Why Turkey's Local Elections May Have Global Impact

Turkey.  One of the best examples in our modern world of what fundamental Islam can do to lead to the total and utter decay of a nation.

The story comes from The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Why Turkey's Local Elections May Have Global Impact


Driving into Istanbul from Ataturk International Airport, the image looms, enormous and omnipresent: the stubbornly stern face of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"I've spent a lot of time in Libya and Iraq," one Turkish businessman told me of the billboards along the roadside and banners hung from buildings several stories high. "It's Gaddafi and Saddam all over again."

In truth, it's not quite the same: the posters and flags are only temporary here, strung up before the local elections on March 30, and presumably to then be taken down. And smaller, less authoritarian (and less intimidating) banners depicting opposition party leaders also wave throughout the city. But in a fiercely contested election, and amid a political crisis that has splintered the Turkish people, many find the images of Erdogan frightening, a symbol of an Islamic dictatorship that threatens to destroy the nearly 100-year-old secular Turkish Republic, oft-lauded as the only Islamic democracy in the world.

"America is focusing on Putin," my businessman friend says. "But Erdogan is much more dangerous. He is Muslim Brotherhood. He hates Jews, Zoroastrians, and atheists. He wants only Islam."

Indeed, recently, Erdogan, who has long blamed his troubles on "the Jewish lobby," has now taken to grouping atheists in with terrorists. And hinting at a conspiracy against the government, former economy minister Zafer Caglayan, also a member of the ruling AKP, or Justice and Development Party, declared at the climax of the graft corruption scandal that has gripped Turkey since last December 17, "I would understand if a Jew, an atheist, a Zoroastrian would do all these things to us. Shame on them if these things are done by those who claim to be Muslim. How can a Muslim do this?"

Tie such remarks in with Erdogan's strong support for Egypt's ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi and the money-laundering schemes and illicit gold-for-oil deals with Iran at the center of the corruption scandal, and Erdogan and his AKP buddies appear quite threatening, indeed.

True, not everyone agrees with my friend's assessment of Erdogan as being "more dangerous than Putin;" but among the country's intellectual, secular elite there is a strong sense that their prime minister has become desperate, and will do virtually anything possible to retain power. Already, he has banned Twitter after tapes allegedly linking him to the graft case were leaked and broadcast there and on YouTube, which was shut down in Turkey today. European Union Vice President Neelie Kroes called it a "desperate and depressing move," and asked "Where will it end Mr Erdogan?" in separate Twitter posts.

And while Sunday's elections are local, not national, the entire country is aware that a win for the AKP will be a win for Erdogan.

As Burak Bekdil, a columnist at Hurriyet Daily, told me, "Erdogan will definitely view any national vote around 45 percent as a sacrosanct vote of confidence and approval of his authoritarianism which in that case will surely gear up with the aim of crushing the most vocal ones among the 55 percent. I fear street violence and police brutality, not just bans on social or conventional media or restriction of other freedoms."

Bekdil also points to the prime minister's "ideological solidarity" with the Muslim Brotherhood as a growing problem for the West. As Kadri Gursel observed last August in the Al-Monitor, "The AKP leader and his close associates have been attributing more than ideological kinship to their close ties with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. They see it as a historic and strategic partnership that seeks to establish a new order based on solidarity with Brotherhood branches throughout the eastern Mediterranean basis and the entire Sunni Muslim world."

That connection, especially with the prospect of an AKP win on Sunday, could also raise tension with the West. In an e-mail, Hurriyet Daily editor Barçin Yinanç speculated, "the fact that the West has remained largely indifferent to the coup in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood has left a scar in the mentality of the AKP, which thinks that there is no tolerance for political Islam in the West, and so will arrive at the conclusion that the West will be against AKP as well."

Then again, Erdogan is no fan of the West, either – least of all, America, home to his former ally-turned-nemesis Fetullah Gulen (on whom he also blames the current crisis), and to Twitter and You Tube – both of which he has sworn to "eradicate." Moreover, reported Today's Zaman (which, it should be noted, is owned by Gulen), "Erdoğan described Facebook and YouTube, which he maintained to have been abused by his political opponents, as a threat to the nation at a joint broadcast of A Haber and ATV news channels. Talking about the recently passed amendments to the Internet law, widely criticized at home and abroad for censorship, Erdoğan made it clear that he did not find the restrictions on freedoms and the violation of privacy introduced by the Internet law sufficient. The prime minister said: '[…] There are other steps we will take following March 30.'"

Hurriyet's editors are evidently equally concerned – and not just about censorship . According to a March 27 op-ed by columnist Semih Idiz, "But if [Erdogan] gets the numbers he wants, we can expect an even worse witch hunt than the one underway, as Erdoğan and his ministers unleash his already highly apparent fury on those he considers his enemies. Meanwhile, his enemies will not rest either and we can expect even more unsavory revelations about Erdoğan and government members.

