<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; recep tayyip erdogan</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/tag/recep-tayyip-erdogan/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:20:06 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Obama and the Emerging Turkish Dictatorship</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/obama-and-the-emerging-turkish-dictatorship/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-and-the-emerging-turkish-dictatorship</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/obama-and-the-emerging-turkish-dictatorship/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Aug 2013 04:05:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dictatorship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200973</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The tightening screws of Sharia.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/recep.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-201025" alt="recep" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/recep-450x300.jpg" width="270" height="180" /></a>It should not surprise anyone to discover that US President Barack Hussein Obama invited Muslim Brotherhood officials from Egypt as well as Turkish diplomats to meet with him at the White House. <i>The Jerusalem Post</i> reported (August 6, 2013) that according to the <i>Egypt Independent</i> the meeting should take place “sometime this month.”  The <i>Independent</i> suggested moreover that the “Turkish diplomats were expected to lobby for Morsi’s (deposed Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi)<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Report-Obama-agrees-to-meet-Muslim-Brotherhood-officials-at-White-House-322157"> reinstatement</a>, or at minimum, a continued political role for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).”</p>
<p>A White House press release issued on August 7, 2013 stated that “The President (Barack Obama) and Prime Minister of Turkey (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) expressed concern about the situation in Egypt and a shared commitment to support a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/07/readout-president-obama-s-call-prime-minister-erdogan-turkey">Democratic</a> and inclusive way forward.  The two leaders agreed to have their teams continue to coordinate closely to promote our shared interests.”</p>
<p>Obama’s and Erdogan’s shared interests go beyond their common cause to unseat the Assad regime in Syria.  They agree as well on the importance of a unified and inclusive Syrian opposition (inclusive of MB).  Obama has nurtured a soft spot in his heart for Islam.  He spent his formative years in Indonesia under the guidance of his Indonesian Muslim step-father.  His biological father was a Muslim from Kenya.  Obama’s first foreign trips as President of the United States, which he called a New Beginning, was to Erdogan’s Turkey and Egypt, where he delivered his keynote speech at Cairo University,  and was co-hosted by the Al-Azhar Islamic University.</p>
<p>Speaking at the Brookings Institute, US Senator (R-AZ) McCain said that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan “is acting like a <a href="http://www.todayszaman.com/news-317606-us-senator-mccain-erdogan-acts-like-a-dictator.html">dictator</a> rather than a president in the eyes of many Turks.” He charged that “There are more journalists jailed in Turkey than any other country in the world.”</p>
<p>Infused with confidence that three democratic electoral victories have provided him, Erdogan has set out in recent years to wipe out the legacy of secular Kamalist Turkey founded by Mustafa Kamal, better known as Ataturk (The Father of Turks), and is seeking to replace it with an Islamist state.  Since 1923, Turkey has seen a clash between the two opposing cultural streams:  the Ottoman Islamic tradition that ruled Turkey for centuries, and the secular tradition of Kamalism.</p>
<p>The rural poor and Islam-inclined multitudes of Anatolia (in eastern and southern Turkey) provide massive votes for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.  The urban middle-class, on the other hand, which is more educated and economically advantaged, is largely concentrated in western and northern Turkey.  They opposed the excessive reaches of Erdogan and his party.</p>
<p>Secular-Kamalist Turkey joined NATO and sought to be part of the West.  Erdogan, in recent years, shifted Turkey’s focus from the West to the Islamic and Arab worlds.  He is hoping to become the champion of the Sunni Muslim world, and the “protector” of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, as well as the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.</p>
<p>The Turkish military and the judiciary have been the guardians of Turkey’s secularism.  The military, according to the Turkish constitution, is to safeguard the secular character of the nation.  The Army has used its constitutional powers to remove governments in 1960, 1971, 1980, and, more recently, in 1997, when it removed the first Islamist government of Necmettin Erbakan. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party grew out of the ideological bedrock of the Islamist Welfare Party and governed Turkey since 2002.</p>
<p>In recent weeks alone, Erdogan’s regime imprisoned 250 top public figures who were charged with an attempted coup.  The <i>Associated Press (AP</i>) reported on August 5, 2013, that in a “landmark trial, scores of people – including Turkey’s former military chief, politicians and journalists – were convicted of plotting to overthrow PM Edrogan’s government soon after it came to power in 2002.  Retired General Basbug was the most prominent defendant among <a href="http://www.whiotv.com/news/ap/military/ap-international-newsbrief-at-1006-am-edt/nZD5M/">250</a> people facing verdicts after a five-year trial that has become a central drama in tensions between the country’s secular elite and Erdogan’s Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party.”</p>
<p>Erdogan’s regime has been committed to the destruction of Turkey’s secular watchdogs: the military, judiciary, and presidency.  In a slow but consistent process, Erdogan succeed in capturing the presidency.  He was able to appoint and elect his personal friend, and former Foreign Minister of the Justice and Development Party, Abdullah Gul, as President of Turkey. At the same time, Erdogan managed to pass new laws that enabled him to install Supreme Court justices more amenable to his ideological thinking, and who were not part of the secular elite. As with the Supreme Court justices, Erdogan found a way to replace retiring military officers with Islamist and loyalist officers, thus eroding the steadfastly secular and anti-religious character of the military.</p>
<p>The Ergenekon Affair that has been gripping Turkey is the name given to an alleged clandestine secularist organization with alleged ties to members of Turkey’s military and security forces. It is named after Ergenekon, a mythical place located in the inaccessible valleys of the Altay Mountains.  The Ergenekon group is accused of terrorism.  The trial has been conducted secretly and away from the probing eyes of the media by the Erdogan regime.  Demonstrators who protested against the trial and the way the regime has been handling it were brutally dispersed by the police.</p>
<p>Protests last June in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, ostensibly over the future of Gezi Park, has spread throughout Turkey into demonstrations against Erdogan and his authoritarian and Islamist regime.  Four demonstrators were killed by the regime’s security forces, and <a href="http://www.dw.de/anti-erdogan-protests-continue-after-turkish-police-clear-taksim-square/a-16885497">5000 </a>were wounded.  It has divided the country into two hostile camps, and it stands to color Turkey’s future image.  Will Turkey become a modern liberal state that Ataturk hoped for? Or will it revert to the Ottoman-era Islamic backwater and become once again the “sick man of Europe”? The army, media, academia, art and business world are poised for the fight of their lives to preserve Turkey as a modern state.  Erdogan and his regime are on the other side seeking to do away with Kamalist secularism.</p>
<p>One thing is clear.  Erdogan’s dictatorial nature and his singular ambitions, regardless of the wishes of many Turks, make Turkey less than a democratic state, where basic human rights and the rule of law are being abused.</p>
<p>President Obama has shown his hypocrisy and his pro-Islamist bias by his continued backing of his friend Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Islamist party.  This hypocrisy has been starkly demonstrated in his being mute on Erdogan’s human rights abuses, and his authoritarian and downright dictatorial behavior, not to mention his anti-Semitism.  Obama, who has been vociferous in his support of Arab Spring protests against the Arab authoritarian regimes, including that of Mubarak’s Egypt, has been silent on Erdogan’s authoritarianism. The same Obama administration that is currently critical of the military in Egypt for its suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s violent demonstrations, has said nothing about Turkey’s emerging dictatorship of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-puder/obama-and-the-emerging-turkish-dictatorship/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Mass Jailing of Turkish Secularists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Aug 2013 04:30:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael van der Galien]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[liberal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199544</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why protesters fear they are losing the battle against Islamism. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/turkey-protests-3june2013.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199562" alt="turkey-protests-3june2013" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/turkey-protests-3june2013-450x319.jpg" width="315" height="223" /></a>Monday, August the 4th, was one of the most important days in modern Turkish history. Two hundred seventy-five (275) individuals known to be secularists stood trial for supposedly planning a military coup. In the end, <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">some 200</a> of them were convicted, with many receiving <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">lifelong sentences</a>.</p>
<p>The government had vilified the suspects from day one. Without further ado, they were thrown in jail, where they received worse treatment than the convicted terrorist and PKK-leader Abdullah Öcalan.</p>
<p>Their crime? According to the prosecutors and AKP officials the suspects planned to wreak so much havoc in Turkey &#8211; by carrying out (fake) terrorist attacks and generally polarizing society &#8211; that the Turkish people would eventually support a military coup just so order could be restored again.</p>
<p>Among the suspects were many officers. One of them was General Ilker Basbug, who served as the army’s chief-of-staff until he retired in 2010. Once enjoying the quiet life of a retiree, Basbug was arrested. According to the charges, he was the &#8220;terrorist&#8221; group’s leader. Yesterday, Basbug was sentenced to life in jail.</p>
<p>Other suspects included journalists and even writers. Apparently, such &#8220;subversive&#8221; individuals pose a significant threat to democracy by writing down their opinions and analyses. Like General Basbug, several of them were convicted on Monday. One of them, Tuncay Özkan, received an aggravated life sentence as well. Journalist Adnan Bulut was sentenced to six years, while former journalist-turned-politician for the main opposition party (the CHP), Mustafa Balbay, was sentenced to 34 years and eight months in prison.</p>
<p>Before the verdict was announced, the latter made clear what he thought of the allegations against him. “A warm autumn is coming,” he said. “They want to take over this case. We will not let it happen. This case is political. They want to hide away the case from the public.”</p>
<p>Yet another journalist who was convicted for being part of this conspiracy is Gülen Kömürcü, who worked for the <em>Aksam</em> (&#8220;Evening&#8221;) newspaper when she was arrested. This &#8220;dangerous terrorist&#8221; was sentenced to seven years and six months. After her conviction Kömürcü received dozens <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">of friendly well-wishes</a> from Turks who, like the suspects, believe the case to be political in nature.</p>
<p>And there certainly is something to say for that.  AKP-leaders have for years publicly commented on the case. Even Erdogan himself has made several statements about it, going so far as to accuse his political opposition of defending &#8212; in the words of the Erdogan-friendly <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">Today’s Zaman</a> &#8211; the “Ergenekon terrorist organization.” Note that this was before anyone had been convicted of any wrongdoing. In no other country would political leaders have spoken about an ongoing investigation in such a polarizing manner.</p>
<p>Such details do not seem to bother Erdogan. He even made clear that this was a highly personal case to him, since he had received &#8220;<a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">personal threats</a>&#8221; from the plotters. He made no secret of his view that the suspects &#8212; all of them &#8212; were clearly guilty and deserving of the most severe possible punishment. Again, he did so before any conviction had been handed out. Worse still, he even had the gall to lambast the Istanbul Bar Association when it criticized the case’s chief prosecutor for using Ergenekon as a means to retaliate against the government’s rivals; a statement that was not exactly controversial, since just about the entire opposition felt the same.</p>
