Surprise? Israel-Bashing Season Re-Opens in Turkey - by Burak Bekdil

"What," asked a puzzled European diplomat, a newcomer to Ankara, "does Israel have to do with Turks' choice of metropolitan, small town or even village mayors?" A colleague answered with a smile: "A lot. Anti-Israel rhetoric is now an indispensable part of every Turkish election, including one to elect a village headman."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently threatened
his own citizens -- citizens who practice a different faith,
 of course -- Turkey's already dwindling Jewish community,
 now at around 16,000. "Do not provoke [us]," he said.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. (Photo by Elif Sogut/Getty Images)

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
27 March '19..
Link: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13962/turkey-israel-bashing

Another round of Turkish elections and another wave of Israel-bashing at election rallies. This has become a pattern since 2009 and Turks have not shown any sign of frustration: They simply love it.

Blaming the man who brought Israel to public rallies is the easier thing to do, a kind of intellectual laziness. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been correct in thinking that his diplomatic wars with Israel, his more than undiplomatic language and outright anti-Zionism would work like a ballot box cash machine. It did.

A deeper look, however, should investigate why in the 1970s and 80s, when Turkey did not have full diplomatic relations with Israel, the name of that country or any politician there was never mentioned at Turkish election rallies. Why would the average Turkish voter, three or four decades ago, find the State of Israel totally irrelevant but today show up and cheer at every possible Israel-bashing election rally? How did Turkish politicians who in the mid-1990s spearheaded efforts to build an alliance with Israel, keep winning votes despite their pro-Israel policies? What took place to move the Turkish mindset to its present, deeply anti-Israeli point?

What took place was the not-so-creeping Islamization of Turkish society since 2002, when Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power. A Turk who is now 27 years old was only 10 at that time, and has not seen any other leader of Turkey since. Erdoğan's political and social engineering has changed the way the average Turk identifies himself: Most Turks used to identify themselves as "Turks first." Now they identify themselves as "Muslims first" -- the way Erdoğan seemingly wanted them to.

It is not surprising then that passionate fans of the Justice and Development Party often hear the words Israel, terror state, tyrant, dictator and so on at public rallies as Turkey heads toward its local elections on March 31. "What," asked a puzzled European diplomat, a newcomer to Ankara, "does Israel have to do with Turks' choice of metropolitan, small town or even village mayors?" A colleague answered with a smile: "A lot. Anti-Israel rhetoric is now an indispensable part of every Turkish election, including one to elect a village headman."

@HRW Notices That Wishing for Children to Be Martyred Is Sick — But Not When Palestinians Wish It - by Elder of Ziyon

...Why is encouraging childhood martyrdom “sick” in Turkey, but not worth mentioning in the Palestinian arena? One reason is that in Turkey, there was actually disgust in social media about Erdogan’s actions — but you will be hard pressed to find a similar reaction in the Palestinian territories or the Arab world towards Palestinian aspirations to die for Allah.

Elder of Ziyon..
Algemeiner.com..
05 March '18..

There was a moment of moral clarity from a Human Rights Watch worker recently.

A BBC story said:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been criticised after telling a girl in military uniform that she would be honoured if killed while fighting.

“If she’s martyred, they’ll lay a flag on her,” he told the sobbing girl at a televised congress of his AK Party.

In the event, broadcast live on state television, the young girl dressed as a soldier seems to catch the attention of Mr Erdogan, who then invites her to the stage.

…

“She has a Turkish flag in her pocket too. … If she’s martyred, they’ll lay a flag on her, God willing,” he said during the congress in the southern town of Kahramanmaras on Saturday.

“She is ready for everything, isn’t she?” The girl replied: “Yes.”

In response, HRW’s Andrew Strohlein tweeted:

Turkish President Erdogan tells a sobbing girl in military uniform that she would be honoured if killed while fighting. Glorifying children’s deaths? Promoting child soldiers? Sick. https://t.co/3PW1qKsTuT pic.twitter.com/Ua8rson2BD

— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) February 26, 2018

That doesn’t seem like a controversial thing to say.

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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. 

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Jewish Jerusalem: The ultimate obsessive distraction from Muslim failure - by Daniel Krygier

...Turkey’s Sultan-aspiring leader Erdogan cynically uses Jerusalem and Israel to boost his own standing in the Islamic world. Enjoying being at the center of the Muslim summit in Istanbul, Erdogan repeated the lie that reborn Israel is built on “occupied Palestine”. It is especially ironic given the fact that Erdogan’s Ottoman predecessors occupied the land of Israel for four centuries and oppressed Arabs and Jews alike.

Daniel Krygier..
MiDA.org.il..
19 December '17..
Link: http://en.mida.org.il/2017/12/19/obsessive-distraction-muslim-failure/

Ranting about Jerusalem, Jews and the West has become the Muslim world’s mental Colosseum, where the Muslim masses are temporarily distracted from their increasingly destitute existence and self-inflicted failures.

No other part of the world shields itself more from reality than the Muslim world. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Muslim world strongly disapproves of President Trump’s recognition of reality: Jerusalem is the historic and modern capital of Israel and the Jewish people.

The leaders of 57 Muslim states representing the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims, convened in Turkey to project a unified front against Israel and America. Behind the façade of hysterical Muslim rage, Jerusalem and Jews represent a rare opportunity for the deeply fractured and divided Muslim and Arab world to divert the attention of its increasingly dissatisfied masses.

While the despots in the Muslim world enjoy a life of unimaginable luxury, the vast majority of their populations remain stuck in chronic and severe socio-economic poverty and illiteracy. Not only is most of the Muslim and Arab world not closing the gap with the developed world, it is increasingly lagging behind the rapidly growing emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere.