"The real fight, whatever the results of Sunday's elections, will be for the presidential elections this year and the general elections planned for next year. I have said it before here. The bottom line is the stronger the AKP comes out of these elections, the more turbulence we can expect in Turkey."

That view is shared by most of the others I've spoken to in Istanbul in recent days. Some of the country's most prominent industrialists – people who have been particularly outspoken in their opposition to Erdogan's policies – are deliberately lying low, fearful of what may come.

Moreover, while both Bekdil and Yinanç seem to feel that further Islamization of the country under Erdogan is unlikely, it is not, they say, for lack of desire on his part – or that of his supporters. "Further Islamization was partly the result of over self-confidence on the part of Erdogan," Bekdil says. "With survivability climbing up in his list of priorities and the social/collective reaction he has faced since Gezi, [such things] should have told him that he should rethink 'raising devout generations.' But this 'ideal' will never disappear from his political genes."

For this reason, Bekdil – and many others – express a real fear for the future of Turkey's so-called "Islamic democracy" – a term Bekdil considers a mistake. The West, he says, "should give up on the 'Islamic democracy' endeavor. With an Islamic democracy, where you end up is where we in Turkey have ended up. Is it too difficult to see that?"

Corruption Scandal In Turkey: The End of Erdogan?

 Protesters in Turkey flee from tear gas. (Photo: © Reuters)

From The Clarion Project.

Corruption Scandal: Turks Demand Resignation of Erdogan


Turkish protesters once again face off with lines of police as they protest the Islamist AKP Party’s corruption scandal in Turkey and demand AKP Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to resign.

Since the corruption investigation was launched on December 17, five AKP members of parliament have resigned, including the three whose sons are being investigated for corruption, forcing Erdogan to reshuffle his cabinet.

Even though several top AKP party ministers have resigned and he has rearranged his cabinet, Erdogan refuses to admit any guilt on behalf of the Islamist AKP party. Recently, Erdogan’s own son Bilal, who is the head of several companies, has come under some suspicion in the anti-corruption operation.

Erdogan has fired police chiefs and police officers all over Turkey, even the chief of police of Istanbul. He has fired prosecutors who issued search warrants for the operation and removed judges. Erdogan even issued new orders that no surprise corruption operations could be launched without first informing his AKP party and Erdogan himself. This infuriated Turkey’s prosecutors, who labeled this decree illegal and unconstitutional.

Istanbul prosecutor Muammar Akkas, whom Erdogan fired from the corruption inquiry, stated, "By means of the police force, the judiciary was subjected to open pressure, and the execution of court orders was obstructed. A crime has been committed throughout the chain of command. ... Suspects have been allowed to take precautions, flee and tamper with the evidence."

The country’s highest court issued a statement, saying it “does not take instructions or requests from anyone and acts according to powers that have been conferred to it by the constitution.”

About 1,000 protesters flooded the Taksim Square metro station in Istanbul on December 31, demanding Erdogan’s resignation. Protesters also assembled in the capital of Ankara.

The inquiry, known as "the operation" inside Turkey, took everyone by surprise, including billionaire builders, heads of banks, members of the AKP Party and their families -- even Prime Minister Erdogan himself.

Erdogan struck back by declaring that the corruption inquiry was initiated by "international forces" that aimed to take down him and the AKP party. He accused former ally, Muslim Cleric Fetullah Gulen, whose system of "Hizmet" private language schools Erdogan had begun to shut down in Turkey.

Gulen, who controls vast wealth and power through his million-plus Hizmet followers, also wields power inside Turkey's police, secret service and courts. Gulen broadcasts his Islamic teaching through his television and newspaper media. He fled to American in 1999 after being accused of trying to set up an Islamic state in Turkey and lives on an estate near Philadelphia.

The private Hizmet schools prepare students to get into the best schools of higher education and provide support for Gullen, both financially and with their graduates. The police force and judiciary are filled with Hizmet graduates.

Erdogan also accused Israel and America of being behind the operation, even issuing a warning to U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone. Erdogan later softened his tone toward Ricciardone and other ambassadors when the European Union and American issued statements of concern over Erdgoan's actions and rhetoric.

The corruption issue took to the streets this past week as thousands of gathered in Ankara and Istanbul to demand Erdgoan’s resignation and transfer of the country’s government away from AKP party power and back to Ataturk’s secular democracy party, the CHP.

Protesters held up shoe boxes to illustrate the vast amounts of cash found stashed in the houses of AKP party ministers’ sons rich builders and heads of banks, especially Halkbank, one of Turkey's largest banks, which has also been implicated in illegal gold trade with Iran.

Erdogan quickly dispatched to the protests hordes of police who used water cannons, pepper spray and rubber bullets against the protesters. Erdogan also placed a media block on coverage of the protests.

