The outspoken Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has silenced his critics who said that he has not shown enough support towards Palestine since the Israeli-led genocide began in Gaza nearly a year ago. As he stood in the chamber of the UN General Assembly and addressed a global audience, Erdogan drew parallels between the actions of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, and the Nazi Third Reich.
“Just as Hitler was stopped by an alliance of humanity 70 years ago, Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped by an alliance of humanity,” said the Turkish president. “The UN General Assembly’s authority to recommend the use of force should be considered.”
If ever the world needed a leader to stand up and call out Israel’s brutal, genocidal behavior this was the moment. My only regret is that Erdogan did not step up to the plate earlier, but there’s enough evidence available now for all reasonable people to accept the shocking truth of his words.
It seems almost unbelievable that while Israel has bribed, bullied and effectively silenced politicians around the world, someone of Erdogan’s stature could stand up in the UN and call for a global coalition of military might to come together and stop “mad dog” Israel — as Moshe Dayan put it — and its armed forces in their genocidal tracks.
His call came as the world has been exposed to the mounting examples of wanton slaughter and torture, cruelty and wickedness on an industrial scale. The torrent of lies and misinformation used to justify bombing defenseless refugees sheltering in flimsy tents, schools, hospitals and homes have been laid bare. Nevertheless, even now a few unconvincing voices from Tel Aviv, Washington, London and elsewhere test our incredulity as they claim that all of this is acceptable because the occupation state is acting in “self-defense”. It’s an illegitimate argument and totally immoral.
Netanyahu cares not one jot for the lives of the hostages
There is already a growing belief in Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cares not one jot for the lives of the hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October, and he is equally unmoved by the carnage wreaked by Western-supplied bombs dropped on defenseless civilians. He cares only for himself and his political career.
Israeli journalist and Haaretz commentator Gideon Levy admitted in a bleak opinion piece recently that Israel is a country that “lives on blood”. He noted that: “The daily crimes of the occupation are already less relevant. Over the past year, a new reality of mass killing and crimes of an entirely different scale has emerged. We are in a genocidal reality; the blood of tens of thousands of people has flowed.”
An equally hard-hitting article in The Atlantic by staff writer and author Franklin Foer revealed some astonishing insight behind the scenes of the hostage negotiations that have taken place. In his well-researched article, for which he enjoyed unique access to top US, Saudi and Qatari officials, he said that while the US pushed hard to secure a hostage deal, the Israelis simply weren’t interested.
Foer pointed out that on 21 August, when US President Joe Biden presented Israel with plans for a ceasefire, Netanyahu’s advisers said that he would endorse it. But by late July, Tel Aviv began to distance itself from the deal, adding it wanted to include five amendments. “The [Biden] administration felt as if Netanyahu was scuppering a deal just as one seemed plausible. It leaked the Israeli letter to the New York Times in frustration, as evidence of the prime minister’s bad faith,” added Foer.
Israel is out of control
It seems that the truth of the matter is that Israel is out of control, and while ordinary citizens of the world with unfettered access to social media — especially the youth of Generation Z — recognise this obvious fact, too many world leaders are deliberately adopting the ostrich position while giving unconditional support to the rogue state.
While the majority of Western governments continue to remain in denial, Erdogan’s damning UN address was a reverse of the popular children’s tale about a young boy in Holland who discovered a tiny leak in a dyke. Knowing that his town would be flooded if the wall broke, the boy stuck his finger in the hole, holding back the sea until help arrived the next day. The town was spared, and the boy was hailed as a hero.
Today, metaphorically-speaking, Erdogan has pulled his finger from the hole and now the trickle of water has turned into a flood and the dyke has well and truly burst. Genuine friends of Israel should see the Turkish leader’s call for a military coalition as the only option left to stop the 21st century Hitlerite state from destroying what’s left of humanity.
-British journalist and author Yvonne Ridley provides political analysis on affairs related to the Middle East, Asia and the Global War on Terror. Her work has appeared in numerous publications around the world from East to West from titles as diverse as The Washington Post to the Tehran Times and the Tripoli Post earning recognition and awards in the USA and UK. Ten years working for major titles on Fleet Street she expanded her brief into the electronic and broadcast media producing a number of documentary films on Palestinian and other international issues from Guantanamo to Libya and the Arab Spring. Her article appeared in MEMO.
