Turkey is far worse than Israel

Under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it has become an authoritarian, Islamist, neo-colonial, war criminal regime. Israel, however, is a democracy

A crowd of Erdoğan supporters in Istanbul (picture: Mstyslav Chernov)

“Israel is greater than Israel itself. As a nation, we cannot limit our vision to 782,000 square kilometres. Those who ask, ‘what is Israel doing in Libya, Syria or Somalia’, may fail to comprehend this vision and mission.”

Disturbing statement, right? Especially when you consider that they were spoken yesterday by a world leader whose troops have occupied 5,500 miles of somebody else’s land for years, meting out appalling war crimes on its inhabitants.

Only that leader was not Benjamin Netanyahu. It was the Islamist dictator wannabe Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the occupied land is northwestern Syria. I exchanged the word “Turkey” for “Israel” to draw your attention to the appalling double standards to which Israel – by far the most moral and liberal country in the region – is subjected.

In my book, Israelophobia, I offer a tripartite definition of this very modern bigotry, the newest form of the oldest hatred. First there’s “Demonisation”, which I define as smearing Israel as evil and a threat to the world. Then there’s “Weaponisation”, or using the social justice movement as a Trojan horse for hatred of Jews and their national home. Finally, there’s “Falsification”, or parroting the lies of Nazi or Soviet propaganda.

All three are clearly present when you weigh Western passions towards the brute adventurism of Turkey – if in fact there are any passions at all – against those that burst to the surface at the merest echo of the name of the Jewish state.