Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has often shown his true Islamist colors during his years in office, but nothing quite like his behavior and words since Israel decided to attack Hamas eighteen days ago.
He made his first unacceptable public statement when campaigning in a small Turkish village. He told a friendly crowd that “God will punish” Israel and that its actions would lead to its destruction.
The second time he went way overboard in public, Erdogan did not merely show himself as being fiercely anti-Israel, as every Islamist is, but even as an anti-Semite.
While speaking in Parliament Tuesday, Erdogan made clear that he no longer respects Israel, a traditional regional ally of the Turks. “Whoever does not express resentment over the killing of civilians, including women and children, loses his self respect,” Erdogan said.
He then continued, in clearly anti-Semitic words, that “media outlets supported by Jews are disseminating false reports on what happens in Gaza, finding unfounded excuses to justify targeting of schools, mosques and hospitals.”
Although one could certainly criticize Israel for targeting mosques, hospitals and schools at certain times, it is undeniably true that Hamas is hiding in those buildings, while shooting at Israeli soldiers. These are not “false reports”; they are confirmed by every single person with knowledge of the situation and even Hamas itself brags about it.
Erdogan is radicalizing pretty quickly and it seems that Turkish secularists are letting him get away with it, probably because a solid majority of the Turkish people opposes Israel’s operation in Gaza strongly (if not the operation itself, than the scale of it). However, Erdogan is presenting himself as a Caliph rather than as the prime minister of a secular country, which should worry Turks tremendously; he shows his true face, and they are not doing anything about it right now, not even his staunchest opponents.
Someone will have to keep Erdogan in check. He’s radicalizing so much right now that even Hamas describes Turkey as “an Islamic” state. He is not acting in Turkey’s interest; instead, his actions are determined by his fundamentalist beliefs. Secularist Turks should let him know that their country is secular and that any deviation from the secular principles upon which Turkey was founded will result in a massive confrontation between Erdogan and the country’s secular opposition.
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