The Arab world’s real problems are not a tiny Jewish state but a severe deficit in three crucial areas: freedom, knowledge and gender equality. Nowhere else in the world are women and minorities more oppressed and persecuted than in the Muslim Arab world. Needless to say, a society that oppresses more than half of its citizens is undermining its potential.

No other region in the world represses knowledge and freedom with more zeal than the Muslim Arab world. Since the knowledge economy is the future, it puts the Arab world at a distinct disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

BDS, Turkey and the silence of the (anti-semitic) anti-Israel academics - by A.J. Caschetta

...Real suppression, however, making their persecution fantasies seem absurd, is mostly met with silence. Where is the moral indignation? Yet, there is no shortage of howls of "injustice" and BDS movements criticizing even the slightest perceived infringement of human rights in Israel, a country that ensures human rights and equality under the law to all its citizens.

A.J. Caschetta..
Gatestone Institute.
05 August '17..

In Turkey, academics are currently at the mercy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who demands their compliance and threatens dissenters. After last July's failed coup (for which Erdogan blamed an American scholar), a series of emergency decrees have specifically targeted Turkish academia. One would think this assault would raise ire from the ivory towers, but as Turkey slides deeper into totalitarianism, academia yawns. The failure of many professors to stand up vigorously and publicly for what they profess is especially notable in those whose careers are focused on the demonization of Israel through various attempts to destroy Israel by suffocating it economically.

All right, it is summer break and everyone is off doing research, writing novels and looking for grant money. But Erdogan's crackdown is not new. Most of it was ignored until January 2016 when he targeted a group of Turkish scholars who called themselves "Academics for Peace" for producing a petition demanding that the Turkish government "end the massacre of the Kurdish people."

Since the failed coup, Erdogan has increasingly behaved like a paranoid dictator flexing his muscles. In the last 12 months alone, he has closed at least 15 universities and confiscated their property. Invoking Article 301 of the Turkish penal code – which amorphously criminalizes insults to "Turkishness," the Turkish government or the Turkish military – he has also closed down numerous publishing houses. He has forced Turkish journals to remove from their editorial boards scholars who criticize him. Hundreds have been fired and blacklisted. Unable to work in Turkey and, with their passports confiscated, unable to leave, they represent the worst-case scenario of every comfortable Western academic who has ever bemoaned the "chilling effect" of Republican presidents and congresses, or who have proclaimed as "McCarthyism" any criticism of their own work. Real suppression, however, making their persecution fantasies seem absurd, is mostly met with silence. Where is the moral indignation? Yet, there is no shortage of howls of "injustice" and BDS movements criticizing even the slightest perceived infringement of human rights in Israel, a country that ensures human rights and equality under the law to all its citizens.

A letter condemning the Erdogan regime and supporting the persecuted academics is the bare minimum one might expect from an easily-piqued group of people who write for a living. Escalations in severity might include organized protests, media events and other kinds of activism to reach audiences beyond readers of The Chronicle of Higher Education and InsideHigherEd. Enlisting the help of celebrities comes next, followed by attempts at isolation in one of the few ways possible to an academic institution, such as cancelling conferences and sporting events convened in the offending state or country. Next come boycotts, calls for divesture of university-controlled funds and sanctioning various individuals.

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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. 

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Fomenting anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism: Useful tools for promoting Erdogan's ambitious neo-Ottoman vision - by Dr. Efrat Aviv

Turkey continues to insert itself more and more into the ongoing clashes on the Temple Mount, almost as if it legally represents the Palestinians in the dispute. Turkey’s anti-Israel agitation, which garners wide support among Palestinians in both Gaza and the PA, is hardly new. But its patronage of the Palestinians hides more than religious sentiment. Turkish anti-Zionism, which aligns directly with anti-Semitism, is being expressed once again through the current friction.

Dr. Efrat Aviv..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 544..
29 July '17..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/erdogan-temple-mount-crisis/

In May 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the opening ceremony of a two-day conference in Istanbul called “The International Forum on al-Quds Waqf.” He condemned “Israeli crimes against the Palestinians” and called on Muslims to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount as frequently as possible. “As a Muslim community, we need to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque often,” he said. “Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us.”

On July 20, 2017, responding to increased security measures on the Temple Mount following the murders of two Israeli policemen there at the holy site, he said: “Any restriction on Muslims entering the al-Aqsa Mosque is unacceptable…The protection of the Islamic character and sanctity of al-Quds [Jerusalem] and al-Haram al-Sharif [the al-Aqsa Mosque complex] is important for the whole Muslim world…The Muslim world cannot remain silent.”

In his capacity as term chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Erdoğan condemned Israel’s supposed prevention of Muslims’ performing Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque. While extending condolences to those killed during the violent clashes in Jerusalem, he assailed the use of “excessive force” by Israeli security forces against those who had gathered for Friday prayers.

“The OIC was founded in 1969 during an attack on al-Haram al-Sharif, and today the Islamic world stands with our Palestinian brothers with the same spirit of unity and solidarity,” Erdoğan claimed. He said efforts to remove “restrictions on access to the al-Aqsa Mosque” would continue in coordination with the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Jordanian King Abdullah II, whom he phoned on July 24 to discuss the matter. At a press conference, the president’s spokesman İbrahim Kalın asserted, “al-Aqsa Mosque is not alone. It’s not for Israel. It belongs to the Palestinians and to all Muslims.”

Erdogan's Obsession to Take Jerusalem - by Burak Bekdil

...As an American friend delicately asked: "Isn't Turkey supposed to be investing millions to help rebuild Gaza?" Not, it seems, when Islamist ideology is involved.

