NATO, we have a problem. One of our “allies” has declared his support for a known terror group against another ally. What are we going to do with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey?
Now, we have always known that Erdogan is a bully and a zealot. We have watched Turkey go from a somewhat secular government to an Islamic controlled state under Erdogan. So to hear Erdogan side with Hamas is not a shock – except that Turkey is a NATO member, which makes it a problem for the rest of NATO.
Turkey’s president appears to have threatened to intervene in Gaza in an impassioned speech at a pro-Palestine rally this evening.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech to a rally this afternoon in which he told attendees Israel was responsible for war crimes, and framed Hamas as “freedom fighters”.
In comments that have prompted Israeli outcry, and led the country to withdraw its diplomatic presence, president Erdogan suggested assaults on Gaza constituted a “massacre”.
In the same speech, he reportedly said that Turkey can “come at any night unexpectedly” to ecstatic reception from hundreds of thousands of attendees.
The footage, which is currently circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter, purportedly showed the pro-Palestine crowd responding with the chant: “Turkish military to Gaza.”
In the same speech, Mr Erdogan accused Israel of carrying out war crimes in Gaza, and compared the country’s actions to the Nazi genocide against the Jews.
He claimed that Israel “has been openly committing war crimes for 22 days”, as he alleged a “similar mentality” was being shown to the Axis members during World War Two.
He said: “In the past they were massacring the Jewish people in the gas chambers and they were indeed wiping out whole regions with bombs.” The Turkish premier then added: “A similar mentality is being shown in Gaza today.”
In response to Israel’s actions, Mr Erdogan said, his government was preparing to “tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal”.
Erdogan speaking at his “Great Palestine Rally” in Istanbul today in front of hundreds of thousands of Turks:
“O West, I’m calling out to you. Do you want to start a Crescent-Crusader clash again?
🇹🇷🇮🇱pic.twitter.com/MpC4d61rmH
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 28, 2023
Can you imagine what would happen if Turkey sent troops to fight in Gaza alongside Hamas, and what a nightmare that would be for NATO? Our favorite former NBA player, Enes Kanter Freedom, who knows a little something about being the target of the Turkish government and Erdogan, had something to say about Erdogan’s aggressive pro-Hamas stance just a few days ago, and how Erdogan wants to be some kind of Islamic “savior,” but is quite selective about which Muslims he wants to stand up for.
If Erdogan did decide to send Turkish troops to Gaza, all hell would break loose. First of all, the United States would instantly have to try and block troops from arriving, if they could, with the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group that we currently have parked in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Would Turkey dare engage with a fellow NATO ally? Let’s just say that under Erdogan, no one knows. That is a deeply unstable situation where no one wants to find out what would happen next. But neither can we simply ignore Erdogan as a blowhard who is whipping up his country under the banner of “Islamic solidarity.”
The Biden administration knows that they have a problem with Turkey, and yet Blinken met with Erdogan just this last February, and Turkey got a round of applause for allowing Sweden to join NATO this year after stonewalling it earlier. Antony Blinken, in particular, seems to have a little too much faith in Turkey, as he was talking to Turkey’s foreign minister about a “ceasefire” (which his Twitter/X account deleted later) within two days of the Hamas invasion and massacre. I think it’s pretty evident that the State Department, and the Biden administration as a whole, has put way too much faith in Turkey’s ties to NATO.
Senator Lindsey Graham is now referring to Turkey as “the Squad” of NATO.
Seems that Turkey, particularly senior leadership, is setting itself up to be “The Squad” of NATO.
Very disappointing and destabilizing.https://t.co/rO91c9Zfyc
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 28, 2023
But the Squad, by itself, doesn’t have control of an army. Turkey does. Erdogan is inherently more dangerous than a Rashida Tlaib or an Ilhan Omar, even though they share the same rhetoric. But this kind of equivalence is what the Biden adminstration believes as well. They ignore the Squad because even though their comments are vile, they are a small group within the House Democrat caucus, and ultimately, they love their Western comforts and freedoms. It is a sucker’s bet to make that same assumption about Erdogan.
If NATO had any brains, there would be meetings going on right now about Erdogan’s comments. I sincerely hope that there are, but with the Top Men currently running the Biden administration, I don’t have much confidence.
Featured image: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2022 via Wikimedia Commons, cropped, CC BY 4.0 DEED
Scott says: “Do you want to start a Crescent-Crusader clash again?”.. As the joke goes, We ain’t played cowboys and muslims yet… Not for real anyway.
Would Turkey dare engage with a fellow NATO ally?”.. without question. Erdogan is mulsim, and it’s perfectly acceptable to lie to an infidel, which is what was done to get Turkey into NATO.. NATO is nothing but a means to an end to him, and it is an alliance he will discard in a second in favor of his stone-age brethren..
Cameron says: Mr Erdogan accused Israel of carrying out war crimes in Gaza, and compared the country’s actions to the Nazi genocide against the Jews.
That’s fine. We normal people compare the massacre of the Jews from the Nazis to the Turks committing genocide against the Armenians.
John says: I would hope that our “Senile-Idiot-In-Chief” would tell Erdogan that going after Israel is not a good idea. And I would hope he would use more forceful words than “Don’t.”
Liz says: I don’t think Atatturk would be happy with what has become of its country.
I also think a lot of it is our fault. For example, they took in more refugees from our wars than any other ME country.
Never been to Turkey, but my spouse has been there a couple of times and we know people who have lived there They’ve always said it was a great place to live and visit….that was when military dependents were able to live there so I’m sure things have changed and not for the better.
This is (or was, but still everything is relative) a very secular country by comparison to the rest of the ME (with the exception of Israel). For some perspective: Women had the vote in Turkey before they had it in Switzerland, France or Italy.
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