{"id":68573,"date":"2013-03-22T11:11:53","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T09:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=68573"},"modified":"2013-03-22T11:11:53","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T09:11:53","slug":"turkeys-erdogan-and-the-zenith-of-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2013\/03\/22\/turkeys-erdogan-and-the-zenith-of-hypocrisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey’s Erdo\u011fan and the Zenith of Hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/strong>\u00a0Steven Simpson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, is once again engaging in his favorite political pastime – Israel-bashing.<\/p>\n

Late\u00a0last month\u00a0at a U.N. convention held ironically to promote religious tolerance, Erdo\u011fan lambasted Israel by calling Zionism “a crime against humanity.” \u00a0Indeed, Erdo\u011fan even outdid the biggest anti-Israel institution in the world – the United Nations – which in 1975 passed its infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution.<\/p>\n

But Erdo\u011fan’s continuous contempt for Israel shows the arrogance and hypocrisy of Turkey. \u00a0For if there has ever been a country in the Middle East guilty of committing crimes against humanity, it is Turkey. \u00a0Indeed, next to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, 20th<\/sup>-century Turkey ranks right up there when it comes to massacres, rapes, expulsions, and rapine perpetrated against ethnic and religious minorities – namely Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds.<\/p>\n

Before documenting Turkey’s crimes against other people, it should first be noted that today’s Turkey has for all intents and purposes become an Islamic republic in everything but name only. \u00a0The so-called “Turkish-Israeli” alliance has been in tatters since Erdo\u011fan came to power in 2003. \u00a0Aside from veering Turkey on an Islamist course – and cause – the Turks (even with Obama’s “apology tour” that began in Turkey back in 2009) remain extremely\u00a0anti-American. \u00a0This writer back in 2010\u00a0documented\u00a0Erdo\u011fan’s democratic ascent to power, his ideology and goals, and what an Islamist Turkey means to America, Israel, and the West in general.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Regrettably, Israel allowed herself to once again be verbally slapped down by the vitriolic and sanctimonious Erdo\u011fan. \u00a0With Erdo\u011fan’s latest diatribe, all Israel could weakly say was “that it was a sinister and mendacious comment.”\u00a0 America, fearful of losing its only Muslim NATO “ally,” also was quite quiet when it came to Erdo\u011fan’s latest bombastic tirade.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ironically, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was on his way to Turkey to meet with officials when Erdo\u011fan had his latest verbal apoplectic attack against Israel.\u00a0 Though the mainstream media made it out that the U.S. was furious with Erdo\u011fan, Kerry simply called the comments “objectionable.”\u00a0 Indeed, Erdo\u011fan upbraided Kerry when Kerry had apologized for being late to a dinner with the Turkish prime \u00a0minister after holding talks with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. \u00a0Mr. Kerry had commented to the prime minister that he had held lengthy discussions with Mr. Davutoglu. \u00a0An irritated Erdo\u011fan then acerbically stated to Kerry that they “must have spoken about everything so there is nothing left for us to talk about.”\u00a0 Kerry meekly responded “that there’s a lot to talk about.” \u00a0However, it remains unknown what the two actually discussed, and if Kerry raised any objections to Erdo\u011fan’s statements on Israel, no one has yet reported on the event.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This now leaves us with Erdo\u011fan’s hypocrisy in lecturing Israel about supposed “war crimes” and leads us to\u00a0actual war crimes<\/em>\u00a0perpetrated by Turkey during the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century – crimes that still go on today against the Kurds. \u00a0It is a record that not only has caused oceans of blood to be spilled, but still has repercussions felt to this day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Probably the most well-known war crime that Turkey engaged in was the slaughter – if not\u00a0genocide\u00a0\u00a0– perpetrated against the Armenians in the first two decades of the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century. \u00a0In fact, the Turks were already slaughtering Armenians in the late 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century in what has come to be known as “the Hamidian massacres.”