<p>After the announcement of the verdicts, secular Turks responded with disbelief and outrage. On <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">Facebook</a> many have replaced their usual avatars with a solid black image. The reason? They mourn what they consider to be the death of Turkey’s secular system.</p>
<p>Perhaps that requires an explanation: Until a few years ago many people still had faith in the judiciary and in the military, both of which were considered bulwarks of secularism. Whenever a government wanted to mix politics with religion, one of the bulwarks intervened and set matters straight.</p>
<p>Sadly, secularists now conclude, those days are no more. They see the verdicts in the Ergenekon case as the ultimate proof that these &#8220;bulwarks&#8221; of secularism no longer exist. To them, the trial’s outcome is <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">the final nail in the coffin</a> of laïcité in Turkey. Not only, they say, has the military become powerless, but the AK Parti now also controls the country’s judges, which is why they are actively cooperating with <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">political (show) trials</a>.</p>
<p>One of the most worrying aspects of the case is the fact that not only military officers and (former) politicians have been convicted, but journalists as well. Members of the Turkish opposition understand that this is a very dangerous development since it touches on the very foundation of democracy: No democracy can survive without a free and independent press. Besides, what do the government and the judges in this case believe &#8220;writers and journalists&#8221; will do during a coup? Throw pencils at AKP-officials?</p>
<p>The answer is, critics say, that the government fears journalists’ ability to shape public opinion. Every single one of the arrested and convicted journalists is an ideological secularist, with a long history of criticism aimed at the ruling AK Parti. These professionals now have to pay for their outspokenness by spending many years, if not the rest of their lives, in jail. One of them, the aforementioned Tuncay Özkan, was even sentenced to life in solitary confinement. How were the prosecutors able to do that? Simple: they accused all the suspects of being members (or at least supportive) of a terrorist organization. That way, the judges could carry out higher sentences than would normally be the case. As a result, journalists will be imprisoned for many years, even decades, rather than months (or not at all).</p>
<p>Not only secular Turks, but foreigners too have responded with outrage to such severe punishments. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">made clear</a> that locking up journalists is always unacceptable. “I am deeply alarmed by today’s convictions and harsh sentences that are of unprecedented length and severity in the entire OSCE region,” OSCE media freedom representative Dunja Mijatovic said. “Criminal prosecution of those with dissenting views violates the fundamental right to free expression and the country’s OSCE commitments to develop and protect free media.”</p>
<p>She continued: “The damage of today’s verdicts on free expression and media freedom in Turkey is immeasurable. I reiterate my call to the authorities for urgent and fundamental legislative reforms to improve media freedom, as well as the transparent and swift trial of all imprisoned journalists.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">European Union agrees</a> with that sentiment, saying that it has serious concerns &#8220;over the rights of the defense, the lengthy pre-trial detention and the excessively long and &#8216;catch-all&#8217; indictments&#8221; that are too general.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, for now, the convictions stand. It will take some time for the convicts to appeal to higher courts, especially on a European level. In the meantime, we can only conclude  that the polarization of Turkish society continues unabated <i>and </i>that the freedom of speech finds itself in an increasingly more perilous state. After all, these convictions will cause editors, newspaper owners and journalists to censure themselves even more than they have been doing for the last few years.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">I wrote</a> last week: “That’s why the freedom of speech may not only be on trial in Turkey, but may very well have already been sentenced to death. The prosecution and the judge want to end its life, and dissenting jurors, who understand what is at stake, are too afraid to intervene on the defendant’s behalf.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Erdogan Takes Revenge</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/erdogan-takes-revenge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=erdogan-takes-revenge</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/erdogan-takes-revenge/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Aug 2013 04:35:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael van der Galien]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[students]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=198970</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The death of free speech in Turkey. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/130606_FOR_Erdogan.jpg.CROP_.original-original.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-198992" alt="Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a signing ce" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/130606_FOR_Erdogan.jpg.CROP_.original-original-450x307.jpg" width="315" height="215" /></a>Now that most protests have come to an end and the rest of the world is focusing on Egypt rather than Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided that the time is ripe for some good, old-fashioned revenge. <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">Turkish style</a>.</span></i></p>
<p>As I reported earlier for FrontPage Magazine, it started early in July, when a few journalists were publicly harrangued for their coverage of the protests in Gezi Park. One of them was even publicly called a &#8220;<a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">traitor</a>&#8221; by the mayor of Ankara, a member of the prime minister’s party, the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party).</p>
<p>In the following weeks, as many as 22 journalists and columnists have <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">been fired</a> since the start of the famous protests in Istanbul and other major Turkish cities. Thirty-seven others had to accept a &#8220;forced leave of absence,&#8221; meaning that they had to pretend to enjoy some precious off-time, while they, in fact, were desperate to get back to work.</p>
<p>One of the fired columnists is <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">Yavuz Baydar</a> from the daily <em>Sabah</em>. His first mistake was, as <em>Sabah</em>’s ombudsman, publishing letters from readers that criticized the government&#8217;s stance on the protests. After that he went even further by writing a column related to the protests and media-government relations. The editorial board refused to publish his piece, however.</p>
<p>At that moment, Baydar decided to take a leave of absence. Instead of keeping silent about the stranglehold in which the government holds the media, he decided to speak out. In a column for <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">the <em>New York Times</em></a>, he explained that media moguls are undermining the &#8220;basic principles of democracy&#8221; in Turkey.  He added that media &#8220;bosses fear losing lucrative business deals with the government.&#8221;</p>
<p>After having written the opinion piece for the <em>New York Times</em>, Baydar once again tried to get a similar critical column published in <em>Sabah</em>. Instead, he was fired.</p>
<p>Many other journalists have have gone through the same ordeal in the last few weeks. And they are the lucky ones. According to Reporters Without Borders’ (RWB) <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">World Press Freedom Index</a>, the situation has gotten so out of hand that Turkey is now “the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” Yes, the country beats Afghanistan, North Korea, China, Iraq and Iran in that regard. Of course more journalists may be killed in some of those countries, but with regards to locking them up, Turkey leads them all.</p>
<p>Apparently, Erdogan is quite happy with that remarkable record. Instead of backing down, his government is arresting even more people. Not only journalists, but whomever has the audacity to criticize the AKP. For instance, <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">nine more</a> Twitter- users and protesters, living in five different cities, were recently detained.</p>
<p>At the same time, two &#8220;suspects&#8221; were sent to court on July 30 to face charges of “opposing the law on public marches and demonstrations.” Their crime? They had organized an iftar dinner in Gezi Park. An iftar dinner is the evening meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan. Erdogan organizes such dinners for his own supporters, but when those critical of him try to do the same they are considered enemies of the state, and quickly detained.</p>
<p>University students are in trouble too, for <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">it was announced</a> Tuesday that students who engage (or engaged) in “resistance, stage boycotts, chant slogans or become involved in similar activites” will no longer be granted student loans. The Higher Education Loans and Dormitories Institution (KYK) says that such activities constitute “a violation of the right to an education.”</p>
<p>That the constitutional and human right to free speech is being violated by punishing students apparently does not bother the Institution one bit. “In the education institutions he/she attends, in its extensions in the dormitory he/she resides, outside of the education institution or the dormitory, either solely or collectively, in whichever form, those who are concerned with events of anarchy and terrorism, engaging in behaviors violating the right to education (resistance, boycott, occupation, writing, painting, slogan-chanting, et cetera), whether attempted partially or fully,” are ineligible.</p>
<p>Note how the KYK uses words such as “anarchy” and “terrorism”: These are the same phrases Erdogan uses to describe the Gezi Park protesters. When he is not calling them “<a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">piteous rodents</a>,” that is. Somewhat surprisingly, this report was later denied by Youth and Sports Minister Suat Kilic.</p>
<p>However, according to <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">Hurriyet Daily News</a>, the anti-protesting policy has been in place for several years, but has simply not been implemented<i>. </i>That might, the Turkish English-language newspaper says, change this year around.</p>
<p>Going after students in this fashion would undoubtedly make sense to the increasingly paranoid and authoritarian Erdogan since the protests were led by them and soccer (football) supporters &#8230; which leads me to <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/30/in-turkey-critics-of-erdogans-government-claim-familiar-pattern-of-reprisal/">another measure</a> the AKP government may take according to the Interior Minister: outlawing “chanting political or ideological slogans at stadiums/matches.” If Erdogan and his allies have their way, no opinions critical of the AKP will be heard on campus, in stadiums, in parks, or on the streets. In other words: anywhere.</p>
<p>If Erdogan continues down this path, freedom of speech will be no more in Turkey.  Sadly, I have little reason to believe that terrible fate can be averted. There still are no alternatives for voters who have had enough of the AKP, except the notoriously corrupt (secular) CHP and the radically-nationalist MHP. For many, that isn’t a choice <i>at all</i>.</p>
<p>Additionally, increasingly more people are allowing the government to silence them out of fear for their livelihoods. After all, students want &#8211; no, <i>need</i> &#8211; loans and journalists <i>need</i> to make money. Rather than growing a backbone and continuing their resistance regardless of the price to be paid, many opt for the easy way out: remaining silent, not saying a word about what they really think.</p>
<p>That’s why the freedom of speech may not only be on trial in Turkey, but may very well have already been sentenced to death. The prosecution and the judge want to end its life, and dissenting jurors, who understand what is at stake, are too afraid to intervene on the defendant’s behalf.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/erdogan-takes-revenge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>220</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Erdogan Squirms Over Egypt&#8217;s 2013 Revolution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/erdogan-squirms-over-egypts-2013-revolution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=erdogan-squirms-over-egypts-2013-revolution</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/erdogan-squirms-over-egypts-2013-revolution/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2013 04:13:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael van der Galien]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=196132</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Could the Turkish Islamist leader be next? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/TURKEY-ERDOGAN-USED-12-06-13.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-196325" alt="TURKEY-ERDOGAN-USED-12-06-13" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/TURKEY-ERDOGAN-USED-12-06-13.jpg" width="238" height="183" /></a>Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has, as one of the few world leaders to do so, strongly condemned the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He has called it &#8220;anti-democratic,&#8221; saying that the Brotherhood should be restored to power as soon as possible.</p>