Turkey still has the highest number of journalists in prison than any other country, and many television stations have seen their employees and even presidents arrested. Only one newspaper, Cumhuriyet, which was founded by Ataturk himself, has perpetual legal protection from being shut down or disbanded.

The Turkish lira is at a record low, and more AKP party members may resign. Former culture minister Ertugrul Gunay said the party was directed by arrogance.

The U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans living in Turkey to avoid protests, especially one scheduled in Istanbul last night at 7:00 p.m.

"Taksim is very dangerous right now," an American who has lived in Istanbul for years stated. "My partner could not get home by any other way than taking the ferry from the European side, and even that was filled with protesters. All the train station windows in Taksim are broken, and police fill the streets, waiting for protesters."

"I finally got a little quiet after all the protests last night," an American woman who has also lived in Istanbul for years reported. "The Turks are very angry about the corruption scandal, and the police are everywhere."

"I don't think that Erdogan will step down. It will not be easy to change his regime," a Turkish man commented.

Yet, with three months to go before key local elections, Erdogan's AKP party may be on its way out of power in Turkey.

Turkey’s PM Erdogan: “Allah Demands Protests End Immediately”

Unbelievable story from over at Gateway Pundit. 

Make sure you are making regular visits over to the Gateway Pundit, folks.

Turkey’s PM Erdogan: “Allah Demands Protests End Immediately”


Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told supporters the protests against the government must end immediately.
NBC News reported, via Religion of Peace:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew back to a Turkey rocked by days of anti-government unrest on Friday and declared before a sea of flag-waving supporters at Istanbul airport: “These protests must end immediately.”

“No power but Allah can stop Turkey’s rise,” he told thousands who gathered in the early hours to greet him in the first pro-Erdogan rally since demonstrations began a week ago.

At Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the center of the protests and now occupied by thousands around the clock, some chanted “Tayyip resign” as they watched a broadcast of the address. In the capital, Ankara, the Kugulu Park echoed with anti-government slogans, while protesters danced or sang the national anthem.

Speaking from an open-top bus at the airport, his wife at his side, Erdogan acknowledged police might have used excessive force in crushing a small demonstration against a building project last Friday — the action that triggered nationwide protests against his 10-year rule.

“However, no one has the right to attack us through this. May Allah preserve our fraternity and unity. We will have nothing to do with fighting and vandalism. … The secret to our success is not tension and polarization,” Erdogan told the crowd.

Turkey Erupting 'Like a Volcano'

From The Clarion Project.

Turkey Erupting 'Like a Volcano'


I’ve referred to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan as the “king of the Islamists” because of his ability to swoon the West, make Israel bend and maintain popularity while implementing Sharia using the doctrine of“gradualism.” He now faces his biggest internal challenge as protests against him enter their fifth day in what one expert compares to the “eruption of a volcano.”

The unexpected spark was Erdogan’s plan to redevelop Gezi Park in Taksim Square. Reuters explains that Taksim honors the secular legacy of Ataturk, while the other squares in the capital reflect upon the days of the Ottoman Empire. When Erdogan planned to transform the park into an Ottoman-theme shopping center with a mosque, apartment complex and model of Ottoman-era barracks, it was seen by secularists as a washing away of Ataturk.

A recent poll found that 35% of Turks consume alcohol, an act that is forbidden in Islam. It did not flatly ask respondents whether they oppose the new restrictions, but 61% felt it was an intervention in personal lives. Interestingly, a 2009 poll that found high levels of hostility towards Christians, Jews and atheists also found that 54% of Turks don’t want “Sharia supporters” for neighbors.

The protest at Gezi Park began as a small sit-in at the park, with participants planting trees and reading books. It quickly grew as the demonstration took on broader meaning. Tens of thousands joined and protests spread to 67 of Turkey’s 81 provinces.

“We are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers,” chanted some protesters, referring to Ataturk.

The police’s reaction, by Erdogan’s own admission, was excessive. At least two have died, one at the hands of an unidentified gunman, perhaps a police officer. About 1,700 have been arrested and thousands more injured, including a young boy who lost an eye because of a plastic bullet. The Turkish opposition claimsthat detainees have been forced into signing testimonies and are being refused access to lawyers.

The protests are bound to get larger in the coming days as they garner international attention. One of the country’s four major unions, the 240,000-strong Public Workers Unions Confederation, is launching a two-day “warning”strike on Tuesday.

Erdogan reacted as Islamists usually do. He claimed that the protestors are extremists allied with terrorists and are part of a foreign conspiracy. He said, “The thing that is called social media is the biggest trouble for society now,” setting the stage for restrictions on the Internet.

Contrary to Erdogan’s insistence that the protesters are part of a fringe group,The Atlantic observes that “all of Turkey was represented: the young and the old, the secular and the religious, the soccer hooligans and the blind, anarchists, communists, nationalists, Kurds, gays, feminists and students.”