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
17 July '17
Link: www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10638/turkey-erdogan-jerusalem

Less than a year ago, Turkey and Israel agreed to end their six-year-long diplomatic stand-off and officially "normalized" their relations. They appointed ambassadors Kemal Okem to Israel and Eitan Na'eh to Turkey, two prominent career diplomats, who, since then, have been struggling actually to normalize formally normalized ties. As some observers, including your humble correspondent, cautioned in 2016:

"Erdogan had pragmatically agreed to shake hands with Israel, but his ideological hostility to the Jewish state and his ideological love affair with Hamas have not disappeared; so the Turkish-Israeli 'peace' would not be easy to sustain".

Only half a year into the "normalized charter" Erdogan in May pledged that his government would work with the Palestinian people to guard against the "Judiazation of Jerusalem." This may be vintage Erdogan. The Turkish president's promise was not too different from a call for a struggle to guard against the "Catholicization of the Vatican."

It is elementary history that Jerusalem's pre-Islamic period of 3300-1000 BCE appeared in the book of Genesis -- the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- when Erdogan's ancestors were probably hunters in the steppes of Central Asia. The years 1000-732 BCE marked the period of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Simply put, Jerusalem's Judaic history dates back to thousands of years before the birth of Islam.

Nevertheless, according to Erdogan, there is a necessity "to protect-against the Judaization of Jerusalem." Erdogan, in his May speech, also repeated an earlier call for Muslims from around the world to "visit al-Aqsa" mosque, located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. "As a Muslim community, we need to visit al-Aqsa Mosque often," he said. "Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us."

Turkey’s Hamas Hypocrisy - by Michael Rubin

...If the United States is culpable for the attempted coup in Turkey because an ailing 75-year-old cleric lives isolated in the Poconos, then is Turkey legally responsible for Hamas attacks against Israelis and Americans because Hamas now calls Turkey home? If so, perhaps it’s time for victims of real terrorism to lawyer up and go after Turkish assets. Should they do so, their best witnesses might be Erdoğan and his proxy Binali Yıldırım.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
31 July '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/turkey/turkeys-hamas-hypocrisy/

One of the defining characteristics of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey is its complete obliviousness to the precedent its leadership creates. Five years ago, for example, Erdoğan visited the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and said, “It is a natural and constitutional right for Macedonia to use that name [Macedonia]…. Macedonia’s decision to use its name should be respected.” On this, I happen to agree with Erdoğan, but does Erdoğan extend the same right to Kurds to call their homeland Kurdistan? Precedent dictates he should, but Erdoğan is a hypocrite: Good luck to any Kurd who refers to Diyarbakir as a city in Kurdistan.

Then, of course, there is the issue of Hamas. Erdoğan has openly embraced the Palestinian terrorist group for a decade, feting their most militant leaders in Ankara and pushing back on U.S. and European criticism by saying Hamas deserved legitimacy: It won an election, had popular support, and sought national liberation. He encouraged Turks to bypass the lawful blockade of Gaza to provide humanitarian assistance. Put aside the irony that Gaza surpasses Turkey in key demographic and health indicators. Bring up the plight of the Kurds, though, and the Turkish response is bluster and hypocrisy. If any foreign power sought to deliver even humanitarian supplies direct to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) or its civilian political proxies, Turkey would consider it an act of war. At the very least, Erdoğan’s Hamas precedent means that no Western government should consider the PKK to be a terrorist group.

Hey, BDS-Loving Professors, Why So Quiet?

If you want to boycott Israel but not Erdogan’s dictatorship, there’s an old and useful term that might describe you well

Liel Leibovitz..
Tablet Magazine..
20 July '16..

Following the failed coup attempt in Turkey last weekend, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has stripped 59, 628 private school teachers of their accreditation, and the state-run Council of Higher Education called on all 1,577 the deans of private and public universities to immediately resign. Yesterday, the government took the assault on academic freedom a step further, firing an additional 100 academics and issuing a travel ban on all professors still employed.

In light of this blatant assault on the very core of academic freedom, I would like to offer a hearty mazel tov to the legions of American academic associations rising up to fight for principle and stand in solidarity with their beleaguered Turkish colleagues. The calls this week by the American Anthropological Association, the American Studies Association, the Association for Asian American Studies, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies, the Critical Ethnic Studies Association, and others were all shining examples of precisely the sort of fierce commitment to freedom and justice we’ve come to expect of American academics, those lionhearted champions of liberty, those defenders of moral…

What’s that? None of them said anything? Even though they have all voted to boycott Israel for its alleged academic apartheid, a cruel policy of discrimination that has led to such clear abuses like a dramatic increase in the percentage of Arab students attending Israeli universities? How odd.

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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. 

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But there are good terrorists and bad terrorists - by Burak Bekdil

...Erdoğan often says that “there should be no good terrorists and bad terrorists” and that “terrorists are terrorists.” He’s right. But he is not realistic at all if he is seriously expecting the entire world to agree on his own definition of who is a terrorist and who is not.

Burak Bekdil..
Hurriyetdailynews.com..
13 April '16..

In his speeches to Turkish audiences but addressing world leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan often says that “there should be no good terrorists and bad terrorists” and that “terrorists are terrorists.” He’s right. But he is not realistic at all if he is seriously expecting the entire world to agree on his own definition of who is a terrorist and who is not.

Mr. Erdoğan’s all-too-powerful but bizarre belief that anyone who does not fiercely agree with him on everything all the time must be an enemy, traitor, terrorist or a combination of all three is not healthy, to put it mildly.

He does not hide his firm belief that the prominent journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, who ran a story on their newspaper’s front page, or the four academics who, along with more than a thousand others, signed a pro-peace (but subjective) petition are terrorists who deserve life sentences. He wants them to stand trial under detention: guilty without trial.

The president believes that the Kurds who want to carve out a Kurdish region in northern Syria, too, are terrorists. The Kurds who already have their autonomous region in northern Iraq and publicly speak of regional re-mapping (so as to create a homeland for the Kurds) are not terrorists.