<p>“Any attitude that can drag Egypt into confrontation should be avoided,” said the man who became infamous last month for setting riot police, armed with tear gas and water cannons, loose on peaceful protesters. “We expect that all politicians, Morsi and the prime minister in the first instance, will be immediately released.”</p>
<p>He went on <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-urges-so-called-new-rulers-of-egypt-to-release-morsi.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=50232&amp;NewsCatID=338">to call</a> the interim-administration, Egypt&#8217;s “so-called” rulers and added that general Al-Sisi had no right to complain about Turkey’s involvement in his country’s internal affairs. “We are expressing that we stand with the Egyptian people and our principles,” he said.</p>
<p>Apparently, those principles mean that it is perfectly fine to oppress opponents by systematically persecuting them and <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-urges-so-called-new-rulers-of-egypt-to-release-morsi.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=50232&amp;NewsCatID=338">to kill christians</a> on a scale seldom seen before, since that is what has happened in Egypt after disposed president Mohamed Morsi first came to power. But try and save a country’s secular nature and its religious minorities, and suddenly you are a menace to world peace.</p>
<p>Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has also <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-urges-so-called-new-rulers-of-egypt-to-release-morsi.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=50232&amp;NewsCatID=338">weighed in</a>. “I strongly condemn the massacre during the morning prayers in the name of basic human values that we have been defending,” he wrote on his Twitter account after it was reported that as many as 34 Muslim Brothers were killed in clashes with the military.  Whether those numbers are correct or not is apparently not a question of interest to the Turkish government. Reports that the Muslim Brothers <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-urges-so-called-new-rulers-of-egypt-to-release-morsi.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=50232&amp;NewsCatID=338">were <i>armed</i></a><i> </i>are also brushed aside. The army is the enemy, the Brotherhood is an example to all Muslim democrats.</p>
<p>That is rather strange because it has already been conclusively proved that the Muslim Brothers are armed <i>and</i> that they even go so far as to shoot their fellow party members just so they can smear the army. See the video below for evidence. They are literally sacrificing their own people in order to reach their political goals:</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AdFk-v-4G0o" height="325" width="425" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Erdogan is not interested in such bloody, inconvenient facts. Like his fellow Islamists in Egypt, he chooses to attack the Egyptian army instead.</p>
<p>One of Erdogan’s senior foreign ministry officials <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-urges-so-called-new-rulers-of-egypt-to-release-morsi.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=50232&amp;NewsCatID=338">explained</a> what Turkey hopes to achieve in Egypt: “Military coups are unacceptable, in Egypt or elsewhere. Undoing the coup and re-instating the toppled government should be the priorities of countries with a democratic understanding.” Like his prime minister, the source does not comprehend that, in a democratic system, the majority should not only be protected from the minority, but vice versa as well. <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-urges-so-called-new-rulers-of-egypt-to-release-morsi.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=50232&amp;NewsCatID=338">Majoritism is not democracy</a>.</p>
<p>Erdogan is the only world leader who has taken such a firm stance against the military coup. Even Obama has failed to use such strong language, even though he too has supported the Muslim Brotherhood for years.</p>
<p>Although remarkable, Erdogan’s response to the coup is not suprising. He fears for his own political future. Military coups have long been part of Turkey’s political reality. In the last 50 years alone there have been three coups, the last of which took place in 1997, when Erdogan’s <i>hoca</i> (teacher) Erbakan was ousted from power.</p>
<p>From the very moment he became prime minister, Erdogan has feared he will suffer the same fate. That is why he has replaced the army’s top officers with soldiers who have Islamist leanings. Being as paranoid as he is, however, the prime minister still fears that this will not be enough to prevent the military from staging a coup if it decides that the government is betraying Atatürk’s legacy. Hence his furious attacks against Egypt’s military and his refusal to acknowledge the interim-cabinet as legitimate.</p>
<p>Additionally, Erdogan is worried because a defeat for Morsi is a defeat for himself. The AK Parti and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood have rather close ties. This Cairo-Ankara axis evolved naturally out of their shared political and religious views and goals: both do not only want to Islamize their respective countries, but the entire region.</p>
<p>Soon after the so-called Arab Spring started, it quickly developed into an Islamist Revolution. Muslim fundamentalists everywhere saw their dreams finally being realized: a goal for which they had worked so hard, for so many years to achieve. But now, at the very moment their victory seems at hand, it suddenly is in danger of collapsing. A successful coup in Egypt spells trouble for all Islamists: other countries hit by the Islamist tidal wave may very well follow suit, or so they fear.</p>
<p>Erdogan sees the recent developments in Egypt for what they are: a movement against the political Islamization of the region. He fears that something similar could happen in his own and other countries, which will be the undoing of the progress he and his fellow Islamists have made in recent years. That means that the Erdogan we have seen in the last couple of weeks, including his response to the Egyptian coup, is not a man driven by confidence, but by fear.</p>
<p>And that should be reason for hope for those who worry about Turkey’s &#8211; and the region’s<i> &#8211; </i>descent into authoritarianism and Islamism.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/erdogan-squirms-over-egypts-2013-revolution/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Will the West Back the Jihad or Israel?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/will-the-west-back-the-jihad-or-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-the-west-back-the-jihad-or-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/will-the-west-back-the-jihad-or-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:33:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ali Shirazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ayatollah ali khameini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[binyamin netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blockade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Efraim Inbar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flotilla]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[incident]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Liz Cheney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[naval warships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[republican presidential candidates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[right]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Palin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sunday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[supreme leader ayatollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tehran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vice President Joe Biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[week]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62286</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The stakes are more than very high.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Obama.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62389" title="Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Obama.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="292" /></a></p>
<p>Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-group-who-attacked-idf-troops-boarded-ship-separately-1.294459">told his cabinet</a> this week that “the world is beginning to become aware” of what really happened in the “flotilla incident” in which nine of the “activists” trying to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza were killed. Namely, that the “activists” on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em>—actually “martyrdom”-seeking jihadists tied to the <a href="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/gj_e007.htm">terror-linked IHH organization</a> with some sort of backing from the Turkish government—fell upon inadequately-armed Israeli soldiers with knives, clubs, iron bars, and guns and forced them to fight for their lives.</p>
<p>Is Netanyahu right that this accurate picture of the events is sinking in? True, Vice-President Joe Biden <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100603/pl_afp/israelconflictgazausbiden">said</a> Israel “has an absolute right to deal with its security interest…. It’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight—3,000 rockets on my people.’” The <em>Washington Post</em> asked why Israel was taking all the blame and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060404806.html">called for</a> Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s role in the incident to be probed. Prospective Republican presidential candidates <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/palin-reacts-flotilla-incident">Sarah Palin</a> and <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGE4NzkyY2FhZDIzMzMxM2NmMDE2MWFmNmUzM2JiMDA=">Liz Cheney</a> both came out solidly in defense of Israel.</p>
<p>But, even if some understand that last week’s round of media and diplomatic Israel-bashing over the affair was again baseless and slanderous, it still appears to be too little, too late. There have already been reports, and concerns, in Israel that the next flotilla might be escorted by Turkish naval warships, or include Erdogan himself as one of the passengers. This week Iran, too, is getting into the act, with one <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7145279.ece">report</a> claiming Tehran is already planning to send two aid ships to Gaza, and Ali Shirazi, representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini within the Revolutionary Guards, <a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100606/world/international_us_israel_flotilla_iran">saying</a> that “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards naval forces are fully prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys to Gaza with all their powers and capabilities.”</p>
<p>Bluff? Threats made to keep Israel off balance and keep the spotlight off Iran’s continuing progress toward nukes? It’s impossible to know at this point. But what is clear is that the radical bloc led by Iran—which also includes Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and, increasingly, Turkey—feels all the more emboldened by its successes and by Western weakness. To those successes—which include, along with Iran’s unimpeded nuke program, the ongoing, extensive armament of Hezbollah—can now be added igniting another storm of Western fury at Israel over last week’s incident, which included the usual professions of “shock” by Western leaders, the usual pounding of Israel in the Western mainstream media, the usual cooperation by Western countries with anti-Israeli votes in the Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as the Obama administration’s repeated calls—<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=177672">steeped in contempt</a> for Israeli democracy—for an Israeli investigation of the flotilla incident with “international components.”</p>
<p>The West will have to decide whether it wants to keep encouraging the radicals or finally start discouraging them. Regarding Turkey itself, Israeli analyst Efraim Inbar <a href="http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/docs/perspectives108.pdf">notes</a> that “support in public opinion for [Erdogan’s] ruling Islamic party is in decline.” If that trend persists, as Inbar points out, a new government could well emerge in Turkey’s July 2011 elections—and that could be precisely why Erdogan is now trying to whip up the masses by upping the ante with Israel. When the result of the flotilla-ploy against Israel is that the West indeed turns in wrath upon the Jewish state, it paints Erdogan as a hero in many Turkish eyes and only bolsters the extremist, anti-Western proclivity.</p>
<p>More generally, one doesn’t have to have excessively fine instruments to detect the escalating saber-rattling against Israel by the Iranian-led bloc, with Turkey now adding its voice emphatically. An armed challenge to Israel’s blockade of Gaza could be the match that lights the fuse. Even if some Western leaders appear to regard Israel as a burdensome rogue, not really worth sticking up for, they would have to think about what such a Middle Eastern conflagration would mean for stability, oil availability and prices, and the like. The sides are heavily armed and the stakes are very high.</p>
<p>Standing up for Israel, imparting the sense that it has Western support, calms the winds and keeps war at bay. Raging against Israel for killing nine jihadists in self-defense is a way of telling the radicals that it’s open season.</p>
