Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's Anti-Semitic Rant

by John M. Curtis
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Copyright July 21, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
                                    

               Turkey’s 60-year-old Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to pander to the Islamic street less than a month before the Aug. 10 presidential election.  Canvassing for Islamic votes, Erdogan tossed red meat at his Islamic audience, comparing Israel’s latest Gaza campaign to Adolf Hitler.  “They curse Hitler morning and night,” Erdogan told an exuberant crowd at the Black Sea Port of Ordu.  “However, now their barbarism has surpassed even Hitler’s,” said Erdogan, show there’s no low too low in Turkish campaigns.  Erdogan rips Israel but excuses the Ottoman Turks for the 1915 death marches that massacred 1.5 millioin Armenians.  No Turkish government since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 has accepted responsibility for the Turkish genocide yet Erdogan sees fit to minimize the Holocaust where 6 million Jews were systematically slaughtered by Hitler’s Third Reich.  

             Edrogan talks of Israel’s unparalleled barbarism conducting a military operation begun July 8 to root out Hamas’s rocket stockpiles and mobile launchers used to fire  over 2,000 rockets into Israel in the last two weeks.  Erdogan has no problem with Hamas firing rockets into Israel but routinely attacks the Kurds around the Turkish border for daring to secure a viable homeland.  Comparing the collateral damage in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust shows almost as much contempt for Jews as former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who denied the Holocaust, choosing instead to host a Holocaust deniers’ conference in Tehran Dec. 14, 2006.  Erdogan’s hyperbole wins him plenty of votes among Turkey’s conservative Islamic community but reveals his calculating side.  Whether he admits it or not, Turkey’s been one of Israel’s biggest trading partners over the last 20 years.

             Ripping Erdogan for “desecrating the Holocaust,” 64-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Secretary of State John Kerry about the Turkish prime minister’s anti-Semitic comments.  Whether or not its Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials or Erdogan’s hyperbole, German Chancellor Angela Merkel fully accepts responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews.  Her government does everything it can to highlight Germany’s role in the Holocaust and make amends to Jews seeking to relocate to Germany.  Erdogan’s vile remarks show he’ll stoop to anything for votes before the Aug. 10 election.  Showing tolerance for Gaza’s rocket fire into Israel, Erdogan won’t tolerate a firecracker when it comes to lashing out at the Kurds in Northern Iraq and Southern Turkey.  Hamas looks to Turkey and Qatar—not Egypt—to pitch their ceasefire conditions before ending the latest intifada [uprising].

             Gaza’s 51-year-old Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh laid down the law for a truce, rejecting Egypt’s July 14 proposal.  Hamas wants no part of Egypt’s military government led by 59-year-old Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisis who officially banned the Muslim Brotherhood and tossed its elected leader Mohammed Morsi in jail July 3, 2013.  Hamas considers itself part of the Muslim Brotherhood and had a comrade-in-arms in their struggle against the Jewish State.  Now banned in Egypt, Hamas doesn’t like el-Sisi’s tough stand on Islamic extremists, especially closing May 13, 2013 smuggling tunnels from Gaza to Egypt.  For a cease fire to fly, Haniyeh wants Egypt’s Rafah border crossing open to Palestinians, whether they smuggle rockets or not.  Haniyeh insists on an end to the blockade that’s crippled Gaza’s economy, leaving the terrorist group essentially bankrupt, despite their decision for war.

             Haniyeh hopes that Erdogan can prevail on Western leaders to help Haniyeh get his demands to end the Gaza blockade, but, more importantly, force Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prioners, especially 56-year-old Marwan Barghouti, the heir apparent to the PLO’s Mahmoud Abbas.  Haniyeh insists that his beleaguered Gazan population 100% backs the rocket war with Israel to force an end to the blockade that has left Gaza so desperate.  Highlighting every death on global TV, Hamas hopes to isolate Israel’s ground invasion that dramatically escalated Palestinian and Israel deaths.  Seven Israelis—including two U.S. citizens—perished battling Hamas militants that managed to get on Israeli soil from tunnels around the border.  Haniyeh’s refusal to stop firing rockets into Israel unless granted his demands of ending the blockade and releasing prisoners plays into Netanyahu’s hands.

            Buying Netanyahu more time to rout Hamas, seize rocket stockpiles and launchers and destroy tunnels, Haniyeh refuses to protect Gaza’s civilian population but, more importantly, seeks a prisoner release at all costs.  However the collateral damage to Palestinians civilians, Netanyahu would far prefer to get more time to inflict damage on Hamas.  Netanyahu knows that agreeing to a prisoner swap that include Barghouti would stop Hamas’s rocket fire on a dime.  With or without a change in the blockade, Hamas highest priority is springing Barghouti from Israeli jail.  Serving five life-terms for murder-and-mayhem during the first two Palestinian uprisings, Barghouti is Palestinians consensus pick to replace Abbas.  Once Israeli Defense Forces give the word about a completed operation, the Israeli army will withdraw quickly from Gaza.  Keeping the battle going only helps Netanyahu.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.


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