Erdogan’s Islamist agenda has become more aggressive as he’s tallied up political victories since coming to power in 2002.

Recently, the Turkish governmentsentenced writer Sevan Nisanyan to one year in prison for allegedly “denigrating the religious values.” This comes shortly after the conviction of pianist Faisal Say for his exercising of free speech. In July, the governmentsuggested limits on free speech for the sake of “public morality,” “public order” and to “prevent pro-war propaganda, discrimination and hate.”

Under Erdogan, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism has skyrocketed. The government is said to have bought 40% of the media and has more imprisoned journalists than any other country. It also has the highest rate of honor killings; 17,000 new mosques have been built. Erdogan has overseen the largest crackdown on the military in the country’s history, protecting himself from being the next example of a Turkish leader overthrown in a coup.

Turkey’s move into the Islamist camp does not only have strategic implications for the West. It has direct affects for America. The Turkish Fehtullah Gulen network is under FBI investigation. The Turkish government is building ties with Native American tribes. And, most recently, Erdogan spoke at an event celebrating his government’s construction of a $100 million Ottoman-themed mega-mosque in Maryland.

Yet, President Obama calls Erdogan a “friend.” If you go to the websites of the major Muslim-American organizations, not a word is said about Erdogan's crackdown on human rights; a sharp contrast to their rapid responses to the “offenses” of “Islamophobes” and Western governments, especially Israel.

Just as they were when Muslims challenged the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, these groups are absent. Turkish activists even had to fundraise online to take out a full-page advertisement for their cause in the New York Times. A group like the Council on American-Islamic Relations or the Islamic Society of North America could cut a check for it without skipping a breath.

Dr. Daniel Pipes reacted to the landslide victory of Erdogan’s Islamist party in 2011 with a dire warning: “Elections taking place today are likely to be the last fair and free ones in Turkey. With Turkey’s leading Islamist party controlling all three branches of the government and the military sidelined, little will stop it from changing the rules to keep power into the indefinite future.”

We shouldn’t be surprised when an Islamist acts like an Islamist.

Turkey: Massive Protests Against Erdogan's Islamism

For 90% of Americans, they have no clue what is going on in Turkey right now.  You, fortunately, are some of the 10% who are informed.

Make no mistake - this is the battle now in Turkey - the fight for whether or not Islamism or Secularism will rule this country once and for all.

The story comes from The Clarion Project.

Turkey: Massive Protests Against Erdogan's Islamism


Early Friday morning, a friend e-mailed me from Istanbul in despair. Police were firing tear gas through the streets, she said, shooting water cannons at peaceful protesters in the area of Taksim, men and women who opposed a government plan to raze a city park and build a shopping center in its place.

“Help us,” she urged. “He is killing us.”

What she hoped for, by contacting me, was media attention. Thanks to demands by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, local television had covered none of it, fearing, in part, Erdoğan’s tendency to imprison journalists who write or broadcast anything he doesn’t like.

Consequently, my friend feared, most Turkish citizens knew nothing of what was going on, either of the sit-in at Gezi Park or the violence that was now raging through the city. But if the world knew, she believed, international pressure would bring the gassing of civilians to an end.

I told her I would do what I could.

But to some extent, the world was already beginning to discover; for what Erdoğan could not stop – or hadn’t yet, in any case -- was social media and YouTube. There I found information spread across the Twitterverse (hashtag “occupygezi”), and images in locally-posted photographs and videos – horrifying images that showed hundreds of people fleeing from the attacks, chased by gas canisters and policemen up and down the popular Istiklal Caddesi in Taksim, the hottest part of town.

(One photo of a man shot in the face has circulated widely on Twitter. http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com ) More than 100 people were reported injured; and as the day wore on, at least two people were killed in the clashes with police.

Three days later, the world now knows. In the interim, at least four people have been reported dead and several hundred more injured. Four protesters in Istanbul alone have been blinded.

And still the clashes not only continue, but are growing, first across the vast expanse of Istanbul, and then extending to the country’s capital in Ankara and Izmir. Some call it the “turning point” for the administration of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Some say it will make no difference; his power has grown too strong. But has it?

For the duration of his10 years in office, Erdoğan has systematically sought to undermine much of the secularization of the country that has defined it since the founding of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. While vastly popular among the country’s more religious population, he is loathed by the so-called secular elite: the intellectuals and educated urbanites, largely, who call him a “sultan” and see him as a dictator-in-the-making.

And while they decry his authoritarianism, it is his campaign to Islamize the country they fear the most – or his efforts, as , Cem Uçan, a social media executive who has been active in the demonstrations, put it, to create “a religion-based, more and more conservative Turkey, who will play a leading role for other Muslim powers in the region.”