<p><em>P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator in Beersheva, Israel. He blogs at </em><a href="http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/" target="_blank"><em>http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com</em></a><em>.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/will-the-west-back-the-jihad-or-israel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Turkey Turns on Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/askar-askarov/turkey-turns-on-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=turkey-turns-on-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/askar-askarov/turkey-turns-on-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:28:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Askar Askarov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[akp]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ankara]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ataturk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bloody chapter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cyprus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Davutoglu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deadly confrontation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ferdinand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[international chorus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[international spotlight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli commandos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli palestinian conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kemal ataturk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mediterranean]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ottoman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ottoman empire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ottoman Turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions against iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions regime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secular turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shimon peres]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sultan Bayezid II]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkish citizens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United States of America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[USSR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62128</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Erdogan exposes his fangs to the Jewish state.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/erdogan-hamas.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62145" title="erdogan hamas" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/erdogan-hamas.jpg" alt="" width="485" height="356" /></a></p>
<p>Two weeks after delivering a blow to the U.S.-led efforts to strengthen sanctions against Iran by mediating a uranium exchange agreement involving the Islamic Republic and Brazil, Turkey once again has seized the international spotlight in the wake of the deadly clash between Israeli commandos and armed Turkish activists aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla. Turkey’s central role in both developments is no coincidence. It is a reflection of the current Turkish government’s determined efforts to shed the secular legacy of its predecessors, to consolidate power at home, and to align the country with the Islamic world – which means a collision course with America and, especially, with Israel.</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>The flotilla ship, the <em>Mavi Marmara</em>, originated from the Turkish port, Antalya and the majority of those killed and wounded in the confrontation with Israeli commandos were Turkish citizens. While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns Israel “not to test its patience,” Turkey is leading the international chorus of denunciations against the Jewish state. While it may appear as if the latest controversy is one more bloody chapter in the long saga of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the deadly confrontation in the Mediterranean is in reality more about Turkey’s destiny and its upcoming and planned confrontation with Israel.</p>
<p>The ruling party in Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), seems to be driven by two main factors. On the eve of the upcoming national elections, the AKP is desperate to stave off defeat at the hands of the surging opposition. Under such circumstances, the AKP seeks to exploit people’s sense of patriotism and religious solidarity with Muslim Palestinians by forcing a confrontation with Israel. However, it would be wrong to attribute the behavior of the AKP government to Machiavellian instincts alone. The religious and political forces behind the AKP, long suppressed and dormant in republican and secular Turkey, believe in the idea of a transcendent Islamic identity and reject the concept of a secular nation state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.</p>
<p>The objective of AKP Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to do away with Turkey&#8217;s republican system. The actions of his administration have eroded Turkey’s standing with the West and now, with the flotilla incident, a fundamental shift has transpired in Turkish foreign policy. This shift did not occur overnight. In retrospect, the AKP&#8217;s refusal to grant passage to U.S. troops on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003 was the opening act of the distancing between Ankara and Washington. The result of the Turkish denial of invasion routes from the north, and hence, the forced concentration of U.S. military operations in the Shia-populated south, no doubt contributed to the rise of the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle and increased casualties. In 2005, Turkey itself became the victim of the anarchy in Iraq as the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) expanded its base in Iraqi Kurdistan and launched deadly attacks on Turkish targets. Ankara threatened Washington with the invasion of northern Iraq. Loath to wreck its relations with the long-standing ally, the U.S. accommodated the Turkish demand by supplying it with satellite intelligence and leaning heavily on the Kurdish authorities in the region to crack down on PKK. US-Turkish relations now seemed cordial on the surface. But the goodwill between the two nations evaporated rather quickly. A public survey in 2007 showed, for instance, that only nine percent of the Turks had favorable views toward the United States.</p>
<p>There is a proverb in Turkish: When you cannot beat the donkey, punch the saddle. It would be tempting to surmise that since Erdogan lacks the resources and capacity to pick a fight with the United States, Israel became the next obvious target. But the situation is more complicated. Unlike Islamic Iran, where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini distinguished America and Israel as, respectively, the Great and Little Satan for decades, Turkey maintained a solid military alliance with Israel. Turning the &#8220;Little Satan” into an enemy in the Turkish public eye was no small feat. For years, the Israelis had been actively involved in the upgrading of Turkish fighter planes and weaponry. The two countries did not just share military technology; they had also shared common enemies. Just as Syria posed a threat to Israeli national security, the government of Hafez Assad laid claims to Turkish territories and harbored PKK leaders in its territories. Oriented toward the West, Turkey’s relations with other Arab countries were lukewarm at best. After all, most Turks never forgot what they regarded as the Arab betrayal of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War when many Arabs sided against the Turks and their German patrons and fought for the British in what they saw as a war of independence against Turkish domination.</p>
<p>The Erdogan government viewed repairing relations with the Arab world as essential to its domestic as well as global agenda. The key figure in the tectonic shift was the architect of the new Turkish foreign policy, Ahmet Davutoglu, who inaugurated a policy called “zero problems with neighbors.” On the surface, it looked as if Davutoglu was the faithful follower of Ataturk’s dictum – “Peace at Home, Peace in the World.” But having been brought up in a religious household and having been a product of the Islamic education system, Davutoglu’s intentions widely differed from those of the founder of the secular state. By establishing warm relations with their country&#8217;s autocratic neighbors to the East, the new Turkish government had, in fact, begun quietly steering Turkey away from the West. All along, the AKP leadership insisted on its strong desire to enter the European Union. But behind the scenes, both the European political elite and the Turkish leadership shared a similar objective: to keep Turkey away from Europe and, as the AKP hoped, to integrate Turkey with the rest of the Islamic community of nations. This way, the Europeans would be free, despite their public statements, from a secret fear – an EU with millions of Turks. In its turn, the AKP would get an eastward looking Turkey with autocratic tendencies and Islamist orientation. Bashing and isolating Israel was an integral part of the strategy that accompanied epic changes in Turkish politics.</p>
<p>To accomplish its objectives with regard to Israel, the Erdogan government took an unusual route. Abandoning the long-standing tradition of non-interference in the Mideast conflict, in 2006, Ankara took the initiative to mediate peace between Israel and Syria. As the negotiations went forward, the Israelis began to realize that the so-called mediation was in fact a cover by the Turkish Islamists to engage in deeper contact with Israeli enemies without provoking concern in the mass Turkish domestic public or in the West. How else could the leader of a secular republic and NATO ally justify shaking hands with the representative of Hamas? With the eruption of war in Gaza in 2008, the Erdogan government openly sided with Israel’s enemies by issuing severe criticism of Israel.</p>
<p>During this period, anti-Israel hysteria began to grip Turkish society. The Turks began boycotting Israeli goods en masse. In Ankara, the Israeli basketball team was run off the court by mobs shouting “Allah Akbar.” Israeli-Turkish hostility escalated further after the shocking confrontation between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Shimon Peres at Davos where the Turkish leader called the Nobel Peace Prize winner a “murderer.”  In the ensuing months, a Turkish soap-opera TV series portrayed Israelis as bloodthirsty child-killers and lionized a fictional<strong> </strong>film<strong> </strong>secret agent who shoots and kills a treacherous-looking Israeli ambassador who is engaged in trading body-parts – classic anti-Semitic themes.</p>
<p>The recent incident in the Mediterranean has now greatly escalated tensions between Turkey and Israel. But the progression of events suggests something far more sinister and disturbing with regard to Turkey’s trajectory as a nation. In 1923, when Ataturk established the republic, he repudiated the expansionist ambitions of the Ottoman Empire in favor a peaceful, inward-looking nation state. Having seen his share of dreadful fighting, Ataturk did not wish his nation to become embroiled in territorial conflicts with its neighbors. To accomplish that task, he enacted reforms in politics and society that sought to make Turkey more like France rather than Egypt.</p>
<p>Ataturk’s philosophy of governance turned out to be a spectacular success. Since 1923, with the exception of the Cyprus invasion in 1974, Turkey has successfully managed to avoid being drawn into conflicts and thus saved the lives of millions of its citizens from the murderous currents of the 20th century. Turkey’s success in foreign policy did not just emanate from its peace-loving Kemalist philosophy, but was owed to the wise investment of its republican leadership in the alliance with the West, specifically with the United States. Without the support of Washington and its alliance with NATO, it is doubtful that Turkey would have succeeded in fending off pressures from the USSR to the north and Syria to the southeast. Moreover, its strong ties with the West also enabled Turkey to build a modern military that served as a potent deterrent against aggression. The Erdogan government clearly views this policy as the reduction of Turkey’s status as a global player and has decided to do away with it and replace it with a more aggressive, externally focused policy.</p>
<p>Even the Ottoman Empire, which the AKP government is clearly seeking to emulate, had turned westward after its defeats in the 18<sup>th</sup> century &#8212; long before Ataturk’s radical push for cultural reformation. It should be noted that much of the Tanzimat reforms that brought changes to the Ottoman socio-political infrastructure were inspired by the imperial envoys’ observations in the capitals of Europe. During the Crimean War of 1853-56, the Turks fought side by side with the British and French soldiers against the Russian armies. Moreover, the goodwill between the Turks and the Jews dates back to 1492 when Sultan Bayezid II welcomed the Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of King Ferdinand of Spain. According to renowned historian of Islam, Bernard Lewis, “the Jews were not just permitted to settle in the Ottoman lands, but were encouraged, assisted and sometimes even compelled.&#8221; The Ottoman leadership viewed the Jews as an industrious group whose economic success would bring generous revenues to the state treasury, and treated them with courtesy.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s brand of Islamism and anti-Semitism is not entirely new or original. It was always there within certain elements of the population. But coupled with an ideological zeal and thirst for power, it now threatens to undo most of the accomplishments of the Turkish republic. Erdogan and those around him do not wear turbans or mullah-style robes, but the illusion of a golden Islamic past under the first four caliphs in the 8th century has been drilled into them at the madrases they attended when they were young. Even more powerful than the ideological sympathy for Islamic solidarity is Erdogan’s desire to retain internal political power at all cost. He is an Islamist, but the most important feature distinguishing Erdogan from all previous heads of the Turkish republic is his drive to dismantle all checks and balances to his power. Erdogan’s increasing assault on the top leaders of the military that have long been viewed as the guardians of the Kemalist democracy, together with his “reforms” of the court system and of the constitution, has served the aim of keeping the AKP in power long enough to change the character of the Turkish state. In that sense, Erdogan’s struggle is mostly a domestic one &#8211; at this moment, at least.</p>
