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On Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered support to Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir and attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Amidst harsh criticisms of Bashir’s possible arrival in Istanbul for the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference this week — it was later confirmed that he would not attend — Erdogan said he did not believe that the Sudanese President was guilty of the crimes for which he was indicted by the International Criminal Court. However, Sudanese officials have already confirmed that Bashir will not come to Istanbul.

Then, Erdogan compared the Israeli offensive in Gaza and the continuing drama in Darfur. He said, “It is not possible for those who belong to the Muslim faith to carry out genocide….If there were such a thing in Darfur, we would be chasing this to the end.” He added that he “cannot discuss this [allegation for war crimes] with Netanyahu but I can easily discuss such issues with Omar al-Bashir”. Erdogan stated that Israel had committed greater crimes against Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad offered a caution to Erdogan earlier Sunday. He said that Turkey should maintain good relations with Israel so it could mediate Damascus-Jerusalem peace negotiations. Assad’s statement is a likely reaction to the assertion of Netanyahu that “Turkey cannot be a honest broker anymore” and suggestions that countries such as Croatia and Italy could step in as a mediator.

In the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Yitzhak Laor offers a provocative and supportive argument of Erdogan’s position vis-a-vis Israel, stating that Israel’s apartheid is worse than South Africa’s. Settlements and policies of discrimination in Israel. backed by Washington, are creating a worse atmosphere for Palestinians than the past in South Africa, where black people could at least make a living.

Tags: Bashar Al-Assad, Benjamin Netanyahu, Croatia, Gaza, Ha'aretz, Israel, Italy, Omar al-Bashir, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sudan, Syria, Yitzhak Laor

Did the recent Israeli air strike against Sudan actually benefit Hamas and Iran? Did it elevate Sudan’s president to honored Arab leader? And worst of all, did it exacerbate the crisis in Darfur?

Tags: Africa, AFRICOM, Air Strike, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Egypt, Ehud Olmert, Gaza, Hamas, International Criminal Court, Iran, Israel, Linda Thomas Greenfield, Mossad, New York Times, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Time Magazine

Update (5 March): The Sudanese Government responded to the ICC’s arrest warrant by expelling international aid agencies, including Oxfam, Medicins Sans Frontieres, and Mercy Corps, from the country.

As expected, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Al-Bashir is is charged with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur since 2003. Five counts are for crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape. The other two counts are for war crimes, direction of attacks against civilians, and pillaging.

The ICC chief prosecutor had filed charges of genocide against al-Bashir. These were not included in the warrant; an ICC spokesman said evidence submitted to date did not support those charges. They be added in an amended version at a later date.

For a useful analysis of the ICC proceedings, see Simon Tisdall in The Guardian earlier this week.

Tags: Darfur, International Criminal Court, Medicins Sans Frontieres, Mercy Corps, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Oxfam, Sudan

Over the weekend, with the catalyst of the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the British media played up the possibility of a military intervention to free the country from the rule of Robert Mugabe. There was a consensus from The Observer, with the Archbishop of York’s call for the toppling of Mugabe, to the BBC’s headlining of Desmond Tutu’s call for action to The Daily Telegraph’s featuring of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s declaration, “Enough is enough.” This morning, the BBC’s Today programme ran the story in its prime slot after 8 a.m.

This coverage was absent, however, in the United States.

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Tags: Desmond Tutu, Ethiopia, Gordon Brown, John Sentamu, Robert Mugabe, Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe