It is going to be interesting to see how Turkey will start acting towards Israel now the agenda is obvious, and not only one agenda but a misdirected, out-of-control, Western collective one. This is also the chance for Turkey to revisit its Ottoman roots and to take the moral high ground for once. It might also be high time for NATO and the EU to take notice, and to reflect themselves on their own military might and foreign, particularly Middle Eastern, policy direction.
Already we are hearing rumblings, recriminations, and not so veiled threats over how there will be consequences for what the Israelis are doing wholesale to the Palestinian population, a criminally collective punishment, mass murder, on a scale unprecedented since the US carpet bombing of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, TV stations, and the Chinese Embassy during the bombing of Serbia, wholesale murder in Afghanistan, mostly wedding parties and bystanders, or the Shock and Awe and depleted Uranium in Iraq.
Protector of Palestinian Rights!
What is being done to the Palestinians is cold-blooded murder, so much so, that Turkey is willing to be transformed from partner in crime to peacemaker! Turkish president Erdoğan is calling Israel a ‘terror state’and criticizing the West for turning a blind eye to genocide, and calling for Israeli officials to be tried for war crimes. It is ironic, considering Turkish own history, and double standards, almost.
But he is doing what no other regional leader is willing to do, calling the hand of Israel for its attempt to seize more land from the Palestinians and make them refugees yet again.
Erdoğan said that Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian armed group Hamas included “the most treacherous attacks in human history” with “unlimited” support from the West.
But how far will Turkey and the Islamic World go in backing up strong language with actions? Actions that will bring about a just settlement to the killing and give back Palestinians much of their historic lands and have them treated as equals before the international community?
Erdoğan is willing to say what many already know, by calling on PM Benjamin Netanyahu “to announce whether Israel has nuclear weapons and speaking openly that Netanyahu would soon be a “goner” from his post.”
What is being done to the Palestinians is cold-blooded murder, any by reasonable standard. Erdoğan told the Turkish parliament, as discussed in the Times of Israel. The Turkish president said that “the Israeli government has been continuously committing war crimes for the last 40 days, they are bombing hospitals, streets and mosques, and are aiming for all these places intentionally, implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people.”
Pot calling the kettle black
Naturally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at Erdoğan, highlighting his domestic crimes against Kurds and how the Turkish military acted in Syria, carrying out war crimes such as torture, summarily executions.
“He himself shelled Turkish villages within the borders of Turkey — we will not accept his preaching.”
Netanyahu was likely referring to Turkish military action against Kurdish areas of the country in recent years. This is surely a case of the pot calling the kettle black, as they think and act too much alike, as two peas in a rotten pod.
Where is Amnesty International now, when earlier it was so quick to document Turkish crimes against humanity?
But now, when Israel goes on the warpath, displaying “a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians,” it appears to have another standard, as if Palestinians are not humans.
As my journalist friend and former policy advisor in the Turkish Ministry of Education shared with me recently, “Now Mossad is ready to carry out assassinations in Türkiye, Qatar and Lebanon.” He did not say if these would be of Hamas leaders or political figures. Given the history of Israeli black ops, most likely both, and their families, for good measure.
Regardless, this war-of-words is heating up, and it has the Turkish population closing ranks in support of their leader and the hard line position he is taking towards Israel, its PM, and not only of Israeli-Zionist policies but the knowledge the world has of its stockpile of nuclear weapons and threats by some members of the government to use them.
Israel is really desperate now, especially Netanyahu, as Hamas is a product of Mossad scheming, so to divide the Palestinians and to destroy any hope for a two-state solution and any prospects for peace. There is so much false and misleading information on the part of Israel and the US that even employees of the US State Department are trying to take a moral position in the midst of a sea of lies.
So far, 100 State Department and USAID employees have signed an internal memo accusing Joe Biden of spreading Gaza “misinformation” in support of Israel, right or wrong, and to the “disadvantage” of Palestinian civilians. They did not even do such things under the Trump administration, as that president was also known for being economical with the truth, however, Biden just goes with the lies on top of lies, no questions asked.
The memo largely hones in on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s counterattack on Hamas in Gaza, which the memo alleges included cutting off all electricity, curbing aid, and carrying out airstrikes and sieges. “All constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law,” the memo states.
The Butcher of Gaza
So president Erdoğan is not isolated in his disdain for the actions of Netanyahu, or his war crimes, and he is willing to tell things as they are, and not present things as Zionist bedtime stories. The employee memo reinforces a range of claims the Biden admin “displayed a clear disregard for the lives of Palestinians,” and openly accuses Israel of “war crimes”
In a speech to an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) committee meeting in Istanbul, Erdoğan said the Western nations supporting Israel were giving it “unconditional support to kill babies” and were complicit in its crimes.
Erdoğan is also not alone in thinking Netanyahu and his kind should be tried as war criminals, much the same as Nazi war criminals, and meet the same fate as so many. However, Netanyahu is one such criminal that will likely get away, as he is just a pawn in a bigger game of geopolitical chess, and Gaza is just the opening round in a continuous Chess Match.
To add injury to insult, to openly say that Gaza is a Palestinian territory and how Gaza belongs to Palestinians, and it will remain so forever.
RecepTayyip Erdoğan is really telling what the Israelis don’t want to hear.
“We also propose to convene an international peace conference on a settlement between Israel and Palestine with the participation of all influential parties.”
And what really is threatening, as if history is being rolled back prior to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of WW1, is when Erdoğan suggests “that Türkiye is ready to be a guarantor country for the peace talks between Israel and Palestine.”
It is well known that the President of Türkiye wants a restoration of the Ottoman Empire in some form, and to wrest back leadership of the Muslim world from the hands of the Saudis and Iranians. Could the Palestinian cause be the ammunition he needs to start the process of restoring his country’s leading role in the region?
The situation plays into his hands, and regardless of whether one takes the view that he is acting out of genuine moral outrage at the Israeli campaign of genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, or that he is acting from self-interest, the quote “even a broken clock is right, twice a day” holds merit.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.