President Erdoğan has every liberty to believe that Hamas, whose charter vows death, is a legitimate political party. And so is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The latter is viewed as a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government and the former by the European Union despite legal challenges Hamas has put forward.

The United States, Canada, Israel and Jordan have outlawed Hamas. Egypt, Japan, Britain and Australia have banned its military wing. Regional rivals Russia, Iran and Turkey, ironically, have a common position in not regarding Hamas as a terrorist group (Russia, because of its Iranian/Shiite engagement; Iran, because of “the common enemy” and Turkey, because of Sunni Islamism).

Nowhere Else to Go? When All Else Fails, Erdogan Calls Israel

...Turkey's was always a double game. The restoration of relations with Israel is less a political reconciliation than an admission of the utter bankruptcy of Turkey's last five years of diplomatic endeavor.

Shoshana Bryen..
JPC/ Gatestone Institute..
18 December '15..

The announcement of the restoration of Israel-Turkish relations should be seen in the context of Turkey having nowhere else to go.

Turkey's relations with Israel have been strained, to put it mildly, since 2010 when, through a non-profit organization, Turkey funded the 2010 Gaza Flotilla aimed at breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

After a bloody confrontation, which ended in the deaths of nine Turks, Turkey demanded that Israel be tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and subjected to UN sanction. The ICC ruled that Israel's actions did not constitute war crimes. In addition, the UN's Palmer Commission concluded that the blockade of Gaza was legal, and that the IDF commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara ship had faced "organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers," and were therefore required to use force for their own protection. The commission, however, did label the commandos' force "excessive and unreasonable."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already shown hostility towards Israel. Already in 2009, then-Prime Minister Erdogan denounced Israel's President Shimon Peres publicly at the Davos World Economic Forum. "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. You know very well how to kill." When Hamas was thrown out of Damascus, Erdogan invited Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh to put the terrorist organization's "West Bank and Jerusalem Headquarters" in Istanbul.

Speaking at the Paris rally in January 2015, after the murderous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices and the terrorist murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "Just as the massacre in Paris committed by terrorists is a crime against humanity, Netanyahu... has committed crimes against humanity." Erdogan, speaking in Ankara, said he could "hardly understand how he (Netanyahu) dared to go" to the march in the French capital. Just last month, Davutoglu told an audience, "Israel kneels down to us."

Not exactly.

Turkey's foreign policy choices and current crises have combined to make Erdogan reach out to Israel for help. Erdogan came to office as Prime Minister in 2003 with a policy of "zero problems with neighbors," but has since led Turkey to problems with most, if not all, of them. Alon Liel, former Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, "Turkey didn't do very well in the last five years in the region. Turkey needs friends."

That is an understatement.

International Hypocrisy and the World's Indifference to the Siege of Cizre

...What may be necessary, however, if the international community does not want to expose itself as completely hypocritical, is to ensure that Turkey’s government can no long blockade and impose collective punishment on either its Kurdish minority. Perhaps it’s time for the blue helmets to ensure that all towns and villages in Turkey, regardless of the ethnicity of their residents, receive food, and full access to medicine, water, and basic health and sanitary services. Surely, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would not want Turkey statistically to fall even further behind the residents of the Gaza Strip.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
13 September '15..







The international press has bizarrely picked up — with credulity — a United Nations report from some time ago arguing that by 2020, the Gaza Strip might be uninhabitable. Here, for example, is the BBC:

The Gaza Strip will not be “a liveable place” by 2020 unless action is taken to improve basic services in the territory, according to a UN report. Basic infrastructure “is struggling to keep pace with a growing population”, the UN Country Team (UNCT) in the occupied Palestinian territory said. It estimates Gaza’s population will rise from 1.6m to 2.1m by 2020. Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas seized power in the coastal territory in 2007.

What the report does not emphasize, of course, is the responsibility for the supposed calamity on the part of Hamas. After all, Hamas has chosen to emphasize terror over development, and has — often with the complicity of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — diverted funds or co-opted relief supplies, schools, and hospitals to manufacture if not store weaponry aimed at killing Israelis indiscriminately. If Hamas cast aside its genocidal ideology and if the Palestinians ceased their governments’ endemic corruption, they might become like Dubai or Singapore. Then again, diplomats and analysts must exist in the realm of reality and not fantasy. Nor does the report acknowledge that the residents of Gaza enjoy a far greater standard of living in key respects than those living in other countries. Gazans, for example, enjoy greater life expectancy than Malaysians, Bulgarians, Thais, Egyptians, Turks, Brazilians, and dozens of other nationalities. Some have suggested infant mortality has risen under the territory’s Hamas stewardship, but even if such figures are taken at face value, then Gaza has a better situation for infant health than Tunisia, Mongolia, Egypt, and much of Central America. Perhaps Israel’s (legal) blockade — one in which all essential materials, food and medicine gets through, as well as many non-essential goods.

Not every location subject to a security crackdown is so lucky. Take the Turkish army’s ongoing siege of Cizre, a picturesque town (which I have frequently visited) near where Iraq, Turkey, and Syria converge. Earlier this week, I received the following email from a former Turkish official detailing the situation:

This self-declared “State of Palestine” and the chickens coming home to roost for Turkey

...Turkey’s swift recognition of this illegally constituted state for the “Palestinians” – a people only created for the first time in 1964 by the PLO Charter – starkly contrasts with Turkey’s consistent refusal to grant its 15 million ancient Kurdish community – part of the largest stateless minority group in the world – the identical right to their own State in Northern Turkey for the last 90 years ....Erdogan – robbed of his parliamentary majority by the Kurds – is in no mood to support Kurdish Statehood – a position he so enthusiastically embraced for the Palestinians. Turkey seems set to pay a huge price for Erdogan’s hypocritical double standards. The chickens are indeed coming home to roost.

