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Saturday, 1 September 2007
Turkish Antisemitism and Jewish Dhimmitude
 On August 28, 2007, the same day that Abdullah Gul became Turkey's President -- replacing his secular predecessor, and further consolidating the ruling Islamic AK (Adalet ve Kalkınma) Party's (AKP) hold on power -- MEMRI published excerpts from a chilling interview given by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. The interview originally aired July 1, 2007, as part of Erbakan's campaign efforts in support of Islamic fundamentalist political causes before the general elections of July 22, 2007, and the AKP's resounding popular electoral victory over its closest "secularist" rival parties.
Erbakan, founder of the fundamentalist Islamic Milli Gorus (National Vision; originated 1969) movement, mentored current AKP leaders President Gul, and Prime Minister Erdogan, both of whom were previously active members of Erbakan's assorted fundamentalist political parties, serving in mayoral, ministerial, and parliamentary posts. During Erbakan's pre-election campaign stops before throngs of tens of thousands of supporters throughout Anatolia (including cities such as Trabzon, Elazig, and Konya), as well as cosmopolitan Ankara and Istanbul, he reiterated the same virulently Antisemitic statements captured in the July 1 interview, and other interviews. These interviews and more expansive speeches were rife with allusions to Zionists/Jews (deliberately conflated), as "bacteria," and "disease," conspiring to dominate the contemporary Islamic world ("from Morocco to Indonesia,"), as they had attempted unsuccessfully during the 11th and 12th centuries when Jews purportedly "organized" the Crusades, only to be stopped by the Turk's/Erbakan's Seljuk "forefathers." Ultimately, Erdogan claimed, modern Jews/Zionists wished to establish "a world order where money and manpower are dependent on [them]." For over thirty years, Necmettin Erbakan a former chairman of the fundamentalist National Salvation Party, and its numerous offshoots, have represented the most significant examples of Turkish Muslim political organizations exploiting systematized anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist bigotry. Erbakan's ascension to Deputy Prime Minister in January, 1974, was marked by Pan-Islamic overtures, along with increasingly strident verbal violence against Jews, Zionism, and the State of Israel emanating from the National Salvation Party's organs, especially its daily Milli Gazete (The National Newspaper), published in Istanbul since January 12, 1973...
Posted on 09/01/2007 6:39 AM by Andrew Bostom
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