The prime minister of Turkey returned home yesterday from the world economic forum to a hero’s welcome. His “marvelous” feat was the act of walking out of the summit after a heated exchange with Shimon Peres regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza.
Erdogan has also made some fiery statements regarding Gaza and is slowly being viewed as one of the harshest opponents of Israels’ aggression. Erdogan, speaking at a municipal election campaign rally in Anatolia, said Israel was
“perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction. Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents.”
If you look past these statements and his “walkout” at the summit, it’s very clear that Turkey is Israel’s greatest ally in the region.
- Turkey has a long history of close ties with Israel. It was the first Muslim country to recognize it in 1949.
- In 2006 the Israeli foreign ministry characterised its relationship with Turkey as “perfect”.
- Turkey is Israel’s 8th largest trading partner and their annual trade is worth around 4 billion dollars.
- Turkey and Israel have a military alliance. Their militaries have conducted joint exercises particularly their navies. Israeli pilots even trained in Turkish air space, flying training sorties from a Turkish base near Ankara. Israel has supplied unmanned air vehicles to monitor Kurdish rebel activities in Turkey’s southeast.
- The Erdogan government appointed General Buyukanit’s as Chief of Staff of the armed forces, he is known to be pro-Israeli and one of his jobs has been to weed out anti-Israeli sentiment among Turkey’s senior military brass.
- In 2006 the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel and Turkey were negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel.
So we shouldn’t be duped by these empty symbolic acts, Turkey and Israel might be having a lovers tiff, but that’s all it is.
One last point to mention is that if the Turkish people can give Erdogan a hero’s welcome for walking out in protest, imagine the welcome he’d get if he used his resources as a deterrent to end the conflict once and for all. It just takes one brave man and the whole Ummah will be behind him, inshAllah.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I don’t mean to be a devil’s advocate, but shouldn’t we give Erdogan a little leeway here? As much as I hate the tyrants who govern over the Ummah, I watched the video of Erdogan, and it wasn’t an orchestrated lovers tiff. Peres was genuinely rattled. I would rather believe that Erdogan was being sincere, meaning at last a part of his Iman was re-kindled. Maybe he knows whats needs to be done, but his hands are tied. After all, the politics of Turkey are complicated, especially with the army being controlled by the Kemalists and not the government.
I feel there is an opportunity waiting and we should rush to give him naseeha. He could easily rise to be a leader of the Ummah. Allah knows best.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Erdogan, Shimon Peres and all the other rulers of the Muslim lands are nothing more than brothers… and like brothers they may argue but when it comes to actions they help each other out. For example, who trains the Israeli Airforce? Turkey! Who ships 50 million cubic meters of water every year to Israel? Turkey! Who allows Russian oil to pass through the Bosphorus straits to Israel? Turkey! So please don’t be fooled by Erdogan’s cheap words. All I see here are siblings arguing over a minor disagreement between them… this is not a real clash!
And just like brothers, they made up shortly afterward on the phone (according to a World Economic Forum spokesman in an article in The Guardian). If Erdogan is sincere then he should remember the only action befitting a Muslim ruler now is to call his army to remove the occupation of Israel – anything less is an insult to our mothers and sisters in Gaza!
Would his “hands be tied” if Israel bombed The Blue Mosque in Istanbul… this issue is not about complicated politics, it’s about priorities – and as a Muslim Erdogan’s priorities should be defined by Islam. That means one drop of a Muslim’s blood should be more precious to him than the Kaa’ba and all of its surroundings.
Btw I heard there’s intikhabaat in March 2009 in Turkey… I wonder if that had anything to do with it too.
February 6th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Salam.
I would have loved to forward this post, but the fact that it is using ‘old’ facts from 2006 is a bit old. Can’t you strengthen your point with something newer? Like Erdogan’s attempts to get Isreal fully recgonized in syria?
February 7th, 2009 at 1:40 am
JazakAllah khair for the comment. There are new facts and old facts to illustrate things that have happened throughout Erdogans reign. You’re right Turkey has mediated in peace talks and works to maintain Israel’s security. Why don’t you write a similar post with more new facts and forward that inshAllah.