David Singer..
J-Wire..
07 August '15..

Turkey’s championing of the Palestinian Arabs in their quest for an independent State has come back to bite the country with a vengeance – as Kurdish Statehood is once again firmly placed on the political agenda…writes David Singer.Turkey became the first country in the world with an ambassador to “Palestine” – after its envoy in Ramallah, Şakir Özkan Torunlar, presented his Letter of Credence to “State of Palestine” President Mahmoud Abbas on 14 April 2013.

Incredibly this self-declared “State of Palestine” – admitted as a member State of UNESCO on 31 October 2011 and as a non-State observer to the United Nations on 29 November 2012 with Turkey’s active support – lacks the four following criteria required by the 1933 Montevideo Convention to qualify as a State:

1. a permanent population;
2. a defined territory;
3. a government; and
4. capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Turkey’s swift recognition of this illegally constituted state for the “Palestinians” – a people only created for the first time in 1964 by the PLO Charter – starkly contrasts with Turkey’s consistent refusal to grant its 15 million ancient Kurdish community – part of the largest stateless minority group in the world – the identical right to their own State in Northern Turkey for the last 90 years.

The New York Times’ Tim Arango sums up the current situation:

The Kurds – a population of roughly 30 million spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria – have historically been treated as second-class citizens by autocratic governments and have long dreamed of their own state. Their aspirations were thwarted by Western powers after World War I, when new borders were drawn that carved up the Kurdish communities. But slowly, during the upheaval of the Middle East, the Kurds are now reaching for self-determination.

The battle for Kobani last year in Syria, which ended in victory for the Kurds after a month-long American-led air campaign, drew Kurdish fighters from around the world and fanned the flames of pan-Kurdish nationalism.

In Iraq, after the Islamic State swept across the north of the country last year and captured Mosul, Kurdish forces took charge of Kirkuk, a city long contested between Kurds and Arabs that sits on a sea of oil and is considered something of a spiritual homeland for the Kurds.

Gains by the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in the last Turkish elections at the expense of Turkey’s President Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (A.K.P) have put added pressure on Kurdish demands for their own State.

Turkey's Rather Interesting View of Terror

...Turkey boldly challenged its Western allies to join them in a fight against terror. But the target was not al-Qaeda or ISIS. Instead, Turkey wanted the West to fight the "terrorist state, Israel."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(then prime minister) cries over the death
of a teenage Egyptian Islamist activist during
a televised interview in 2013.
(Image source: Cihan video screenshot)

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
07 July '15..

Turkey's Islamist government, now squeezed in a political drama in which it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, has in many recent years boldly challenged its Western allies by calling them to join an allied fight against terror. But the target was not al-Qaeda, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or one of the dozens of different Islamist groups designated by the civilized world as terrorist.

Instead, Turkey wanted the West to fight the "terrorist state, Israel."

Turkey's Islamist rulers have a deeply corrupted perception of which acts count for terror and which ones do not: Anyone who kills in the name of a cause other than Islamism is probably a terrorist.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once publicly declared a 15-year-old boy, who was shot by the police and died after many months in a coma, "a terrorist." In a claim never proven, Erdogan said the boy was carrying a slingshot in his pocket. He was hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by anti-riot police. In Erdogan's thinking, the boy was a terrorist because he was hit during anti-government protests, he was carrying a slingshot and he was an Alevi (a member of a heterodox Muslim Shi'ite religious minority).

In 2013, the world was shocked at the dramatic death tolls in Kenya and Pakistan, when jihadists, in separate attacks over one weekend, killed more than 150 innocent people -- with the Kenya attack claiming victims aged between two and 78. Erdogan, then prime minister, looked very sad indeed -- but not for the victims of the terror attacks. He was mourning Asmaa al-Beltagi, a poor, 17-year-old Egyptian girl who had been shot dead by security forces in Cairo, as she was protesting the ouster of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, in a coup d'état. Asmaa's father was a senior Brotherhood figure; after her death, Erdogan once even shed tears during a televised interview. He then commemorated the girl at almost every election rally.

One of Erdogan's favorite statements is his famous line, "There is no Islamic terror." Erdogan also rejects outright any link between Muslims and massacres or genocide.

Last November, after a meeting in Paris with French President François Hollande, Erdogan accused "those who try to portray ISIS as an Islamic organization...." Fortunately, he did not claim that ISIS was a Jewish organization. But funny, the organization he says is not "Islamic," flags itself as the "Islamic State"...

"Jerusalem-fetish" and the fairy tales from Uncle Tayyip

...Is Erdogan that one man around whom the Islamic nation should unite for the sake of Jerusalem and Palestine? Erdogan may be thinking that he is the 21st-century reincarnation of Saladin. So may be his Muslim Brothers and Qatari allies. For the rest of the Muslims, all that is merely "fairy tales from Uncle Tayyip."

Does Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
think of himself as a modern-day Saladin,
who will conquer Jerusalem?

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute.
30 May '15..

It is truly fascinating that Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a professor of political science, believes that Jerusalem, built a millennium before the birth of Islam, is originally a Muslim city. And, according to the Turkish president, -- Saudis should please not get offended -- Jerusalem is the Muslims' "most important Mecca." Jerusalem has always had a spectacular place in a Turkish Islamist's heart and mind. But pre-election fervour in Turkey has lifted "Jerusalem-fetish" to new heights.