It is this, in fact, that has really set off the protests, which, while touched off by the threats to raze a city park, in fact are fueled by some of Erdoğan’s most recent efforts to impose his religious values on his people.

Just last week, for instance, his AKP government approved a bill prohibiting the sales of alcohol between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am -- a bill introduced under the guise of “health concerns,” but clearly aimed at the gradual complete ban of alcohol in Turkey.

And (until the Gezi Park protests began, at least), plans have been in the works for a “kiss-in” to protest the recent arrest of a couple cited for kissing in public, as if Istanbul had become Teheran.

Indeed, even the shopping mall is not purely about commerce and a burgeoning economy: the plans have included rebuilding a former Ottoman barracks, which would be restored into a shopping arcade. In classic Erdoğan style, this, too, is being represented as benign, however, evidencing a “respect for the history of Turkey”; that it also is about restoring elements of the Ottoman empire that modern Turkey was created to overcome is not something he is willing to admit to a public still largely devoted to the secular vision of its founder.

Yet clearly Erdoğan is working to outdo the father of the Turkish Republic, with hopes to build the largest mosque in the world, along, as Reuters has noted, with “a slew of multi-billion dollar projects which he sees as embodying Turkey's emergence as a major power. They include a shipping canal designed to rival Panama or Suez […] and a third Istanbul airport billed to be one of the world's biggest.”

But don’t be fooled by mere appearances. Hidden within each of these are the subtle efforts and underlying motives that drive Erdoğan’s entire rule: to make Turkey strong enough to be independent of Europe, and thereby free to Islamize without the fear of recrimination from necessary strategic and financial partners.

With much of this, in fact, he has already been successful, solidifying a strong economy even as Europe’s is collapsing, based on investments that, not coincidentally, have particularly affected the lifestyles of those in Eastern Turkey – those, that is, who conveniently are also among the most religiously conservative.

Simultaneously, he has, with political aplomb, also helped to weaken his secular opposition: he has effectively emasculated Turkey’s standing (secular) military, jailing top generals on trumped-up and paranoid false charges of planning to stage a coup; and his restructuring of the country’s Constitution has privileged him with powers unknown by previous Turkish Prime Ministers since the revolution took place 90 years ago.

Now, standing defiant against the protesters whom he has referred to in speeches as “terrorists” and “provocateurs,” and insisting, Nixon-like, that “I am not a dictator,” he has gone even further: in place of a shopping center in Gezi Park, he stated in an address to his people Sunday afternoon, he will place something there non-commercial, something he is certain all of his supporters will approve of: a giant mosque. And, said Erdoğan, "people who vote for us gave us the permission to build a mosque there. I will not ask other people's permission for that.”

Of course, given the media blackout he has imposed, he may not have to; in the Erdoğan State, increasingly it seems he simply does what he wants before anyone even knows he’s doing it. (As Uçan reports, during the heat of the uprisings and clashes over the past three days, not only were mainstream media kept silent – including CNN Turk, which reportedly broadcast a program about penguins while police chased men and women down the streets of the upscale district of Besiktas -- but mobile phone providers were also pressured to reduce service.)

Moreover, Erdoğan, who called Twitter a “menace, to society,” has come to rule over not only what the media doesn’t report, but what they do: while TV stations ignored the uprisings, Ucan points out, they did broadcast Erdoğan’s speech on Sunday, “so the public only knows his distorted version.” And this, he adds, “is another big problem in terms of freedom of speech, democracy and justice.”

It is also much of how Erdoğan has sealed his power over the years, manipulating the truth to his citizens, and relying on a religious base to protect and defend his agenda, while he increasingly cripples his opponents. Already, says Uçan – and inevitably – his supporters are coming to his defense, and they, too, appear to be becoming violent.

“The demonstrations have given me a little bit of hope ,” Uçan says, “but when I follow Erdoğan's comments and see the violence of the police in other cities I think things will get worse. His comments encourage some conservative radicals to hit the streets and participate in acts of violence with the police.”

Some images from Izmir, says Uçan, “show civilians with sticks united with police on a man hunt. And I think in the next steps, the clash with those people will be inevitable.”

Still, others I’ve spoken to are hopeful. There is a sense, at least in some quarters that the Gezi Park events, coupled with the potential economic damage from the alcohol ban, may indeed have helped bring the country to a breaking point. There is, after all, one thing the Turkish people worship far beyond their religion: freedom. And if the Turkish spring, as some are calling it, has really now begun, this can be the one place, the one time, that a secular democracy in the Middle East finally finds its summer.

Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan In Hot Water After Equating "Zionism" with Fascism As a Crime Against Humanity

Here's the deal.  When Israel tries to defend its people against the marauding forces of Islam then they are labeled as "Zionists" by tools of radical Islam like Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan - and finally, this Turkish leader is getting the negative attention by the world that he's deserved for over two years.

