If nothing else, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is consistent. On Aug. 3, in his latest anti-Israel rant since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted, he compared Israel to Hitler and accused Israel of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers.
Speaking to supporters at a rally in Istanbul about a week before the Aug. 10 presidential election he is contesting, Erdogan lashed out at the Jewish state yet again.
“Just like Hitler, who sought to establish a race free of all faults, Israel is chasing after the same target,” he said in a morally outrageous and historically senseless analogy. In yet more outlandish comments, he declared, “They kill women so that they will not give birth to Palestinians. They kill babies so that they won’t grow up. They kill men so they can’t defend their country…” And in a malicious comment worthy of an enemy, he predicted, “They will drown in the blood they shed.”
On July 15, two days before Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza, Erdogan, who has positioned himself as Israel’s most outspoken critic, said, “Israel is continuing to carry out state terrorism in the region.” Presenting himself as a staunch ally of the Palestinians, he added, “Nobody, except us, tells (Israel) to stop.”
Two days later, in remarks bound to undermine diplomatic efforts by Israel and Turkey to normalize bilateral relations in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, Erdogan went even further: “This is not the first time we have been confronted by such situations. Since (the creation of the state of Israel) in 1948, we have been witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every day and every month. But above all, we are witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every Ramadan.”
Genocide?
Has Erdogan lost all his bearings? Does he not understand the meaning of the word genocide? According to the Collins English Dictionary, genocide is defined as “the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group.” Does he really believe that genocide is Israel’s objective in Gaza? Is he implicitly comparing Hitler’s genocidal intentions toward European Jews to Israel’s legitimate policy of self-defence in the face of Hamas aggression?
Erdogan, of course, has not addressed these questions. Instead, in a bombastic campaign speech in the Black Sea port of Ordu on July 19, he levelled sweeping broadsides against Israel when he accused it of “barbarism that surpasses Hitler.”
The accusation is numbing in its sheer ignorance and mean spiritedness. Nazi barbarism was inextricably associated with antisemitic demonization, anti-Jewish edicts and extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka.
What is Israeli “barbarism?” Justifiable military measures taken by Israel to destroy Hamas attack tunnels, rocket launchers and weapon depots. Israeli bombing raids and artillery barrages have, unfortunately, killed innocent Palestinian civilians. But Hamas is largely to blame, having intentionally embedded itself in residential neighborhoods in a bid to create as many “martyrs” as possible.
While verbally abusing Israel at virtually every opportunity, Erdogan has neither condemned Hamas “human shield” tactics nor Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities.
Talk about double standards!
Erdogan, an Islamist, has regrettably made a career out of kicking Israel below the belt. Five years ago, when Israel thrust into Gaza to deal with precisely the same problem it confronts today, Erdogan accused Israel of “state terrorism.” Last year, in an accusation smacking of paranoid conspiracy theories, he blamed Israel for the ouster of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, whom he supported. Prior to dropping that bombshell, he said that Islamophobia should be considered a crime against humanity, “just like Zionism, like antisemitism and like fascism.”
Given his venomous anti-Israel record, no one should be surprised that the American Jewish Congress recently asked Erdogan to return a Profile of Courage award it had conferred on Erdogan in 2004, when Israel’s relations with Turkey were excellent.
It’s reasonable to ask why Erdogan is so hostile toward Israel.
According to his main opponent in the Aug. 10 presidential election, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, he is exploiting “foreign policy issues … to rally people.” Beyond that, Erdogan is using the Israel card to expand Turkish influence and clout in the Arab and Muslim worlds, hoping to resurrect the glorious epoch when the Ottoman Empire reigned supreme in the Middle East.
Apart from blasting Israel, Erdogan has taken aim at Turkey’s venerable Jewish community. On July 28, he disclosed he had urged “our Jewish citizens” to “adopt a firm stance and release a statement against the Israeli government.” Regardless of the community’s response, he added benevolently, “we will never let Jewish people in Turkey get hurt.”
If this is not implicit intimidation of a loyal but vulnerable minority, what is? It reminds observers of the bad old days when Jews in the Soviet Union were pressured to sign government statements excoriating Israel. Has Erdogan adopted the same policy?