Of course, Erdogan’s outbursts against Israel are nothing new. It’s been 14 years since he blasphemed in all the same kinds of arenas.
In 2009, he slammed President Shimon Peres, at the Davos meeting, “You know very well how to kill.” Three years later, after the naval commando raid on the supply ship “Blue Marmara” en route to Gaza, the Turkish president called Israel a “terrorist state”. In February 2013 he classified Zionism as one of the greatest crimes against humanity.
A difference between the previous times and between his speech on Saturday in Istanbul, at the large-scale petition rally in favor of Hamas, is of course on his way. Attacks on Israel have always benefited him politically. But this time the war in Gaza is from heaven for someone whom at least some Turks call with admiration “Abdai”, or “man”.
The transition is engraved on the calendar. Today, October 29, marks the centenary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. It was founded by a military man named Mustafa Kamal. Later, after forcing the Turks to adopt Western-style surnames, he will take the name “Atatürk”, “Father of the Turks”.
Challenge history
Atatürk’s republic was not just an act of ousting the last of the sultans of the Ottoman dynasty. She was first of all the friendly act of a nation, five years ago no one believed that she would come back and get back on her feet. A high-ranking American envoy then told Atatürk that his vision was hopeless, because Turkey was broken into pieces and would not be repaired again.
The short general, fond of the bitter drop, challenged the proper and predictable king of history. Before that, there was no such Turkish state. The Ottoman Empire did not consider itself Turkish. The very term “Turkish” was close to being a derogatory name in the court of the sultans for the peasants of Navarre in Anatolia. Anatolia will be divided between the winners of the World War and their partners: the British, the French, the Greeks, the Italians; Even the less fortunate Armenians, whom the empire had exterminated or expelled during the war, were about to receive a large state in eastern Anatolia.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk / Photo: Wikipedia
Atatürk’s war of independence put all the plans in God’s hands. We have almost five years to achieve international recognition of a Turkish state, more or less within the borders we know today. But Atatürk wants a new kind of country. He finished saying to change the essence. And he did sleep, for better or for worse.
For good, he rescued him from a heavy darkness of ignorance, of superstitions, of cultural isolation. He put an end to the political and military adventures that characterized the Ottoman state. “Peace at home and peace outside” was his motto; Not just a motto, but an action formula. He tried to cure Turkey of the imperial virus.
To make matters worse, he established a military dictatorship there, and thereby sowed the seeds of disaster for the political system. The generals later took on the task of overseeing his legacy, instigating military coups in its name, dwarfing the political parties and curtailing freedoms. They do so, among other things, to prevent the rise of religious and nationalist extremists.
Atatürk, who was rich in European political thought of the beginning of the 20th century, tried to establish a nation state. “It is a Turk who says ‘I am a Turk,'” he said. This was not just an expression of generosity towards non-Turks, but a move designed to limit the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Turkey, especially towards the Kurds (“Mountain Turks”, in the eyes of Atatürk and his immediate successors).
The road was a little too fast for him in the speed of secularization and its scope. The Turks were not ready to give up the religion of their fathers and mothers. 60 years after his death, and has remained in power ever since, that’s 21 years.
Months after abolishing the monarchy, in 1924, Atatürk also abolished the caliphate. The caliph, who was formerly also the sultan, served as the nominal leader of all Muslims in the world. The title was taken by the Ottomans through the sword, in the 16th century. The universal sense of loss of the cancellation was general, not only in Turkey. Muslims, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, did not forgive Atatürk for that sin.
The hidden Jews
In the narrative of the brothers, to whom Erdogan is attached in his navel and heart, the fall of the empire and the Lipats were the result of a plot by hidden Jews, descendants of Shabtai Zvi followers from the 17th century, who converted to Islam, but remained faithful to the religion of their ancestors.
The Ikhwan conspiracy theory attributes to them the removal of Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1908, he is the man who tried in vain to prevent the Zionists from entering the Land of Israel. The hidden, which the Turks call “Dunma”, were at the head of the regime that led the empire to the collapse of the First World War. Atatürk rose from the dials. On web sites affiliated with the brothers, Atatürk is decorated with a large Star of David.
Atatürk became the god of civil religion in Turkey. Laws swore to protect his good name. His portraits can even be found in the offices of zealous Muslims, who have learned to bite their lips. Erdogan himself is a lip biter.
But he emptied the Republic of Atatürk of most of its content. He pushed the secular Turks to the margins. Atatürk’s ambition to merge with the West he did his best to thwart, even as he pretended to aspire to join the European Union. Atatürk’s army is the mainstay of any political influence, especially since the failed coup against him in 2016.
“We’ll show up one night”
It is quite amazing that a blessed combination of roads, for him, qualified Gaza for Republic Day. Thanks to Gaza, he can move the focus of the Republic Day celebrations to a Palestinian flag rally in Istanbul, where he attacked the traitorous Jewish state, and asked them, the traitors, “where did you come from”; and announced to the cheering crowds, “We may appear one night,” on the battlefield, of course, to turn the wheel back, to 1908, if not lower than that. The crowd responded with “military intervention, military intervention”.
Out of his kindness he announced that the West was plotting to renew the war between the Crusaders and the Crescent Bearers. This is the strictly secular West, whose churches have been emptied.
Erdogan is a revolutionary. Like any revolutionary, he ended up saying to defeat the status quo. From time to time he pretends that he is ready to do business based on pure pragmatism. He did that to Europe, to America and to Israel, time after time. Now he returns to his desired slot: the war on Atatürk’s legacy. Let us fix our eyes on the calendar, and wait to see what he intends to do in March 2024, on the hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the caliphate.
Previous lists in the blog and in Yoav Karni. Tweets (in English) inTwitter.