What Erdogan really means to say is that the only good Jew is a dead Jew.  That the only non-Zionist Israeli state is a destroyed Israeli state.

This guy's a scumbag...always has been, always will be.  He's no different than one of the mad Iranian mullahs except he wears a suit.

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan under fire for Zionism remarks


The comments, made at a United Nations conference on tolerance, were denounced as “dark and mendacious” by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and condemned the US and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who was present and heard them in simultaneous translation.

They also threatened to cause diplomatic embarrassment for the US secretary of state, John Kerry, as he arrived in the Turkish capital Ankara on Friday for talks on Syria.

“As is the case for Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it is inevitable that Islamophobia be considered a crime against humanity,” Mr Erdogan said in a speech to the fifth global forum of the Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna on Wednesday.

After the remark circulated widely on Israeli media, Mr Netanyahu issued an official response, calling it “a dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world”.

The Obama administration, which has sought to maintain close ties with Turkey, a NATO ally called Mr Erdogan’s comments “offensive and wrong”.

“We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times,” a spokesman for the National Security Council, Tommy Vietor, said.

Mr Ban, who was criticised by a Geneva-based website, UN Watch which proclaims itself as being "affiliated to the American-Jewish community", for initially staying silent about Mr Erdogan’s comments, said they breached the spirit of the Alliance of Civilisations, which was formed in 2005 to promote east-west understanding and combat extremism.

"The Secretary-General believes is it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership,” a statement from his office said.

Relations between Israel and Turkey — once close allies — have been in the doldrums since 2010, when nine Turkish activists were killed after Israeli commandoes stormed a flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip. Mr Netanyahu has resisted Turkish pressure to apologise and pay compensation for the incident. Ties between the two nations were recently said to be undergoing a quiet revival, amid reports that Israel had resumed selling armament equipment to Turkey.

Mr Erdogan, a former Islamist, has sharply criticised Israel in the past. In 2009 he stormed out of a debate with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, after telling him “you Israelis know how to kill”.

Insane Turkish Prime Minister Says That Israeli Stopping of Flotilla Ship Was "grounds for war"

Let's just put it out there...Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is probably clinically insane and what probably needs to happen with him is he needs his military to get their asses handed to them and then perhaps he'll shut his big trap.

The latest nonsense from this clown is that the Israeli action to stop a flotilla ship registered from Turkey according to Israel's LEGAL blockade of Gaza was actually grounds for war and Turkey would have been in the right attacking Israel if they hadn't been so patient.

Here's what he said, from the article at Breitbart:

State news agency Anatolia released late on Sunday what it said was an original Turkish-language transcript of an interview Erdogan gave to Al Jazeera television last week. It included elements not broadcast as well as original wording for sensitive comments that had been transmitted only in Arabic translation.

Among previously unpublished elements, Erdogan said Israel's raid in May 2010 on a Turkish ship headed for Gaza, in which nine Turks were killed, would have justified going to war.

"The attack that took place in international waters did not comply with any international law. In fact, it was grounds for war. However, befitting Turkey's greatness, we decided to act with patience," he said.

Let's get something straight here...Erdogan can't even keep the Kurdish PKK out of southern Turkey and stop them from killing the shit out of his people and soldiers but he wants to puff out his chest about taking on Israel. Well, Erdogan, you might just find the IDF and the IAF and the Israeli Navy a bit more to bargain with than a bunch of rag tag Kurdish partisans.

The fact of the matter is this - Erdogan is an islamic fundamentalist and sees himself as the next "Ayatollah" of Turkey - he models his dream of a government after Iran and in fact, this chump is boasting like this to see if he can't take some of the limelight away from Ahmadinejad and Iran. Turkey sees itself as making mistakes for chumming up to the West with NATO and EU ties and Erdogan is trying to become the new islamic tough guy on the block.

Turkish PM saw Gaza raid as "grounds for war"


State news agency Anatolia released late on Sunday what it said was an original Turkish-language transcript of an interview Erdogan gave to Al Jazeera television last week. It included elements not broadcast as well as original wording for sensitive comments that had been transmitted only in Arabic translation.

Among previously unpublished elements, Erdogan said Israel's raid in May 2010 on a Turkish ship headed for Gaza, in which nine Turks were killed, would have justified going to war.

"The attack that took place in international waters did not comply with any international law. In fact, it was grounds for war. However, befitting Turkey's greatness, we decided to act with patience," he said.

The transcript in Turkish from Anatolian, provided by Erdogan's office, also gave the following account of the prime minister's response to a question on what Turkey would do to ensure free passage for its ships in the Mediterranean.

"Right now, without a doubt, the primary duty of Turkish navy ships is to protect its own ships," Erdogan said.

"This is the first step. And we have humanitarian aid that we want to carry there. This humanitarian aid will not be attacked any more, as it was the case with Mavi Marmara."

