Under much pressure, Erdoğan attempts to make nice with Israel

JNS: With Arab countries now making financial and other agreements with Israel, Turkey finds itself isolated in the region and losing export markets.

In a virtual discussion held by the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), Turkish scholar and former politician Aykan Erdemir said Jews should be wary of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s outreach efforts towards Jews and Israel.

After nearly two decades of increasingly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric, Erdoğan has begun making conciliatory gestures towards Jews and Israel, surprising many in the West.

In her introduction to the Jan. 5 webcast, Sarah Stern—the founder and president of EMET—spoke about Erdogan’s Dec. 22 meeting with Turkey’s Jewish leaders, members of the Alliance of Rabbis of Islamic State and the chief rabbi of Russia at his palace in Ankara. During the meeting, Erdoğan made conciliatory statements about Israel and spoke against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

“Turkey’s relationship with Israel is vital towards the stability of our region,” Stern quoted Erdoğan, and “we must all work together to strengthen peace and stability in the Middle East. We are ready to improve our cooperation and make better use of our potential.” Read More …

Opinion: Kinda warms your heart, doesn’t it? To think that an anti-Semite who said this one year ago about Jews…

“they’re murderers, to the point that they kill children who are 5 or 6 years old. They are only satisfied by sucking their blood. It is in their nature.” 

… is now being nice.

Mavi Marmara Incident May 31, 2010:

Recep Erdogan’s outright hatred of Israel showed itself to the world in 2010 when Turkey sent the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in a flotilla of vessels to break the Israeli Gaza blockade that prevented weapons from the hands of Hamas.

Here are four commentaries in the aftermath of Mavi Marmara:

Arab website Al Jazeera: “the lead ship in a flotilla of vessels carrying humanitarian aid to the illegally (according to international law) besieged Gaza Strip. It was a big story, more than 600 humanitarian activists, politicians, and doctors from 40 different nations had put together this fleet to deliver things like baby incubators and medicine to the people of Gaza.”

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Mavi Marmara was a passenger ship and did not carry any humanitarian aid, though other ships (four of the six in the convoy) did carry aid supplies. Israel said that they found knives, metal and wood sticks in the ship. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed that the humanitarian aid found was scattered and thrown onto piles and not packed properly for transport, i.e. on wooden bases, and some of the equipment was crushed by the weight in transit. Medicines had already expired, or expired soon after the unloading, and a large part of the equipment (shoes, clothing) was worn and second hand, sterile equipment was carelessly wrapped.

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