Turkey's Islamists today look like Egypt's second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Pan-Arab nationalist, and his army commanders almost half a century ago. On May 16, 1967, Nasser ordered U.N. Emergency Force Commander, Indar Jit Rykhye, to evacuate his force from the Sinai buffer zone within 48 hours. When Rykhye asked one Egyptian commander if Egypt was aware of the consequences, the commander replied: "Oh sir, I'll meet you at lunch in Tel Aviv." The UN force left, and Egypt and Israel were left alone to fight the 1967 war. This author does not know where the Egyptian commander had lunch the next day, but definitely not in Tel Aviv. His words, however, may have inspired Turkey's leaders.

Prime Minister Davutoglu, formerly foreign minister, has reiterated countless times since he joined the Turkish cabinet in 2009 that, "We will have prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque in the Palestinian capital 'Quds' ([Jerusalem]." This wish remains to be fulfilled. But that does not discourage Turkish leaders from cherishing increasing doses of "Jerusalem-fetish."

When a Kurdish politician said in a public speech that "Jerusalem is the holy city for the Jews," a furious Davutoglu held a rally and said at the top of his voice: "Jerusalem is our holy place;" and that he would never allow the city's "Islamic character" to change.

Davutoglu, in another election rally speech, added: "One day al-Aqsa will definitely reach liberation ... Jerusalem is our eternal cause." In yet another speech, Davutoglu claimed that his government has faced multiple coup d'état attempts only because he says "Jerusalem is our cause.".

In still another, he claimed that Jerusalem's final period in peace was "our (Ottoman) times." And in another, he commemorated "the Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Zaza (a Kurdish tribe) and Arab in the glorious army of Saladin." It is as if, for Davutoglu (and Erdogan), Jerusalem did not exist before 1187. If it did not, why do the Turks talk about its "conquest," a euphemism they always seem to prefer to avoid the word "occupation" or "invasion."

President Erdogan has no less-eccentric ideas. "Jerusalem," according to the president, "is the holiest place of Muslims and it belongs to the Palestinians." In a recent speech, he claimed that Jews are [secretly] educating people on the Zoroastrian faith at mountain camps. "We have evidence [to prove] that," Erdogan added. Yet he has never produced this "evidence."

Most recently, in a speech on May 15, Erdogan said that: "Unfortunately we the Muslims lost our aim to head towards Jerusalem. The water of our eyes froze, making us blind, and our hearts that were destined to beat for Jerusalem are now instead conditioned for rivalry, in a state of war with each other."

Just to Clarify. Who Can Attack Turkish Ships?

...President Erdogan's reaction to the attack on a civilian Turkish vessel by a foreign army was revealing. He said: "Things would have been different had the Turkish ship carried a Turkish flag." That would be Turkey's wrath on Libya, he simply meant, were the Tuna-1, owned by a Turkish company, not registered in the Cook Islands. By the way, what flag did the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara carry? Comoros. Still wondering why Turkey's voice was so loud after the Mavi Marmara incident? For Turkey's Islamists, "what was done" does not matter much. "Who did it" does.

The Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara, which took part in the
2010 "Gaza flotilla" that attempted to break Israel's navel blockade
 of Gaza. (Image source: "Free Gaza movement"/Flickr)

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
22 May '15..

"This is the first time in history that a foreign army has killed civilian Turks in peacetime!"

This is how government-friendly media justified Turkey's reaction to Israel when, in May 2010, the Israel Defense Forces raided the "Mavi Marmara," a ship in a Turkish-led flotilla off the Gazan coast, and killed nine pro-Palestine activists aboard.

Any reader could be tempted to believe that Turkey was preparing to go to war with Israel.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, then foreign minister, insisted that "This is Turkey's own 9/11."

Turkey asked the United Nations Security Council to summon an emergency meeting. It knocked on other doors too: NATO, the European Union (EU), the Arab League and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Then Prime Minister (now President) Recep Tayyip Erdogan called to discuss the Mavi Marmara crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Erdogan's portrayal of the incident contained words such as "state terrorism," "an attack on world peace," "piracy," "thuggish state," and "massacre." He said that:

- Israel must definitely be punished,- Israel will pay a very heavy price for this,- Israel murdered innocent people at sea, and- [Addressing and threatening Israeli citizens:] Israel is openly exposing your security to great risk.

Since the incident, Turkey's relations with Israel never normalized. Neither country has an ambassador in the other's capital. Turkey has vowed to isolate Israel internationally until Israel has apologized, paid compensation to the families of the victims, and removed the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip (which a UN commission probing the Mavi Marmara incident later declared to be legal).

One might, initially, understand the Turkish ire. After all, a foreign country's military had targeted a civilian ship and killed people aboard, with or without good legal reason. After all, again, the vessel that was attacked was not a Turkish frigate intending to shell the Israeli coast. So, Turkey's justified anger presumably had nothing to do with the inherent anti-Semitism of its Islamist rulers. Really?

Lunacy and Turkey's Obsessive Fantasy

...The idea that there are crypto-Jews or secret friends of Israel is increasingly popular with Muslims who are waging political, ideological and sectarian wars among themselves.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
05 May '15..

In his 2007 bestseller book, "The Children of Moses," quirky Turkish writer Ergun Poyraz claimed that then Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a crypto-Jew.

The book's cover depicted Erdogan and his wife in a Star of David, and portrayed Erdogan as a secret agent of "international Jewry."

Only six years after the publication of "The Children of Moses," in 2013, Erdogan, along with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei and UN official Richard Falk was on top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's annual list of the top 10 anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slurs. If one asked Poyraz, the author of the book, he would most likely explain Erdogan's deep anti-Semitism with another conspiracy theory: his public anti-Semitism is a perfect "disguise" for him to serve the Jews.

Turkish writer Ergun Poyraz (pictured at left being taken to court by counterterrorism police) wrote the 2007 bestseller "The Children of Moses," which claimed that then Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured at right) was a crypto-Jew. Poyraz was arrested later that year and eventually sentenced to 29 years in prison for "conspiring" against the government.