Turkey downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and halted defense-related trade after the Jewish state confirmed last week that it would not apologize for the raid on the Mavi Marmara.

Turkey and Israel had tried to mend fences before the publication two weeks ago of a U.N. report that deemed the blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip a legal means to stem the flow of arms to Palestinians but also said Israel had used unreasonable force.

Israel has said it will maintain the blockade and that it wants to ease tensions with its former ally.

"We have no interest in deteriorating the relations with Turkey and we worry that this attitude will encourage the terror groups. Therefore we call on Prime Minister Erdogan to change course," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon told a counter-terrorism conference near Tel Aviv on Monday.

The prospect of a showdown at sea with Turkey, a NATO power and, like Israel, an ally of the United States, rattled Israelis already on edge over political upheaval in the Arab world and Iran's nuclear program. Washington has appealed for restraint.

Erdogan, seeking to expand Turkey's regional influence, will travel to Egypt on Monday at the start of a tour of three Arab countries. Israel's relations with Egypt have also nose-dived after a crowd attacked its Cairo embassy on Friday.

Letter From Turkish-American To Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan: The Ultimate Written Ass Ripping

Kudos to the author of this open letter written to Turkey's Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdoğan. This open letter is written by a Turkish-American academic and I'm not quite sure if I've ever seen a world leader dismantled more thoroughly by the written word.

The letter is posted here at The Investigative Project on Terrorism and I have excerpted it in its entirety below. You've heard of taking someone to the woodshed? Well, this guy takes Erdogan to the meat packing plant and the Turkish Prime Minister leaves in about 45 ready to eat packages.

An Open Letter to Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Congratulations, Mr. Prime Minister. You have accomplished in eight years what no other contemporary Turkish politician could achieve. You have successfully entered the final stages in your efforts to transform Atatürk's Turkey into an Arab-style Islamist dictatorship. Some people had warned the world 20 years ago about the likely Islamist outcome of the September 12, 1980 military coup—a momentous point in Turkey's history that "masterfully crushed" the Turkish left. They were right. You are here. Today.

How proud you must feel. After all your hard work, some of the Islamist Turks that you encouraged to sail to Gaza have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. You and your fellow Islamists have been celebrating this like nothing I can recall. You have immediately declared them as şehitler (shuheda, the martyrs). With this Arab-style "martyrdom" discourse, you have surely strengthened your image in the entire Arab world and among the Ahmadinejad followers in Iran. Not surprisingly, you have even managed to nourish most of your citizens' anti-Jewish and anti-American sentiments. Your fellow Turkish Islamists, the great majority of the Turkish liberals, and, unfortunately, the many manipulated but otherwise ordinary, beautiful, innocent Muslims joined you and your not-so-strategically-deep brothers.

Congratulations on your jihadist "victory" over the "evil" Israel and the West. By the way, Mr. Erdoğan, instead of sending others to a certain death, would you ever consider yourself becoming a martyr on Allah's path? I mean, the real thing—in the language you understand —al-jihad fi sebili'llah? Although it might be much more painful than preaching and practicing political Islam, would you ever consider it?

Your partner Bülent Yıldırım's Islamist ship embarked toward Gaza amidst the crowds shouting "Allahu Akbar!" "Remember the Battle of Khaybar, O Jews! The Army of Muhammad will return!" You know, Mr. Erdoğan, that the IHH (İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsanî Yardım Vakfı, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief) is not just a "humanitarian organization." Their Islamist vessel was not a pleasure cruise ship. Most of its passengers had a jihadist, political mission, and they have accomplished it.

Your Islamist government declared the 17-year old high school student Furkan Doğan as "martyr." He wrote the following in his diary on the Mavi Marmara before the confrontation with the IDF: "The last hours towards the 'sweet juice of martyrdom'… Is there anything more beautiful than this? If there is, it is for sure my mother… But I am not sure about that either… Comparing the two is very difficult for me…"

Mr. Prime Minister, thanks to solely the vision and project of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, despite you and the vicious ideology you have been practicing, the Republic of Turkey has world-class medical professionals to assist you in interpreting this Jihadist condition.

Now the world is hearing evidence that the IHH has connections to Hamas, Hezbollah, IBDA-C, and al-Qaida. I know you have recently declared that "Hamas is not a terrorist organization." Will you also join the millions of Islamists throughout the world and pronounce publically that "al-Qaida is not a terrorist organization"? About a year ago, your Islamist brother Bülent Yıldırım delivered a jihadist speech in Gaza to tens of thousands of Hamas supporters declaring Israel, the United States and England as "terrorist countries." Yıldırım addressed the Hamas supporters as "the children of paradise." He openly offered the entire population of Istanbul to come to Gaza to "dive into the path of the bombs." And he added: "What can my enemy do to me? I am carrying paradise in my heart. My being killed is nothing but martyrdom!"