<p>In recent weeks, Erdogan has been especially alarmed by the rise of an opposition leader in the person of Kemal Kilicdaroglu. In the aftermath of the resignation of the disgraced leader of the Republican People’s Party, Deniz Baykal, who was videotaped having sex with one of his political aides, Kilicdaroglu has emerged as a promising leader and the new face of the Kemalist opposition. Affectionately called &#8220;The Turkish Gandhi&#8221; by the Turkish people, Kilicdaroglu inspires them with qualities rare for a Turkish politician. He is competent, humble and not corrupt. In the last congress of the party, just prior to the flotilla incident, Kilicdaroglu vowed to defeat the AKP in the upcoming national elections and form the next government. In the face of a serious internal political challenge, Erdogan believes he has found an easy formula of drumming up popularity at home by provoking Israel.</p>
<p>There is, however, a price to be paid for the sinister methods by which Erdogan has sought to manipulate pubic opinion. As the Islamist leader stokes the fires of hatred against the Jewish state, he is dragging Turkey further out of its safety zone and toward uncharted territory. Erdogan may reap personal dividends from throwing stones at Israel, but for a country with a substantial Kurdish minority that grows increasingly restless in its aspirations for independence, expressing outrage at the alleged oppression of the Palestinians may spell disaster. The segment of Turkish society that supports Erdogan’s policies vis-à-vis Israel might also start to recognize its own share of responsibility for the reckless actions of its government.</p>
<p>Perhaps some of the AKP’s ambitions emanate from the fact that for nearly a century, Turkey has not fought a major war. Not a single living Turk has a memory of the calamities that ripped the Turkish society apart in the beginning of the 20th century. Following the loss of millions of Turkish lives, leaders such as Ataturk developed a strong distaste for the type of adventurism that now characterizes the behavior of the Erdogan government on the international stage. Thanks to the wisdom of its traditional experience, the Turkish homeland has not come under an attack during its entire existence as a republic. The Turks will only keep the peace if they can keep the republic.</p>
<p><em>Askar Askarov received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Maryland in 2007. He is as an instructor at the Elliott School of International Affairs.</em></p>
<p><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/askar-askarov/turkey-turns-on-israel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>95</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Separating Islam From Terrorism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/separating-islam-from-terrorism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=separating-islam-from-terrorism</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/separating-islam-from-terrorism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:09:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah Khomeini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fatwa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fellow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[harmony]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ibn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islam and terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islam islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic radicalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mardin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[national security strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Omar Brooks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taymiyya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkish prime minister]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=58123</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Another empty statement of Islamic moderation.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obama1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58193" title="obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obama1.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="271" /></a></p>
<p>Barack Obama has removed all mention of Islam from the National Security Strategy document, which during the Bush Administration said: “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.” Obama apparently agrees with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said Monday: “Islam and terrorism cannot be mentioned together, because they are contradictory to each other.”</p>
<p>Erdogan, incidentally, also famously said this about “moderate Islam”: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” And that statement itself demonstrates one of the key fallacies of the Obama Administration’s stance that Islam has nothing to do with, uh, Islamic terrorism.</p>
<p>Now that the idea that Islam and terrorism have anything to do with one another has been relegated to the dustbin of history, it’s worth asking why anyone got this idea in the first place. Was it sheer bigotry? Racism? Let’s see. Could it have been from Osama bin Laden, who once praised Allah for the Qur’an’s “Verse of the Sword” (9:5), which instructs Muslims to “slay the unbelievers wherever you find them”? Or maybe it was from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, who once thundered: “Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you!&#8230;There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”</p>
<p>Maybe it was from the British Muslim Omar Brooks, who said in 2005 that it was imperative for Muslims to “instill terror into the hearts of the kuffar” and added: “I am a terrorist. As a Muslim of course I am a terrorist.” Or maybe it was from the Qur’an itself, which tells Muslims to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (8:60). Maybe it was from the perpetrators of the 15,000-plus terror attacks committed in the name of Islam since 9/11.</p>
<p>But a recent conference of Islamic scholars in Mardin, Turkey, has given apparent intellectual heft to the Obama/Erdogan contention. Discussing a fourteenth-century fatwa by the Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya, a favorite of contemporary Islamic jihadists, the scholars declared: “anyone who seeks support from this fatwa for killing Muslims or non-Muslims has erred in his interpretation and has misapplied the revealed texts.”</p>
<p>That sounds great. It is unequivocal. But what it is unequivocal about is the use of Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa to justify killing Muslims or non-Muslims. It unequivocally declares that illegitimate. It does <em>not</em> declare illegitimate the killing of Muslims or non-Muslims itself.</p>
<p>I am not saying that these scholars did not mean to condemn the killing of Muslims and non-Muslims in the name of Islam. Maybe they did. But they did not do so by condemning the use of Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa, for there are plenty of other Islamic sources that justify the killing of unbelievers.</p>
<p>The scholars issued what they called the “New Mardin Declaration,” saying: “Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa concerning Mardin can under no circumstances be appropriated and used as evidence for leveling the charge of kufr (unbelief) against fellow Muslims, waging revolt against rulers, deeming their lives and property freely accessible to Muslims, terrorizing those who enjoy safety and security, acting treacherously towards those who live (in harmony) with fellow Muslims or with whom fellow Muslims live (in harmony) via the bond of citizenship and peace.”</p>
<p>Here again, the focus is very narrow: the New Mardin Declaration seems to discuss only Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa, not the larger question of the Islamic justification for these things outside of that fatwa. But in any case, the part of the Declaration quoted above offers no comfort to unbelievers concerned about being targeted by jihadists. It is only concerned that Muslims do not declare other Muslims to be unbelievers &#8212; which is indeed a favorite practice of Salafis in general &#8212; and that they do not revolt against rulers (which is probably a slap to Al-Qaeda for waging jihad against the House of Saud, etc.).</p>
<p>It does also rule out “acting treacherously towards those who live (in harmony) with fellow Muslims or with whom fellow Muslims live (in harmony) via the bond of citizenship and peace,” but leaves unclear what exactly might constitute this treachery. This may forbid Muslims in West to commit violent jihad attacks against non-Muslims in their adoptive countries, but it remains unclear whether Muslims in Western countries would be “acting treacherously” by working in non-violent ways to impose elements of Sharia. Would CAIR’s efforts to smear and defame anti-jihadists, and intimidate Americans into being afraid to report suspicious activity by Muslims, constitute “acting treacherously”? Would efforts to secure special privileges for Muslims in workplaces, schools, and public places like airports constitute “acting treacherously”?</p>
<p>The New Declaration said that the distinction in Islamic theology between the dar al-harb, the house of war, and the dar al-Islam, house of Islam, as outmoded, “based on ijtihad (juristic reasoning) that was necessitated by the circumstances of the Muslim world, then and the nature of the international relations prevalent at that time.” The Declaration said that in the modern age, circumstances “had changed with international treaties and nation states.”</p>
<p>That’s reasonable, but it raises another question: if circumstances change again, might all this “reform” be out the window? Is the New Mardin Declaration a matter of an evolved understanding of core principles &#8212; i.e., a genuine reform &#8212; or is it simply a temporary expedient?</p>
<p>On jihad, the New Declaration stated: “Muslim scholars, throughout the ages, have always stressed and emphasized that the jihad that is considered the pinnacle of the religion of Islam, is not of one type, but of many, and actually fighting in the Path of God is only one type. The validation, authorization, and implementation of this particular type of Jihad is sanctioned by the Shariah to only those who lead the community (actual heads of states).</p>
<p>Great. There are many types of jihad. But there is no rejection of the supremacist character of jihad &#8212; i.e., its goal to impose Sharia upon non-Muslims polities. All this is saying is that there are many ways to do that. And that “this particular type of Jihad” &#8212; i.e., not all types &#8212; is the province of the state to sanction. Thus Osama bin Laden, who couches his jihad as defensive, which he must do since he recognizes that the office of caliph, the only person authorized in Sunni Islam to declare offensive jihad, is vacant, would find nothing in the New Mardin Declaration that would stop him. Defensive jihad in traditional Islamic theology does not need the sanction of the state, but becomes the obligation of every individual Muslim as soon as an Islamic land is attacked.</p>
<p>And the New Mardin Declaration goes on to say just that:</p>
<blockquote><p>This is because such a decision of war is a political decision with major repercussions and consequences. Hence, it is not for a Muslim individual or Muslim group to announce and declare war, or engage in combative jihad, whimsically and on their own. This restriction is vital for preventing much evil from occurring, and for truly upholding Islamic religious texts relevant to this matter.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>The basis of the legitimacy of jihad is that it is either to repel/resist aggression: “Fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah likes not the transgressors.” (Qur’an, 2:190), or to aid those who are weak and oppressed: “And why should you not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?” (Qur’an, 4:75), or in defense of the freedom of worshiping: “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged; &#8211; and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid.” (Qur’an, 22:39). It is not legitimate to declare war because of differences in religion, or in search of spoils of war.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Osama has quoted Qur’an 22:39 in his communiques. He is waging defensive jihad, not “war because of differences in religion, or in search of spoils of war.” The problem is that with unbelief itself constituting aggression for some Islamic authorities, and given the Qur’anic command to fight unbelievers until “religion is all for Allah” (8:39), it is cold comfort to unbelievers, and no restraint for jihadists, to remind them that they should only be fighting aggression.</p>
