a father and son, were arrested Saturday in the northern Italian city of Brescia.

Ten terrorists believed to have come from Pakistan carried out the attacks in the India city. At least 166 people were killed, including six Jews at the Chabad House. Among the victims there were its directors, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife, Rivkah.

Targets also included hotels and a train station.

Police on Saturday said the Pakistanis were arrested in Brescia for having transferred about $230 to finance Internet telephone lines used by the attackers.

A police statement said the father and son were accused of illegal financial activity, as well as aiding and abetting international terrorism.