Albania’s Abstention on Palestine U.N. Vote and the Islamist Response

Weekly Standard ^ | December 14, 2012 | Stephan Swhwartz

[JerseyanExile]

On November 29, Albania was the sole Muslim-majority country in the United Nations to be counted among the 41 abstainers from the proposal to admit Palestine as a non-member observer. Certain Islamists were displeased, to say the least. In particular, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the “fundamentalist-lite” Justice and Development Party or AKP, responded with one of the tantrums that has become a hallmark of his administration.

Erdogan declared that he had exerted pressure on an unnamed Muslim land to abandon its intention to vote “no,” encouraging it to support the Palestinians, and arguing that an abstention would be considered the same as a “no” by Turkey.

“I told them that this would damage bilateral relations we have. . . . It would upset us,” Erdogan complained. He went on to lament, “there are many cowards in the world.” The Istanbul daily Hurriyet soon revealed that the target of Erdogan’s fit of pique was Albania and its prime minister, Sali Berisha.

Outsiders may not grasp how offensive Erdogan’s snit was to Berisha and his people, especially as it came during Albania's celebration of the centennial of its independence from the Ottoman Empire. For a Turkish politician to call Albanians “cowards” is breathtakingly heedless and arrogant.

The leading Albanian-American journalist Ruben Avxhiu, editor of the Illyria, warned on December 7, in the daily Panorama published in Tirana, that the Albanian proclamation of freedom in 1912 “ended five centuries of Turkish occupation. Albanians . . . were determined not to let Turkey ever again make decisions on their behalf. This remains true.”

Avxhiu observed, “Albania enjoys excellent relations with Israel . . . the intention of some of the actors [at the U.N.] is not peace for all the people of the region, but punishment and condemnation of Israel.”

[Verginius Rufus]

John Belushi was of Albanian descent. Samurai are not cowards.

[faithhopecharity]

Good for Albania!
(The UN is so evil it has, for some years at least, rendered itself totally irrelevant. But rest assured that the good Lord watches ...)

[Amberdawn]

Yes, a CHRISTIAN Albanian, of which there are now few. I imagine the U.S. had something to do with this, as we screwed the Serbs royally to favor the former.

[Verginius Rufus]

Supposedly 70% of Albanians are Muslims and 30% are Christians (divided between Orthodox and Catholic), but how many of those who grew up in Enver Hoxha's Albania or Tito's Yugoslavia are believers, I don't know--they were subjected to a lot of atheistic propaganda.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was an ethnic Albanian born in Skopje, in what is now the Republic of Macedonia, but was then under Turkish rule (it would have been part of Bulgaria except for Disraeli).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks JerseyanExile.

On November 29, Albania was the sole Muslim-majority country in the United Nations to be counted among the 41 abstainers from the proposal to admit Palestine as a non-member observer... Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan... declared that he had exerted pressure on an unnamed Muslim land to abandon its intention to vote "no," encouraging it to support the Palestinians, and arguing that an abstention would be considered the same as a "no" by Turkey... "there are many cowards in the world."

And Albania just showed Erdogan one who isn't.