Remind Me Again: Why is Turkey Still In NATO?

[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to jail journalists, threaten Israel’s existence, denounce those Arab states that have dared to normalize ties to the Jewish state, bully Cyprus and Greece over gas deposits in their maritime waters, and destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Turkish secularists who refused to abandon Kemalism. His latest outrages are reported on here: “Israel, Turkey trade blows in row over NATO involvement in Gaza,” by Gabriel Gavin, Politico, July 13, 2024:

Turkey has doubled down on a pledge to block NATO cooperation with Israel until a “permanent cease-fire” is in place in Gaza, amid an escalating war of words over the humanitarian crisis in the region.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this week accused Israel of violating the fundamental human rights of Palestinians in its military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

“The brutal murder of innocent people by Israel in hospitals where they go for treatment, in ambulances, in marketplaces, in centers where humanitarian aid is distributed, and in areas defined as safe, is the gravest violation of human rights,” Erdoğan said in an interview with Newsweek.

Apparently Erdogan would like us all to forget the invasions by Turkish troops in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, and the Turkish attacks, aggression, and ethnic cleansing of Kurds. Erdogan wishes us to forget his using Syrian refugees as mercenaries in Libya, his buying of Russian defense technology — the S-400 missile defense system — despite American pleas and warnings not to do so, his urging on Azerbaijan in its ruthless war against Armenia, his publicly praising by name the main Turkish planners of the 1915 Armenian genocide, Enver Pasha and Talat Pasha, and his working with Iran to oppose the US role in Syria. Erdogan’s regime sees alliances building around and against it while Erdogan has managed to antagonize almost all of Turkey’s neighbors in the Middle East, and even more important, its fellow NATO members, including Washington. Erdogan wants to wreck Israel’s relationship with NATO and make the alliance a tool of the jihad against the Jewish state.

“Western nations that provide Israel with weaponry,” the Turkish leader argued, “do so at the expense of being complicit in these violations.”

“Until comprehensive, sustainable peace is established in Palestine, attempts at cooperation with Israel within NATO will not be approved by Turkey,” Erdoğan said on Friday at a summit of alliance members in Washington.

NATO was meant to be a military alliance of Western, democratic states. When Turkey was allowed to join in 1952, at a time when it was much more a democracy, the country continuing along the secularist, westernizing path that had been prepared by Kemal Ataturk in in the1920s. But Turkey is now the odd man out in NATO, neither Western — as Erdogan continues to re-Islamize, and de-Kemalize, the country — nor truly democratic. Erdogan has made 74 changes to the Constitution, giving him as president sweeping new powers, and allowing him to possibly remain in office until 2029. Erdogan sits, the new Padishah, in his 1,500 room White Palace (the “Ak Saray”), entertaining his neo-Ottoman dreams of leading the Muslim world, and brooking no domestic dissent.

Under Erdogan, Turkey is no longer a functioning Western democracy. It still holds elections, but there is no free media, without which a real democracy is impossible. Those journalists who dare to write anything against Erdogan are arrested and jailed: Turkey has more journalists behind bars than any other country in the world, not excepting China and Russia. As for ordinary citizens who are judged to be against the regime, they can expect, at the very least, to lose their jobs, as hundreds of thousands have done, and some are arrested and imprisoned.

Erdogan has not treated his fellow NATO members well. He has accused the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria of being run by “Nazis.” When the Netherlands cancelled – for security reasons — a campaign rally for Turks in that country, that was to have been addressed by Turkey’s foreign minister, Erdogan described the Dutch government as “Nazi remnants and fascists.” When Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel called for an end to discussions about possible Turkish membership in the EU, Erdogan called her also a “Nazi” – a charge he has made a half-dozen times against Germany whenever that country’s policies annoy him. And when Austria shut down some “extremist” mosques and expelled their imams, Erdogan was again quick to describe the Austrians as “Nazis.” Germany and the Netherlands are members of NATO; though not a member, Austria closely collaborates with the organization. Erdogan has no qualms about attacking in such an intolerable fashion two fellow members, and one quasi-member, of NATO.

Turkey was allowed to join NATO both because it was then a democracy and because it had chosen to help the West against the Communist bloc, as it demonstrated in sending troops to join NATO forces in the Korean War. In the nearly 70 years since, Turkey’s major military contribution to NATO has been allowing the American Air Force to use the air base at Incirlik, which is not exactly an overwhelming contribution. When the American forces were invading Iraq in 2003, Turkey did allow the Americans to use its air space, but more importantly, it refused to allow American forces to use Incirlik Air Base, and would not permit the movement of American ground troops through Turkey. That is not what the Americans should have expected from a member of NATO.

Erdogan and those closest to him have not apologized for, nor withdrawn, their pan-Islamic plan for the destruction of Israel. Many, including Erdogan, continue to talk of “liberating” Al-Aqsa, overlooking the fact that Al-Aqsa needs no “liberation” – it is controlled by the Muslim Waqf which is under Jordanian authority. A new Turkish ambassador to Israel, whom one would have thought would have been chosen for the post because he was well disposed to the Jewish state, once claimed that “Zionism is racism,” that Israel has “displaced millions” and committed many “massacres.” Erdogan has repeatedly echoed such rhetoric since Oct. 7, even as the U.S. has professed support for Israel. So remind me again: why is Turkey in NATO?