Erdogan's ideologically inherent anti-Semitism, often expressed in a blend with his anti-Zionism, is only too well-known internationally. In 2013, the year he "won the award" for his anti-Semitism, he said that Zionism was a crime against humanity.

The Middle East has never been short of conspiracy theories. But the idea that there are crypto-Jews or secret friends of Israel is increasingly popular with Muslims who are waging political, ideological and sectarian wars among themselves.

Recently, a top Iranian military commander accused Saudi Arabia of following the footsteps of Israel. "Saudi rulers follow Israel as a role model," said Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards.

Only a few days earlier, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had appeared on television with his own version of conspiracy theories, this time pointing to Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, one of Turkey's regional nemeses, as Israel's "secret ally." Davutoglu said: "A [invisible] hand wants Assad to survive. Just like Sisi ... Neither Assad nor his family has done any harm to Israel. ... Sisi continues with the siege of Gaza. Because for Sisi, Israel's security is more important than human dignity in Egypt."

Davutoglu illustrated a stereotypical Islamist's judgment: When I have ideological, political or sectarian cold wars with my co-religionists and they refuse to convert to my worldview, it must be because they are the secret allies of Israel.

Guess Who Inspired an Antisemitic 'Documentary' That Says Jews Have Been 'Mastermind' For Over 3,500 Years?

...Erdogan's December 12, 2014 speech, which focused on this "mastermind" concept, inspired the production of a two-hour "documentary" by one of the leading Turkish television channels, the pro-AKP A Haber. The film, titled "The Mastermind," first aired on March 15, 2015 and has been broadcast repeatedly since then; in addition, the Turkish Islamist pro-AKP media are circulating the film on their own websites...According to this film, Jewish "domination of the world" goes back 3,500 years, to the days of Moses....The following is an overview of the film

MEMRI..
Special Dispatch No.6021..
14 April '15..

Since October 2014, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly referred to the concept of a "Mastermind" (ust akil, "supra-intellect," in Turkish) that, he says, is plotting against Turkey. This concept has been applauded by the Islamist pro-AKP media. Erdogan's December 12, 2014 speech, which focused on this "mastermind" concept, inspired the production of a two-hour "documentary" by one of the leading Turkish television channels, the pro-AKP A Haber. The film, titled "The Mastermind," first aired on March 15, 2015 and has been broadcast repeatedly since then; in addition, the Turkish Islamist pro-AKP media are circulating the film on their own websites.

According to this film, Jewish "domination of the world" goes back 3,500 years, to the days of Moses. The film presents three Jewish historical figures who, it claims, shaped the Jews' hunger for power: the medieval Spanish philosopher and Torah scholar Moses Maimonides, Charles Darwin (who was not in fact a Jew), and German-American philosopher Leo Strauss.

The following is an overview of the film:

Source: Youtube.com/watch?v=YPLslrRQ4Zs, accessed April 13, 2015

Erdogan: The Mastermind – "You Know Who It Is"

"The Mastermind" opens with images of the Star of David, and images of a replica of the Temple in Jerusalem, and then an excerpt of President Erdogan's December 12, 2014 speech is shown, with him saying: "I am emphasizing this: Do not think that these are operations[1] that target me personally. Do not think that these operations are against our government or any [political] party. My friends, the target of these operations and initiatives is Turkey, Turkey's existence, her unity, peace, and stability. They are especially against Turkey's economy and its independence. As I have said before, behind all these there is a Mastermind, which has now become part of our national conversation. Some ask me, 'Who is this mastermind?' and I say, 'It is for you to research this. And you do know what it is, you know who it is.'"

"We Have To Look For The Mastermind In Jerusalem Where The Sons Of Israel Live"

The narrator then begins: "The Mastermind, whose roots go back thousands of years, who rules, burns, destroys, starves the world, creates wars, organizes revolutions and coups, establishes states within states – this 'intellect' is not only Turkey's curse, but the curse of the entire world. Who is this mastermind? The answer is hidden inside truths and facts that can never be called conspiracy theories.

"This story begins in the very old days, 3,500 years ago, when Moses brought his people out of Egypt to Jerusalem. The only guide he had was the Ten Commandments. This is what was placed inside a wooden Ark which was later brought into the Temple of Solomon.

"This is not myth but fact. And we have to look for the mastermind in Jerusalem where the sons of Israel live."

Erdogan's Hospitality and Passionate Love Affair For Arab Terrorism

...Yes, President Erdogan is a pragmatic politician. But not always. Especially when his pragmatic-self meets with his emotional-self: That's heaven! Still wondering about his passionate love affair with Hamas? Read Topcu's excerpts once again. Then open up Hamas's charter, read the caricature-like text and compare its lines with the Turkish philosopher's. Now you can have a better reading of Erdogan's mind.

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
06 December '14..

In 2004, Turkish President (then Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan labelled Israel "a terrorist state." Two years later, he hosted Khaled Mashaal, Hamas's leader. Alluding to Turkey's experience with Islamist parties, including his own, coming to power through elections, Erdogan said: "The choice of the people (at the ballot box) should be respected." Erdogan, citing Hamas's election victory in Gaza, apparently wanted to legitimize Hamas and terrorism.

However, he deliberately overlooked a significant difference between Hamas and Turkey's Islamist parties: Hamas specifically advocates violence, while Turkish parties operate within democratic politics.

Eight years after Mashaal's visit to Turkey, Hamas is coordinating its efforts in the West Bank with logistical support from a command center in Istanbul -- a fact that apparently annoys even the Palestinian Authority [PA], Hamas's "governing partner" in the Palestinian territories.

Turkey is also host to Salah al-Aruri, a Hamas commander whom the PA accuses of planning multiple attacks against Israeli targets.