<p>There is here no simple and straightforward declaration that Muslims should not fight non-Muslims and attempt to subjugate them under Sharia. And that is still the problem. Obama and Erdogan and the rest are demanding that Islam be separated from terrorism, and yet the conceptual apparatus establishing a peaceful Islam has never been presented. We are all supposed to take it on faith. But the stakes are too high for that.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/separating-islam-from-terrorism/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>160</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Welcomes A Stealth Jihadist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/obama-welcomes-a-stealth-jihadist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-welcomes-a-stealth-jihadist</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/obama-welcomes-a-stealth-jihadist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:18:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ali Masfaka]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armenian christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armenian diaspora]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armenian prime minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[caroline fourest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eastern turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[England]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exemption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extreme displeasure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first public appearance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hasan Al-Banna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holladay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holocaust]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holy Land Foundation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[immigration officials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic charity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic scholar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leader]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Martin Luther]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Masfaka]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mehmet Ali Briand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[membership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[middle east policies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mohamad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mustapha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ottoman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ottoman empire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pamuk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reason clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary of State Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state spokesman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sweden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tariq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tariq Ramadan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkish prime minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world war one]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55817</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tariq Ramadan returns to the U.S.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/tariq.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55819" title="tariq" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/tariq.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Five years after being barred from the U.S. for making charitable contributions to a group that sent those contributions to the jihad terror group Hamas, internationally renowned Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, often dubbed “the Muslim Martin Luther,” will make his <a href="http://dnainfo.com/20100317/east-village/barred-muslim-scholar-tariq-ramadan-will-speak-at-cooper-union">first public appearance</a> in America this April after being permitted to enter the country.</p>
<p>The turnabout comes not because Ramadan has been cleared of these charges, but because Secretary of State Clinton has, in the words of State spokesman Darby Holladay, “chosen to exercise her exemption authority for the benefit of Tariq Ramadan.”</p>
<p>Holladay disingenuously suggested that the Bush Administration had barred Ramadan from the country because of his opposition to the Iraq War, but no “exemption authority” would have been needed to overturn a ban that had been put in place for that reason. Clinton was exempting Ramadan from prohibitions on supporters of terror groups entering the country.</p>
<p>And ironically, days after the Obama State Department announced the exemption for Ramadan, a Detroit-area Muslim named Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka was arrested at the border while attempting to cross from Canada back into the United   States. His crime? Lying to the FBI and immigration officials about his work with the Holy Land Foundation, formerly the largest Islamic charity in the United States, which has now been shut down for funneling charitable contributions to Hamas.</p>
<p>So what is the difference between Tariq Ramadan and Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka? They have both allegedly been disingenuous about their ties to a Hamas charity, and yet Ramadan is free to enter the United States and Masfaka is under arrest. So what unique and compelling benefit does Tariq Ramadan bring to the U.S. that would move Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to bend their own anti-terror rules and make this exemption for him?</p>
<p>The answer, of course, is that Tariq Ramadan is internationally famous as a voice of Islamic moderation – and a vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s Middle East policies, which the Obama Administration very much wants to subject to public criticism. Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka, in contrast, toils in relative obscurity and offers the Obama Administration no such political fringe benefits. Ramadan represents the kind of Muslim who should respond most favorably to Obama’s recurring pleas for a new relationship based on mutual respect: urbane, sophisticated, Westernized, closely identified with Islamic moderation and reform. In fact, Holladay explained the exemption for Ramadan in terms that specifically recalled Obama’s repeated appeals: “Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the US government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”</p>
<p>However, there are cracks in Ramadan’s façade that should have raised eyebrows even in Obama’s State Department. Ramadan is the grandson of Hasan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood – an international Islamic supremacist organization that is dedicated, in its own words (according to an internal Brotherhood document captured in a raid of the Holy Land Foundation), to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house.” French journalist Caroline Fourest, who has published a book-length study of Ramadan’s sly duplicity, <em>Brother Tariq</em>, concludes that this much-lionized putative Muslim Martin Luther is actually anything but a reformer: in reality, Ramadan is “remaining scrupulously faithful to the strategy mapped out by his grandfather, a strategy of advance stage by stage” toward the imposition of Islamic law in the West.</p>
<p>Ramadan, she explains, in his public lectures and writings invests words like “law” and “democracy” with subtle and carefully crafted new definitions, permitting him to engage in “an apparently inoffensive discourse while remaining faithful to an eminently Islamist message and without having to lie overtly &#8212; at least not in his eyes.” Ramadan, she said, “may have an influence on young Islamists and constitute a factor of incitement that could lead them to join the partisans of violence.”</p>
<p>In light of Ramadan’s smooth duplicity, his new welcome into the U.S. is a fitting symbol for the entire catastrophe of the Obama Administration’s policy toward the Middle East and Islamic terror. Obama reaches out to the Islamic world, assuming that his overtures will be welcomed by voices of reason and restraint. But in making this appeal, Obama drastically underestimates the jihad threat and mistakes all too many enemies for friends. And so now he also underestimates and misevaluates Tariq Ramadan, with consequences that no one can foretell at this point, but which are not likely to be positive.</p>
<p><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /> <input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden" /></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/obama-welcomes-a-stealth-jihadist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>59</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Turkey’s PM to Armenians: Get Out!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/stephenbrown/turkey%e2%80%99s-pm-to-armenians-get-out/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=turkey%25e2%2580%2599s-pm-to-armenians-get-out</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/stephenbrown/turkey%e2%80%99s-pm-to-armenians-get-out/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:04:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armenian christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armenian diaspora]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armenian prime minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BBC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eastern turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[England]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extreme displeasure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holocaust]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leader]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mehmet Ali Briand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[membership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ottoman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ottoman empire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pamuk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sweden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkish leader]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkish prime minister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wall Street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world war one]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55555</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Angered by genocide resolutions, Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to deport 100,000 illegals.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/erdogan.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55557" title="erdogan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/erdogan.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338" /></a></p>
<p>Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed the European Union recently why his country’s membership application should be rejected. In an interview with the BBC last week, Erdogan expressed his extreme displeasure with foreign countries recognising as genocide the 1915 massacre of the Armenians by <a href="http://www.asbarez.com/78347/erdogan-threatens-to-deport-armenians-from-turkey/">threatening to deport</a> 100,000 Armenians working illegally in Turkey.</p>
<p>“In my country there are 170,000 Armenians; 70,000 of them are citizens. We tolerate 100,000 more. So what am I going to do tomorrow? If necessary I will tell the 100,000: okay, time to go back your country. Why? They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country,” said Erdogan, leader of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, a conservative and Islamic political entity. Erdogan blamed the Armenian Diaspora for the genocide resolutions.</p>
<p>The reaction to Erdogan’s statement in Armenia was, predictably, swift and damning. Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian condemned the Turkish leader’s remarks, saying they “do not improve relations” between the two countries. The plan to open the Turkish-Armenian border, a prerequisite for Turkey acquiring EU membership, and to set up a joint commission to investigate the massacres may now be in jeopardy.</p>
<p>“When the Turkish Prime Minister allows himself to make such statements it brings up memories of the events of 1915,” said Sarkisian, whose government <a href="http://www.asbarez.com/78347/erdogan-threatens-to-deport-armenians-from-turkey/">disputes the 100,000 figure</a>.</p>
<p>In 1915, shortly after Turkey’s entry into World War One, 1.5 million primarily Armenian Christians living in the then Ottoman Empire, in an action resembling later slaughters by Stalin and Hitler, were subjected to massacres and deportations that often ended in death. The world’s indifference to the killings may even have encouraged Hitler who later referred to the 1915 Armenian holocaust in relation to his planned genocide of the Jews: “After all, who today speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?”</p>
<p>The three million Armenians living in their truncated state on Turkey’s eastern border are as traumatised about the tragedy that befell their people as the Jews are about the Holocaust. <em>Asia Times</em> columnist Spengler (a literary pseudonym) has called them “the ghosts of their murdered brethren” who “haunt the geopolitical stage as a silent chorus.”</p>
<p>Turkish nationalists deny that an Armenian holocaust ever took place. They will only admit that about three hundred thousand Armenians and an almost equal number of Turks were killed in “civil strife” in eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1917. The 1915 deportations, they claim, were justified because some Armenians were supporting the Russian army, Turkey’s enemy at the time. The Armenians were regarded as a knife at Turkey’s back that had to be removed.</p>
<p>But the deniers are fighting a losing battle. Already, more than 20 countries have labelled as genocide the 1915 Armenian bloodbath, including EU member states France, Germany and Italy. The United States and Sweden are the latest countries to move in that direction.</p>
<p>When Erdogan was in England, Sweden’s parliament voted to recognise the Armenian killings, prompting the Turkish leader to cancel his visit there and recall his country’s ambassador. The American government’s House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution (23 votes to 22) to the same effect, which, according to <em><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704059004575128083028873948.html">The Wall Street Journal</a></em>, angered Turkey.</p>
