Republish Reprint
Jonathan Kay | August 6, 2014 7:36 AM ET

In a region in chaos, this man is the closest thing Islamism has to a quasi-respectable elder statesman. If even he can’t talk about Israel without resorting to raving hysteria and Nazi comparisons, what hope is there for dialogue?

In a region in chaos, this man is the closest thing Islamism has to a quasi-respectable elder statesman. If even he can’t talk about Israel without resorting to raving hysteria and Nazi comparisons, what hope is there for dialogue?

“Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies,” as it is widely known on the Internet, states that as any online comment thread grows longer, “the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 100%.” With all due respect to American internet-law pioneer and free-speech advocate Mike Godwin, perhaps the law ought to be renamed after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who might just be the world’s most verbally promiscuous trivializer of the Nazi legacy.

“Just like Hitler, who sought to establish a race free of all faults, Israel is chasing after the same target,” Mr. Erdogan recently told supporters at a campaign event. “They kill women so that they will not give birth to Palestinians; they kill babies so that they won’t grow up; they kill men so they can’t defend their country … They will drown in the blood they shed.” On a separate occasion, Mr. Erdogan argued that Israel has been engaged in a Nazi-like campaign of “systematic genocide every day and every month” since its creation in 1948. Indeed, Mr. Erdogan apparently believes that the Israelis are worse than Hitler: Last month, he declared: “They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.”

Press accounts suggest that Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist supporters cheer heartily when he makes these lunatic comparisons at public events. Apparently, it doesn’t register on them that the total casualties inflicted by Israel during its recent campaign to suppress Hamas rocket fire and tunnel infiltration barely amount to a rounding error compared to the untold thousands of innocent civilians who have lost their lives during Turkey’s own campaign against PKK terrorists.

Turkish women post smiling selfies after deputy PM Bulent Arinc says they should ‘not laugh in public’
Rabbi Abraham Cooper: When will Europe stand up for the Jews?

Whether Mr. Erdogan’s despicable language about Israel is motivated by anti-Semitism is hard to say. The most generous interpretation is that he is simply a cynical political bottom feeder looking to shore up his support among voters in advance of Turkey’s August 10 presidential election.

As in most Muslim nations, blaming the world’s problems on the Jewish state is a tried and true strategy. And Mr. Erdogan himself has had plenty of reasons for wanting to distract the electorate: Earlier this year, he threatened to shoot the messenger by banning social media outlets that were reporting on a festering corruption scandal. He also has blamed many of his problems on what he claims is a massive conspiracy organized by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who apparently is almost as evil as those Nazi-like Israelis.

The world is full of Godwin’s-Rule hysterics, of course. Just this week, for instance, well-known anti-Zionist fanatic Chris Hedges casually lumped Israel in with “tyrants from Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin to Saddam Hussein” in their use of what Mr. Hedges calls “the Big Lie.” But Mr. Erdogan — the Prime Minister of a large nation lying at the hinge point between Europe and Asia — is in a different category. Turkey is a member of NATO, and fashions itself a major player in the region’s various conflicts. Its logistics network nourishes jihadis in Syria and encourages rogue “humanitarian” missions to Hamas. And so Mr. Erdogan’s bigoted lies about Israel comprise more than just overheated nonsense: In a region in chaos, he is the closest thing Islamism has to a quasi-respectable elder statesman. If even he can’t talk about Israel without resorting to raving hysteria and Nazi comparisons, what hope is there for dialogue?

Even many Muslim nations in the region effectively have taken sides with Israel in its battle with Hamas. To Turkey’s disgrace, Mr. Erdogan is a notable outlier.

As Jonathan Schazner writes in Foreign Policy magazine, Turkey (along with Qatar) is now essentially a full political partner of Hamas. “Turkey is the home [to] Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri, founder of the West Bank branch of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing,” he writes. “Arouri has become an increasingly important figure for the group in recent years. One Israeli security official recently went so far as to say that ‘al-Arouri was connected to the act’ of kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teens in the West Bank in June. Meanwhile, [Mr.] Erdogan’s AKP government has reportedly agreed to donate significantly to Hamas, mostly through public works projects like mosques, schools, and hospitals, but also through direct financial support, according to some reports.”

One can therefore understand why Israel was irked when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly took seriously a Turkish-Qatari ceasefire plan. Not surprisingly, Mr. Schanzer notes, Qatar and Turkey “have been angling for a one-sided deal that would ignore Israel’s security concerns, ease Israel’s blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and help connect the Palestinian terror group-cum-government to the global economy.”

Hamas is a terrorist group that has taken Gaza hostage, siphoning off humanitarian aid for missiles and tunnels. As a result, even many Muslim nations in the region effectively have taken sides with Israel in its battle with Hamas. To Turkey’s disgrace, Mr. Erdogan is a notable outlier. The fact that he has taken to uttering blood libels in support of Hamas’ campaign against Israel tells us much about his hateful ideology.

From the National Post
[email protected]