Please Mr. Erdoğan, please do not listen to your Islamist brother's advice. Do not send the 13 million people of Istanbul to be "martyred" in Gaza for the love of Hamas.

After the flotilla incident, thousands of your citizens chanted anti-Jewish slogans and called for the Turkish army's deployment to Gaza. Mr. Erdoğan, I am sure it is a tough call for you. After all, you and your dark, mafia-like Islamist forces have already declared the Turkish army itself as "the enemy of Islam." Many honorable members of the Turkish Armed Forces have been rotting in Turkish jails thanks to your so-called "Ergenekon" trials. Through the Ergenekon pretext, you have managed to declare many high-ranking officers of your own army, hundreds of Kemalist journalists, university professors, rectors, and many other intellectuals as "terrorists."

If Hamas is not a terrorist organization, I've got another question for you, Mr. Erdoğan: What if some countries start deploying "humanitarian aid ships" to the PKK in Turkey tomorrow? What if they argue that the PKK is not a terrorist organization? Regardless of what your "strategically deep" Islamist brothers might advise you, let me tell you, Mr. Erdoğan, what I really think: Both Hamas and the PKK are blood-thirsty terrorist organizations that the civilized world must destroy, and any kind of "help" to those organizations should be considered a crime against humanity.

Mr. Erdoğan, do you even care about the ordinary, normal Muslims of your own country and of the world? If you do, then why have you successfully established such frightening friendships and contacts with some of the most dangerous and brutal dictators of the so-called Islamic world? I know your honor is very valuable to you and sensitive. How does your honor handle and justify extending official invitations to the cruel Islamist dictator Ahmadinejad to Turkey? As the Prime Minister of Turkey, what honor is there in fulfilling his holy request not to have to visit Atatürk's mausoleum in Ankara? What will you eventually do with the dictator's enriched uranium in Turkey? Will you join him by declaring "now Turkey needs nuclear energy, too"?

No, Mr. Erdoğan, neither Iran nor Turkey needs nuclear weapons developed under the guise of peaceful energy needs. Both of these countries need genuine democracies, freedoms, and liberation from Islamism. The world does not believe in such nuke-seeking Islamist lies. Even the Islamists themselves do not believe their own lies. It is a deception, and you know it very well. How does it feel, Mr. Erdoğan, when you give hugs and kisses to the terrorist Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya? How does your honor justify it? When was the last time, Mr. Erdoğan, that an honorable Turkish leader bowed in front of the appalling dictators of Saudi Arabia, the main source of Islamist terror throughout the world? How does your honor handle it? Last but not least, how do you sleep at night, Mr. Erdoğan, when you officially invite the genocidal maniac Omar al-Bashir to Turkey? He is responsible for butchering hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Did it ever occur to you to send some "humanitarian ships" to Sudan?

When it comes to demanding more freedom for Islamism, you talk big, Mr. Erdoğan, by defending and using democracy. In reality, you have a conveniently narrow understanding of the concept of democracy. During your long single-party dictatorship, your citizens cannot even talk on their phones freely: they fear they are being constantly monitored and recorded. Anyone who dares to criticize you and your radical views might find himself or herself in jail the following week. You have, Mr. Erdoğan, created an Arab-style regime of oppression. You have turned Atatürk's Turkey into a Republic of Fear.

Mr. Erdoğan, you and your partners in Islamism have been leading Atatürk's Republic of Turkey back into medieval darkness, and you have been doing this under the pretext of democracy and the so-called "alliance of civilizations." Iranian, Arab, Sudanese, and other Islamist dictators have no business referring to their shameful crimes against humanity as "civilization," and you should leave Turkey and Turkish Islam alone. You and your dangerous ambitions have no right to put Atatürk's Turkey into such a position.

Turkey is not and should not be the new Ottoman Empire of the region. Do not try to implement a radical Turkish foreign policy based heavily on the post 9/11 universal Islamism. Such grandiose idealism serves only to help Osama bin Laden's mission to destroy our world. Mr. Prime Minister, the Ottoman Empire is gone. If you have been dreaming that the Ottomans were all about your ideology's perception of "Islam," you are mistaken. You are a Prime Minister, I am a scholar. Mister Erdoğan, based on what you have been reading so far, you might think that I am some sort of "an enemy of Islam" (a dismissive response aimed at critics all over the "Muslim world" especially since 9/11). I am a proud Muslim, Mr. Erdoğan, and I refuse to let leaders like you hijack my religion for their deplorable political "gains."

The Palestinian, Hamas, Iranian, Hezbollah, and many other Islamist "causes" are not—and should never be—Turkish causes. There was a time, Mr. Erdoğan, you had proudly proclaimed: "Democracy is a streetcar. We will ride on it until we reach our destination, then get off!" Please tell the world, Mr. Erdoğan, if you have reached your final destination yet, so we can all get ready for where you may be headed next.