A reminder that hateful conspiracy theories are not only found in dark corners

...He has our attention today because of this: Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek has alleged that last week's deadly attacks on a French satirical magazine and a kosher supermarket in Paris that left 17 people dead are the result of France expressing support for Palestine, and that Israeli intelligence is behind the attacks, the semi-official Anadolu news agency reported.

The mayor of Turkey's capital city: Dangerous
and offensive conspiratorial views that ought
to be more widely recognized [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
14 January '14..

It's too easy for Westerners to skim an article mentioning a man called Melih Gökçek and to ignore what it says.

But for those prepared to drill down a little and to try to understand the non-English-language viewpoints on offer in the world of ideas, what he has been saying is worthy of urgent attention.

He's a Turkish lawyer and journalist who has held down the very influential role of mayor of Turkey's capital city Ankara (population: 4.6 million) for more than two decades, having won municipal elections in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014. For the three years before that term started, he was an elected member of the Turkish parliament. Politically, he is aligned with the ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, which "developed from the tradition of Islamism, but has officially abandoned this ideology in favour of "conservative democracy"" [Wikipedia]. He has more than two million Twitter followers.

Plainly no fool and by no means an underachiever. But a man of considerable malevolence. This for instance:
In early July 2014 Gökçek supported the antisemitic tweet made by Turkish singer Yıldız Tilbe: "God bless Hitler, it was even too few what he did to the Jews, he was right" and "The Jews will be destroyed by Muslims, in the name of Allah, not much time left for it be done". [Wikipedia]

He has our attention today because of this:

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.