According to the Israeli media, the Shin Bet has evidence that the deadly attacks against Israelis were planned at the Hamas headquarters in Istanbul. Turkish diplomats deny the claims, unconvincingly. Israel has reportedly requested NATO and the American government to take steps against Turkey's support for a terrorist organization.

It was, in fact, Aruri who, on Aug. 20, speaking at the World Conference of Islamic Sages in Turkey, admitted that Hamas had instigated the "heroic action carried out by the al-Qassam Brigades [the military wing of Hamas], which captured three settlers in Hebron." The three teenage boys were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas operatives, an incident that triggered the spiral of violence that led to the vicious 50-day war in Gaza this summer.

Most Western observers tend to explain Erdogan's love affair with Hamas with realpolitik and pragmatism – that Turkey has sought regional clout among Arab nations by setting out to become the powerful defender of the "Palestinian cause." This author thinks that there is also "a story of indoctrination" behind the love affair.

A Turkish Pursuit to "Liberate" Jerusalem

...Since medieval historical facts cannot have changed over the past two years, the top Turkish ulama [religious scholar], referencing a most powerful Muslim caliph, is best witness that when the Muslims had first arrived in Jerusalem there was not a single mosque in the city. Why? Because Jerusalem was not a Muslim city. Why, then, do Turkish Islamists claim that it is Muslim? Because it once had been "conquered." Would the same Turks surrender Istanbul to the occupying forces that took the city after World War I because its capture in 1920 made it a non-Turkish city? No, that was not conquest, that was occupation!

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
13 November '14..

Turks have a different understanding of what constitutes an occupation and a conquest of a city. The Turkish rule is very simple: The capture of a foreign city by force is an occupation if that city is Turkish (or Muslim) and the capture of a city by force is conquest if the city belongs to a foreign nation (or non-Muslims).

For instance, Turks still think the capture of Istanbul in 1453 was not occupation; it was conquest.

In a 2012 speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then Prime Minister) said: "Just like Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul are cities of the Qur'an." In truth, there is no mention of any city's name in the Qur'an. Never mind.

"Conquest," Turkey's top Muslim cleric, Professor Mehmet Gormez, declared in 2012, "is not to occupy lands or destroy cities and castles. Conquest is the conquest of hearts!" That is why, the top Turkish cleric said, "In our history there has never been occupation." Instead, Professor Gormez said, "in our history, there has always been conquest." He further explained that one pillar of conquest is to "open up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur'an."

It is in this religious justification that most Turkish Islamists think they have an Allah-given right to take infidel lands by the force of sword -- ironically, not much different from what the tougher Islamists have been doing in large parts of Syria and Iraq. Ask any commander in the Islamic State and he would tell you what the jihadists are doing there is "opening up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur'an."

Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have declared countless times that Gaza and Jerusalem (in addition to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia and the Maghreb) are Turkey's "domestic affairs."

Turkey's Warm Love Affair with Hamas

...But it was the Islamists who, in the 2000s, made the biggest gains from the concept. Since 2002, when they came to power, they have reaped enormous political gains from the "Palestine-fetish," to which they also love to be ideologically attached. For the Turks, it has been like abusing alcohol and wanting to have a healthier life. It still is.

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
19 October '14..

"The Palestinian cause" is a unique charm that brings together Turks from different ideologies. Turkish Islamists view it as an indispensable part of "jihad;" the conservatives feel attached to it because it has a religious connotation; for the leftists it is part of an "anti-imperialist" struggle; the nationalists embrace it just because most Turks embrace it. In the 1970s, when a dozen Turks a day on average were killed in street violence, the "Palestinian cause" was the only issue that otherwise warring fractions of the Turkish left, right and Islamists could agree on.

But it was the Islamists who, in the 2000s, made the biggest gains from the concept. Since 2002, when they came to power, they have reaped enormous political gains from the "Palestine-fetish," to which they also love to be ideologically attached. For the Turks, it has been like abusing alcohol and wanting to have a healthier life. It still is.

Turkey's leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, are probably the loudest supporters of the Palestinian cause in world politics today. Only one flag, other than the Turkish, is sported at their party's election rallies: that of "Palestine." It was because of the "Palestinian case" that Erdogan and Davutoglu premeditatedly chose to move from friendly relations with Israel to a "cold war." Votes and ideological satisfaction followed.

But the Turkish rhetoric on "solidarity with our Palestinian brothers" often seems askew to how solidarity should be.

In 2012, the Turks' "Palestinian brothers" sounded an alarm when they found out that they were incapable of paying salaries to 160,000 government employees on time. The shortfall was considered the biggest crisis in Palestinian history, and the authorities said they heavily relied on the availability of Arab and international aid.

Davutoglu, then foreign minister, said of the "Mavi Marmara" incident -- the raid by the Israeli Defense Forces on the Turkish flotilla that killed 10 pro-Palestine activists who wanted to "break the naval siege of Gaza" -- that it was "Turkey's 9/11." He further said that more Turkish-led flotillas would be on their way to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, that Turkish military planes and ships would protect these "aid vessels," and that "Israel would eventually be entirely isolated."

That was when Erdogan and Davutoglu often boasted that "We are the world's 17th biggest economy and we are running fast to become one of the top 10." Yet, at an international donors' conference for Gaza in March 2009, the Turkish pledges stood at a mere $93 million. That pledge accounted for only 2.1% of all international pledges made there, which totaled $4.257 billion.

As of 2012, of all 216 approved projects for Gaza, 180 were run by international aid organizations, three by the World Bank, three by the Red Crescent, 13 by Germany, two by France, and one by each of Belgium, Egypt, Holland and Sweden. Turkish projects? Zero. In 2010, the Turks purchased $270,000 worth of Palestinian goods – 0.00000033 percent of the Turkish economy.