Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

Turkey has in the last few weeks sought to use media connections abroad to push narratives about how it wants reconciliation with Israel, even as its own media pushes extremist anti-Israel comments. One commentator, according to T24 Turkish media, said that Turkey could enter Tel Aviv in 48 hours. He claimed, we are not like the Arabs, an apparent reference to the inability of Arab armies to defeat Israel in 1948 and 1967. The commentary on Turkish television was not abnormal. Hatred of Israel and vows to destroy Israel, invade Jerusalem, liberate Al-Aqsa and spread extreme nationalist, anti-Zionist or antisemitic comments have become increasingly normal in Turkey. Most journalists who are critical of the ruling party in Turkey have been silenced, forced to flee the country or imprisoned. Turkey is considered the largest jailor of journalists in the world under the AK Party. In March 2018, a Turkish daily also suggested that Turkey should form an Islamist army to destroy Israel. In 2019, according to MEMRI, a retired Turkish general named Adnan Tanriverdi who heads the SADAT consulting firm also spoke about the need to liberate Jerusalem from Israel. The Islamic world should prepare an army for Palestine from outside Palestine. Israel should know that if it bombs [Palestine] a bomb will fall on Tel Aviv as well." It appears these views have become mainstream in Turkeys ruling party. Israel is seen as the main enemy of Turkey. Abroad, Turkey works with a few lobbyists in Washington to try to get media to present the country in a more favorable image and even tries to influence some Israeli media with false stories of reconciliation. However, Turkeys new envoy to Israel has said that Zionism is racism and accused Israel of displacing millions and committing many massacres. Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogans office has vowed to liberate Al-Aqsa and declared that Jerusalem is ours.At the same time, the increasing rhetoric of hate against minorities, non-Muslims, Israel, Greece, Egypt, the UAE, and others in the region, is also targeting all opposition groups in Turkey. An image on Turkish television showed the opposition HDP partys logo changed to include grenades and bullets instead of the colors of the usual logo, a way for Turkeys ruling party to incite against the opposition and call them terrorists. Turkeys ruling party tends to imprison all critics as terrorists, including peace and environmental activists and journalists. Terrorism is used as an accusation for disagreeing with Ankaras authoritarian trend. There is almost no space for any critique in Turkey, a country that was once more democratic and is still a member of NATO, despite Ankaras drift away from NATOs democratic and human rights values. The increasingly extremist comments on Turkish media and Ankaras army of social media activists who target any critics online illustrate that the narrative of Turkish reconciliation with Israel is largely hollow. Support for an Islamist army to take over Israel by numerous commentators in Turkey and Ankaras frequent hosting of Hamas, shows that Turkeys ruling party has embraced a worldview similar to Irans regime in how it views Israel as a central enemy and wants to liberate Jerusalem. This is in contrast to countries in the region that are embracing new peace deals with Israel and which have toned down this kind of extremist rhetoric.

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See more here:
Turkish media vows to take over Tel Aviv, calls opposition terrorists - The Jerusalem Post

Category: Zionism
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