<p>But there are some Turks who want their country to confront this tragic crime in their nation’s past. The most prominent of these is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orhan_Pamuk">Orhan Pamuk</a>, the 2006 Nobel Laureate for Literature. Called by Spengler “the only Turk with a global voice”, Pamuk raised the Armenian genocide with a Swiss publication in 2005.</p>
<p>“Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares mention that. So I do,” Pamuk said.</p>
<p>For these remarks, Pamuk was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4205708.stm">criminally charged</a> with “insulting Turkishness.” Legal proceedings were later stayed, but the resulting furor and hate campaign caused Pamuk to move to New York.</p>
<p>Other Turks, while not dealing with the genocide question, criticised Erdogan for his BBC comments. One Turkish journalist, Mehmet Ali Briand, pointed out the irony of Erdogan denying the first Armenian deportation, when he wants to organize a<a href="http://times.am/2010/03/19/no-dear-prime-minister-don%25E2%2580%2599t-touch-the-armenians-protect-them/"> “second deportation”</a>, one that television cameras would witness.</p>
<p>“We could defend ourselves all we want…no one would believe us,” he wrote. “They’d say, ‘See, again the Turks are casting out the Armenians.’ ”</p>
<p>Briand suggests instead that since these Armenians are mostly poor people, doing menial work, who came to Turkey after the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, they should be shown compassion. These people would then preserve Turkey’s dignity, enhance its image and be “our strongest and most convinced lobby.”</p>
<p>A <em><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7066218.ece">Times On Line story</a></em> suggests Erdogan’s hard-line comments may have been directed towards a domestic audience rather than a foreign one. According to <em>The Times</em> account, since the next elections in Turkey are this July, Erdogan was trying to appease the voters who opposed reconciliation with Armenia.</p>
<p>Most likely though, Erdogan’s remarks are simply a “barbaric reaction” to offended dignity, similar to the Muslim reaction to the Mohammad cartoons.</p>
<p>But Erdogan’s comments may represent something more sinister than just an ethnic tantrum. Briand quotes another Turkish politician who said, “Turkey should teach Armenia a lesson never to be forgotten.” Erdogan is also not the first Turkish politician to advocate deporting the illegal Armenians, but is Turkey’s first leader. Like with Holocaust deniers whose negations conceal their desire to bring about another round of Jew extermination, the denial of the Armenian genocide may be serving the same purpose.</p>
<p>A new Armenian massacre may have been avoided as recently as the last decade. In his book <em>Chechen Jihad</em>, Yossef Bodansky writes that 2,500 Islamist fighters from Afghanistan helped Azerbaijan, “under the banner of jihad”, in the early 1990s in its war against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Bodansky states the Azeris exploited “the mujahedin’s Islamist zeal to escalate the war against the Christian Armenians&#8230;”</p>
<p>This zeal, as the world has seen, usually means death for non-Muslims. The Armenian forces, however, held firm and the jihadists’ savage hatred for the infidel fortunately never reached their territory.</p>
<p>Orhan Pamuk believes freedom of speech is the only way for Turkey to come to terms with its past. But if Erdogan continues to utter offensive remarks against Armenians like in the previous week, his country will not have future, at least not in the EU.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/stephenbrown/turkey%e2%80%99s-pm-to-armenians-get-out/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>81</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Going Cold Turkey</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/going-cold-turkey/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=going-cold-turkey</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/going-cold-turkey/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:04:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Solway]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[country]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dinesh d souza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[electoral democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fact]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hatay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[political domination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secular institutions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[totalitarian regimes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[way]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[young turks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=52167</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's high time to retire our delusions about Turkey being a model for Muslim countries.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/turkey.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52169" title="turkey" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/turkey.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="446" /></a></p>
<p>One of the major questions confronting Western strategists and politicians today has to do with the political direction in which Turkey, a presumed ally and Western lynchpin in the Middle East, seems to be heading. Is it the beacon nation it has long been assumed to be, a stalwart democracy firmly rooted in Islamic soil? Or is it, on the contrary, a fundamentally Islamic nation now shaking off its Western trappings and faux identity to re-enter the theological orbit of the past? Who are we treating with, the Young Turks or the old Ottomans?</p>
<p>As Dinesh D’Souza writes in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-At-Home-Cultural-Responsibility/dp/0767915615/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1267018605&amp;sr=1-1">The Enemy at Home</a></em>, it is time “to retire the tiresome invocation of Turkey as a model for Islamic society. No Muslim country is going the way of Turkey, and even Turkey is no longer going the way of Turkey.” But is not Turkey an electoral democracy and does it not therefore merit our approval and support? We in the West appear to have forgotten that elections in themselves do not constitute democracy. In the Muslim world, elections are only mechanisms for regulating the balance between competing tribal, ethnic and religious blocs intent on political domination, social coercion and economic exploitation—to be suspended the moment it seems opportune to do so. They are pretexts for structures of autocratic or theocratic control. It should come as no surprise that under the auspices of an ostensible democratic apparatus, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Development_Party_%28Turkey%29">Justice and Development Party</a> (AKP) is steering Turkey towards ever closer ties with the totalitarian regimes of Iran, Syria and Sudan and re-introducing Islamic norms of behavior.</p>
<p>The unpleasant fact of the matter is that in an Islamic context, democracy as we understand it does not work very well, if, indeed, it works at all. It is not a reliable or enduring phenomenon. Secular institutions in such a cultural and historical framework can survive only if they are imposed and backed by a strong military determined to check the influence of the clerical establishment and suppress the circulation of Islamic doctrine and extremist sentiment among the laity. Thus the folly of <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/multimedia/publications/publications/annual-reports/2005_en.htm">The European Commission’s 2005 report</a> which declares that the Turkish army should concern itself exclusively with “military, defense and security matters…under the authority of the government,” ignoring the fact that the secular aspects of the state were achieved and protected only by internal military interventions.</p>
<p>The unwillingness of the West to recognize the true state of affairs regarding Turkey is encapsulated in an AP report on the recent arrest by the government of fifty Turkish commanders alleged to have planned a <em>coup d’état</em>. The <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=169375">article</a> states: “Erdogan also has dramatically curtailed the military&#8217;s power, under EU pressure, and reinforced civilian rule while bolstering democratic institutions.” Apart from the reference to (typically misguided) EU pressure, the reality is very different.</p>
<p>By all reputable accounts, Turkey is inexorably being Islamized, which was already evident when it refused to permit American flyovers and the use of military bases and staging grounds during the second Iraq war. As noted above, political and economic relations with Iran are growing ever more intimate; a $3.5 billion natural gas deal has recently been <a href="http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=206226">confirmed</a>. There has been a rapprochement with Syria and the principal bone of contention between the two countries, the status of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria">Turkish province of Hatay</a> claimed by Syria as the historical Iskandaron, has been quietly buried. Turkey launched a venomous propaganda campaign against Israel over Operation Cast Lead in the terrorist statelet of Gaza and refused to cooperate with Israel in long-planned war games, leading to the U.S. dropping out as well. <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=169410">Erdogan boasts</a> that Turkey has “opened a new approach to foreign relations…We have a philosophy of strength.”</p>
<p>Domestically, the Turkish parliament has cancelled the ban on the hijab, prompting even the Russian journal <em><a href="http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080214/99215548.html">RiaNovosti</a></em> to speculate on the danger of radical change in the country. As <em>RiaNovosti</em> wryly points out, “the [pro-hijab] bill will burnish Turkey&#8217;s democratic credentials, hastening its accession to the European Union”—a clever move, no doubt, given <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eurabia-Euro-Arab-Axis-Bat-YeOr/dp/083864077X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1267101561&amp;sr=1-1">Eurabian</a> sympathies. Turkey has recently attempted to pass a law criminalizing adultery in order, according to Erdogan, to <a href="http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc/turkeyadulterylaw2.htm">preserve the family</a>. The law did not carry but the current atmosphere in the country suggests it will be proposed once again. The fact that <em>Mein Kampf</em> has become a bestseller in Turkey is equally worrying.</p>
<p>For a sense of what to expect in the future, Turkey’s premier novelist Orhan Pamuk furnishes a rather disturbing speculum in his novel, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Orhan-Pamuk/dp/0375706860/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1267019078&amp;sr=1-1">Snow</a></em>, which anyone interested in taking the pulse of the country should consult. The snowstorm which cuts off the town, where the central action occurs, from the secular West is more than meteorology; it is an emblem and parable of the gradually closing mindset that prevails in the country.</p>
<p>We should no longer delude ourselves about Turkey. Barring a successful military insurrection and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk">Kemalist</a> revival, it is arguably lost to the West, or soon will be. Turkey should be met with forceful economic and diplomatic measures if we wish to prevent or at least defer a deteriorating situation. It would have to be made to realize that joining the Islamist axis is not to its long-term advantage. Significant countervailing pressure needs to be brought to bear and the secular command of the country’s military should be effectively supported.</p>