\u00a0 Estimates of the slaughter range from hundreds of thousands to\u00a0millions. \u00a0In any event, Turkey has consistently and constantly denied that such crimes against the Armenians took place. \u00a0Turkey is so sensitive to the charge of genocide that when the U.S. Congress in 2010 finally passed a resolution condemning this crime, Turkey threatened “serious consequences” to the “partnership” between America and Turkey. \u00a0Ironically, Barack Obama, who had the\u00a0audacity\u00a0to say back in 2007 that “nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people,” sought to stop the congressional resolution on the Armenian genocide.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continuing with Turkish war crimes, and the hypocrisy of the neo-Ottoman crypto-Sultan Erdo\u011fan, there were the massacres and expulsions of the Greeks from their ancestral homelands. \u00a0This is another Turkish crime against humanity that is little-known, and even less spoken or written about. \u00a0“The Pontian Genocide” took place between the years of 1916 and 1922. \u00a0Again, estimates vary in the casualty rate, but the slaughter could have been as close to 1,000,000 Greeks killed. \u00a0This doesn’t even take into account the surviving\u00a01.5 million<\/em>\u00a0Greeks who lived in Asia Minor (Anatolia) for millennia before being expelled by the Turks to European Greece during this era.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, there are the Kurds. \u00a0If there was ever an authentic Middle Eastern minority of Muslims that deserves a nation-state, it is the Kurds. \u00a0While Islamist governments in Iran and Turkey (as well as the Arab world) talk about “Islamic solidarity” when it comes to the so-called “Palestinians,” there is not even a syllable of talk regarding the plight of the Kurds. \u00a0The Kurds have been killed and suppressed by Arab, Persian, and Turk for centuries, all of whom see the legitimate aim of the Kurds to establish their own state as a threat to the\u00a0status quo\u00a0<\/em>of continuous Arab, Persian, and Turkish imperialism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While the Kurds are spread out over Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, it has been in the last country that the\u00a0Kurds\u00a0have basically been written out of history by the Turks.\u00a0 The Turkish quest to deny any semblance of a Kurdish existence has been so bizarre that Turkey even banned the Kurdish language during the years 1983-1999 and routinely referred to them as “mountain Turks.” \u00a0To this day, Turkey routinely crosses the Syrian and Iraqi borders to fight against “Kurdish terrorists.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This background on Turkish war crimes is just a brief sketch of the brutal actions that Turkey has committed over the decades (if not centuries).\u00a0 The next time the arrogant, bellicose, and venomous Erdo\u011fan along with his fellow Islamists lectures Israel about “crimes against humanity,” they should look in the mirror and admit to\u00a0true\u00a0<\/em>war crimes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Indeed, Israel – and America, for that matter – would do history a great justice if they reminded Turkey in the strongest language possible, of the Turks’ bloody crimes against their own minorities, instead of sitting back and allowing Turkey to pontificate about Israel’s nonexistent “crimes against humanity.” \u00a0Continued silence will only strengthen bullies and thugs like Erdo\u011fan, lend credence to his outlandish slander, and allow Turkey to continue to rewrite history in its own image.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Steven Simpson has a B.A. in\u00a0political science\u00a0with an emphasis on Middle Eastern studies, as well as a\u00a0Master’s Degree\u00a0in library science. \u00a0Aside from contributing to the\u00a0<\/em>American Thinker, he has contributed in the past to such publications as the\u00a0<\/em>Canada Free Press, P.J. Media,\u00a0<\/em>Front Page\u00a0Magazine, and the Gatestone Institute. \u00a0He can be reached at ssimusa@hotmail.com.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/www.americanthinker.com\/2013\/03\/turkeys_erdogan_and_the_zenith_of_hypocrisy.html#ixzz2OG3ldSHs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Steven Simpson Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, is once again engaging in his favorite political pastime – Israel-bashing. Late\u00a0last month\u00a0at a U.N. convention held ironically to promote religious tolerance, Erdo\u011fan lambasted Israel by calling Zionism “a crime against humanity.” \u00a0Indeed, Erdo\u011fan even outdid the biggest anti-Israel institution in the world – the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":32532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[498],"class_list":["post-68573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}