Erdogan’s phony anti-Israel rhetoric
Cem Ertür, Indybay, Nov 30 2012

Erdogan’s Cairo visit took place in the midst of Israel’s eight-day war on Gaza. Notwithstanding his habitual posturing over Israel’s war crimes, the focal point of his speech at Cairo University was Syria:

This carnage the Syrian people have been subjected to is a disgrace not only to the Syrian Regime, but also to the international community and the whoke of humanity. Sooner or later there will be a holding to account for the massacre of these innocent children.

The fact remains that for the past 20 years, Turkey, Israel and NATO have maintained a high level of military and political cooperation against Iraq, Iran, Syria and the resistance groups in Palestine and Lebanon. Furthermore, since Apr 2011, the Erdogan government has been thoroughly complicit in NATO’s war crimes in Syria. Erdogan met Ehud Olmert in Ankara on Dec 22 2007. Five days later, Israel launched a war on Gaza. Towards the end of the three-week-long war, in a speech at his party’s parliamentary group meeting, Erdogan said:

The Greater Middle East Project was an initiative launched with a view to peace for the Middle East as well as promoting its economic development, civil rights, women’s rights and freedom of education and carrying these rights further. Turkey was given a role in this project and we have accepted.

After the ceasefire, Erdogan launched his famous ‘outburst’ at Shimon Peres during the World Economic Forum.  Only two weeks later, hemade the following remarks in an interview with the Turkish daily Sabah:

Our relations with Israel continue based on mutual interests. Those who leave the table in fury return to it with losses. Some have suggested that we end Israeli training flights in Konya. The truth is that not just Israel but ten countries pay to receive flight training in Konya. Indeed, our General Staff also announced that relations with Israel will continue in accordance with Turkey’s interests. Military contracts and orders also remain in force. There are many agreements with Israel, old and new. These all remain in force. We have to be very careful in interstate relations. The Israeli state and the Israeli people are separate issues. I always say that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity. I thanked Mr Peres for his efforts to defeat a bill in the US House of Representatives that defines the incidents of 1915 from an Armenian perspective. I sincerely hope that Peres’ visit to Ankara will contribute to peace in the Middle East. The speeches to be delivered by Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Turkish parliament on Tuesday will contribute to peace in the Middle East.

Two months before Peres’ visit, in an ultimate act of war, Israeli jets used Turkey’s airspace to launch a bombing raid on the Syrian territory. To this day, Erdogan has remained silent about this incident. On Jun 10 2005, Erdogan received the ADL’s ‘Courage to Care’ awardfrom Abe Foxman in New York. In accepting this award, suppoosedly on behalf of diplomats who saved Jews during the Holocaust, Erdogan strongly condemned anti-Semitism and stressed his country’s close relationship with the modern State of Israel. On the same day,Erdogan told the NYT:

Turkey cannot in any way approve of oppressive regimes, and at this point there is nothing Turkey can take as an example from Syria, while there is lots that Syria can take as examples from Turkey.

Erdogan said that the Turkish government views anti-Semitism as a crime against humanity. He invited Ariel Sharon to visit Turkey.]  Ahead of this, he held talks with Moshe Katsav. Erdogan was quoted as saying in a statement issued by Katsav’s office:

We have to drain the swamp of terrorism. We have to show solidarity in our common war against terrorism.

Back in Oct 2002, in a campaign speech delivered six months prior to his first electoral win, Erdogan had said:

Sharon is unleashing state terrorism upon Palestine. Sharon must be prosecuted just like Milosevic was, in The Hague.

But in his speech at the ADL award ceremony, Erdogan echoed Bush 43 and Bliar, saying:

Today, with the presentation of the ‘Profile of Courage’ award to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey by the USAian Jewish Congress at the New York building of HSBC, there is a strong message being conveyed to the archaic terrorist mentality. We will not tolerate terrorism, and we will act in solidarity to wipe it from the face of the earth. Our country is against all forms of terrorism, and we wholeheartedly support the US in its efforts in combating international terrorism.

Targeting two synagogues, the HSBC bank and the British Embassy, the Nov 2003 bomb attacks in Istanbul bear the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda false-flag operation. Furthermore, only three months ago, two suspects and the solicitor of the alleged mastermind were killed in Aleppo whilst fighting NATO’s proxy war against the Syrian Army. Areport published a month before the Istanbul bombings indicates the actual motive behind the ADL award:

JINSA praised the Turkish Parliament’s decision to allow the deployment of peacekeepers in Iraq and said the move boosted US confidence in Turkey. That might also give a privileged position to Turkey in garnering contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq, JINSA said in a statement.