<p>But the problem, of course, is not only Turkey—or Iran for that matter, or Russia or any other nation against which we refuse to exercise leverage. The problem is us. We are addicted to the drug of appeasement. It is high time we showed a little character and took steps to bring about our long-overdue political and moral detoxification. For the reflex posture the West adopts of conciliation and procrastination, which in the case we are examining entails indifference to or even complicity with Turkey’s current domestic and foreign policies, will only hasten its departure from the fraying nexus of the Western alliance.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/going-cold-turkey/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>20</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Collaborators in England in the War Against the Jews &#8211; by Jamie Glazov</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/collaborators-in-england-in-the-war-against-the-jews-by-jamie-glazov/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=collaborators-in-england-in-the-war-against-the-jews-by-jamie-glazov</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/collaborators-in-england-in-the-war-against-the-jews-by-jamie-glazov/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:03:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ambassador john bolton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american presidency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American Thinker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[banner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bat Ye]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BNP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[campaign]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chronicle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CST]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[December]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[demonstration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[editor and publisher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[England]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[frontpage magazine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geert Wilders']]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[group]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harrow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[interview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic texts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel national news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jamie]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jewish]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jewish genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Bolton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kill the jews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[London]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mosque]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muhammad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Natan Sharansky]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nick Griffin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[O Muslim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pamela Geller]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prime minister of turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protest rally]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[questionable sources]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rabbis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[renowned figures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[right]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[robert spencer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SIOE]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stephen Gash]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[toxic danger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey recep]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Kingdom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=42792</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Leftist Jews who aid and abet Islamic jihad and Islamic anti-Semitism.   ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42794" title="london-skyline1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/london-skyline1.jpg" alt="london-skyline1" width="450" height="314" /></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Pamela Geller, founder, editor and publisher of the popular and award-winning weblog <em>AtlasShrugs.com</em>. She has won acclaim for her interviews with internationally renowned figures, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye’or, Natan Sharansky, and many others, and has broken numerous important stories — notably the questionable sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign. Her op-eds have been published in <em>The Washington Times</em>, <em>The American Thinker</em>, <em>Israel National News</em>, <em>Frontpage Magazine</em>, <em>World Net Daily</em>, and <em>New Media Journal</em>, among other publications. She is the co-author (with Robert Spencer) of the soon to be released, <a title="http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-Presidency-Obama-Administrations-America/dp/1439189307/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260121208&amp;sr=8-2" href="http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-Presidency-Obama-Administrations-America/dp/1439189307/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260121208&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank">The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America</a> (forward by Ambassador John Bolton).</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42798" title="pamkeller" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/pamkeller1.jpg" alt="pamkeller" width="250" height="308" /></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Pamela Geller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>The organization SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe) held a demonstration recently in Harrow, England. Tell us what happened and what it signified.</p>
<p><strong>Geller:</strong> Thanks Jamie.</p>
<p>Last week, on December 13, Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) held a protest rally in what can only be described as an Islamic fortress in the heart of Harrow, England. I strongly urged Jews to attend.</p>
<p>We are all aware of <a href="http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/15/1/">Islamic anti-Semitism</a> and the toxic danger it poses to Jews. The promise of Jewish genocide is made “sacred” by Islamic texts such as the one in which Muhammad says that the end times will not come until the Muslims kill the Jews, and the Jews hide behind trees, which then cry out, “O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”</p>
<p>The SIOE demonstration was against the building of a mosque there, and the larger issues of the advance of Sharia and Islamization in the United Kingdom. SIOE pointed out the words of the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and Muslims our soldiers…”</p>
<p>Political parties, racist chanting, banners and placards, and totalitarian symbols such as Nazi swastikas, communist hammer and sickles, and the Islamic star and crescent were banned. The initial announcement of the demonstration asked those attending to bring one thousand Israeli flags, and said: “SIOE supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Islamist attempts to annihilate Jews.”<em> </em>The<em> </em>SIOE called on Jews living in London or within traveling distance of London to attend the demonstration, saying that:</p>
<blockquote><p>“vile anti-Semitism is being preached in mosques across the world and almost certainly the one in your neighbourhood….Non-Jews are demonstrating on 13th December against the anti-Semitism being taught in mosques which goes unchallenged by politicians, the media and so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims. Jews cannot, in all conscience, leave it to non-Jews to protest on the behalf of Jews who are once again the world’s whipping boy.”</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> And so Jews came out in full force?</p>
<p><strong>Geller:</strong> No Jamie, they did not. The Community Security Trust (CST), a leading Jewish group in Britain, urged the Jewish community there not to support the demonstration. The CST said in a statement that it “has drawn attention to the Islamaphobic comments on SIOE’s website, and compared the group to the English Defence League, and the BNP’s Nick Griffin, who have attempted to gain support from Jews through pro-Israel and anti-Muslim statements…. A demonstration against Harrow mosque under the banner ‘Stop the Islamization of Europe,’ is as stupid and offensive as a demonstration against Harrow synagogue, under the banner ‘Stop the Zionization of Europe.’”</p>
<p>Once again leftist Jews were lying and deceiving to advance the aims of the enemies of Jews and Jewish life. Stephen Gash of SIOE responded: “I have stood several times in elections against the BNP and what they stand for. Equating synagogues to mosques is reprehensible in my view. When terrorists leave synagogues to blow up planes and tube trains then we at SIOE might reconsider our position. Until that happens we will continue to support Israel and the right of Jews to exist and to defend themselves.”</p>
<p>Rabbis attacked the SIOE campaign also. They said that SIOE’s “only purpose” was “to spread hatred and fear,” and wrote: “We share the desire of the Muslim community of Harrow to respect our mutual traditions, to learn from each other’s cultures and ways of life, and to live together in peace.” Even the Rabbis abandon Israel when the going gets rough. These morally ill rabbis have lost their basic instinct of self-preservation.</p>
<p><em>The Jewish Chronicle</em> even went so far as to gloat when attendance was small. Did the <em>Chronicle</em> ask why so few people attended this demonstration in a town where the majority does not want this mosque? The majority knows what’s happening in their country and fear it. But the <em>Chronicle </em>did not restate the obvious – that people did not attend out of fear.</p>
<p>Did the <em>Jewish Chronicle</em> cover the Death to the Jews protests back in January? Does the <em>Jewish Chronicle</em> cover the ongoing jihad against the Jews? We know the answer.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How do we interpret this phenomenon?</p>
<p><strong>Geller: </strong>Much like the Jewish councils of World War II Germany that helped assist in what would become the extermination of the Jews, we are witnessing Jewish groups like the CST aiding and abetting Islamic jihad and Islamic anti-Semitism.<strong> </strong>I see the Muslim community doing nothing to expunge their own texts and their own teachings of the virulent Jew hatred that fills the Koran and Hadith.</p>
<p>Jewish history is littered with these <a href="../2009/12/04/collaborators-in-the-war-against-the-jews-richard-a-falk-by-steven-plaut/">collaborators</a>. And we see them everywhere in our current environment. The failure of many Jews to stand up and fight this century’s Philistines after thousands of years of persecution is difficult to swallow. Can one deny that there is some kind of death wish present here?</p>
<p>And what I would like to ask is: when has the Muslim community ever stood against anti-Jewish protesters? Where were Muslims during the “Death to Jews” marches across the UK during the defensive war in Gaza? Where are the Muslim groups and Jewish groups demanding that Jew hatred be expunged from the Koran and Islamic teachings?</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What are your thoughts on this international cultural acceptance of Islamic anti-Semitism and simultaneous demonization of Israel?</p>
<p><strong>Geller:</strong> The demonization of Israel is Jew hatred. On many levels, what is happening today is more dangerous than Nazism in the sense that Nazism was perpetrated covertly.  What we are witnessing today is done overtly: anti-Zionism is a modern variation on an age-old hatred. The Nazis hid the extermination. Work camps were death camps but no one knew what was really going on behind those walls until the Nazis were defeated. Today the haters take to the streets and engage in death to Jews, death to Israel demonstrations across Europe and America. They dance and pass out sweets in the Muslim street when Jews are murdered. What’s so disturbing is that it is being done now under the aegis of the UN.</p>
<p>Caroline Glick said: “They [the UN] have been attacking us for more than 30 years. They express their hatred for us with their ‘solidarity’ with the Palestinian people. That, together with their declaration that Zionism is racism, shows that they have done everything they could to fight against us.” She said that the UN’s anti-Israel stance “is anti-Semitism for the modern age. The attempt to dismiss our legitimate rights is a type of anti-Semitism, and I see no difference between the anti-Semitism of today and that of the past.”</p>
<p>Glick recommended that Israel take “dramatic” action against anti-Semitism at the UN:</p>
<p>“We must attack the hypocrisy of the UN and the international community.”</p>
<p>This of course is not new. But America sanctioning such an abomination is new. The most troubling aspect of this was Obama joining the United Nations human rights council – which teems with the world’s worst human rights violators and Israel bashers.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Your interpretation of the mindset of the Jewish collaborators?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Geller: </strong>They are like the Jewish councils of World War II Germany that helped assist in what would become the extermination of the Jews. But that is not fair to the Kapos. The Kapos had no choice, as morally repugnant as they were. These Jews, the Rabbis and Jewish lay leadership, are fighting the last war. Yet that war is over. All their handwringing over Nazis. That war is over. This enemy is here and, as I said earlier, much more dangerous on several realms.  And this anti-Semitism is global, and still they do not see. The Koran’s hatred of the Jews is clear, and still they refuse to see. The vicious hatred of the Jews across the Muslim world, and still these Jews we are discussing refuse to see.</p>
<p>They tear into SIOE and counter jihad efforts, but never do they call the Muslims to task for their Jew-hating rhetoric, their death-to-the-Jews marches, their vile Jew-hating teachings, their relentless campaign against Israel, the Muslim Jew-hatred that is infecting Europe so much that Jews are fleeing in historic numbers.</p>
<p>These Jews think if they go along, if they get along, their enemies will spare them. Despite reality, they believe they can appeal to the enemy’s humanity, despite the lack of evidence of any such quality. These Jews avoid reality &#8212; at the risk of the most dire  consequences.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Pamela Geller, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><strong>To see Frontpage&#8217;s series on Jewish Collaborators, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/04/collaborators-in-the-war-against-the-jews-richard-a-falk-by-steven-plaut/">click here</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong>To get the whole story on the psychology of Jews who aid and abet those who wish to annihilate them, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.</a></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42796" title="united" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/united3.jpg" alt="united" width="350" height="515" /><br />
</em></strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/collaborators-in-england-in-the-war-against-the-jews-by-jamie-glazov/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 1492/1619 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 12:22:09 by W3 Total Cache -->