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Erdogan talks Hamas' language

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani |  Photo: EPA

While tourism and trade ties between Israel and Turkey remain fairly strong, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is drawing closer to Israel's bitterest enemies and employing the violent rhetoric of Hamas to evade legal problems at home.

Nadav Shragai

December 1997 was notable for the cooperation and strategic partnership between Israel and Turkey that was flourishing as it never had before. The two countries' armies conducted joint drills and maneuvers, and their respective air forces took part in some of them. Israel was selling military equipment and civilian technology to Turkey. The Turkish army was waging an uncompromising war against rising Islamization, and Turkey was turning toward the West. Israel was its gateway to the U.S.Since then, 20 years have passed and things are almost completely different, although hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists continue to visit Turkey, and bilateral trade stands at some $5 billion per year. This year, Menashe Carmon, chairman of the Israel-Turkey Business Council and Chamber of Commerce and Industry, even reported that Israeli exports to Turkey were up by 3% and imports from Turkey had risen by 10%. Israeli singers Dudu Tassa and Nasreen Qadri still perform together for crowds of Turkish fans, but December 2017 is still the polar opposite of December 1997. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey is distancing itself from the west and forming ties with Israel's most bitter enemies.

Erdogan does not hesitate to embarrass his partners in NATO. Turkey, which only two years ago still opposed Israel's delegation to NATO, is still a member, but is in the process of purchasing the S-400 anti-aircraft missile defense system from Russia, a move one senior Pentagon official described as "a bad idea." Erdogan also recently went head to head with the U.S. over the latter arming Kurdish forces in Syria, which Erdogan sees as a terrorist organization.

Now Turkey is building a military base in Qatar, a sponsor of global terrorism and open supporter of Hamas that is under a boycott by a bloc of Sunni Arab nations. The Turks have already deployed 3,000 soldiers there, and another 7,000 are due to arrive soon. The way Erdogan sees it, Qatar is an honorary member of the Muslim Brotherhood axis. Erdogan sees himself as leader of that axis. Not to mention Turkey's economic interests in Qatar, which is one of the biggest investors in Turkey.

As if all that wasn't enough, Israel's biggest concern is that Turkey continues to draw closer to Iran, which openly seeks to destroy Israel. Even though Erdogan still calls Syrian President Bashar Assad a terrorist, he is nevertheless pulling back his former support of the Syrian rebels. Erdogan understands that this is the price he must pay to partner with Russia and Iran, which are both establishing a presence in Syria.

Oil for gold

For several months, intelligence officials in Israel and the U.S. have been tracking the increasing closeness between Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with concern. The part of this burgeoning romance that is taking place in the open is the topic of a new research paper by researchers Sima Shine and Gallia Lindenstrauss of the Institute for National Security Studies.  They both see what is currently taking place between Turkey and Iran as a shift in gear. Shine and Lindenstrauss cite the historic visit to Turkey by the chief of staff of Iran's military, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, in August 2017, the first such visit since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the meetings between Erdogan and Rouhani this past September and October.

According to Shine and Lindenstrauss, when it comes to most of Israel's most pressing security issues – the future situation in Syria and in particular the Iranian presence there, Gulf countries' ties with Qatar, relations with Egypt (which is in the midst of an ongoing crisis), the rift with Turkey and the tension with Iran – Israel and Turkey are on different sides.

The INSS researchers also refer to the "unsolved issue" of Turkey helping Iran skirt the sanctions it was under because of its nuclear program, and the fact that U.S. federal prosecutors have announced that they intend to try former Turkish Economy Minister Mehmet Zafer Caglayan and have issued an arrest warrant against him for his role in helping Iran avoid the sanctions. The fascinating paper was written before Iran and Turkey, which both fear "the Kurdish Spring," announced that they planned to hold a joint military drill and before another dramatic development took place in the matter of the sanctions on Iran.

Huseyin Korkmaz, a former senior officer with the Istanbul police, testified in a New York federal court that Erdogan was the subject of the investigation into the "oil for gold" scheme, which was intended to work around U.S. sanctions on Iran through bribery and money laundering. Korkmaz said that the investigation started when Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab was arrested, but later expanded to include dozens of suspects, including Turkey's former economy minister, the director of Turkey's national bank, and Ergodan himself, who was known as "Target No. 1."

Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, who researches contemporary Turkey at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, returned from a visit to Turkey last weekend. Cohen Yanarocak believes that Erdogan's newly harsh tone and remarks against Israel that followed U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, has to do with the Zarrab trial underway in New York and the material that it is bringing to light.

"This time, Erdogan is lashing out against Israel to save himself," Cohen Yanarocak explains.

"Reza Zarrab was involved in the violation of international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. He was arrested along with Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the deputy director of [Turkey's national bank] Halkbank, who is also suspected of involvement in the same affair. Zarrab has already confessed to the charges against him, and he is cooperating with U.S. investigators and testifying against Atilla and other suspects."

Hamas-Turkey turns up the heat

Cohen Yanarocak reveals that Zarrab has already testified to bribing senior government ministers in Turkey, including the economy minister, the minister in charge of European Affairs, the interior minister, and the housing and construction minister. The bribes were intended to allow Turkey to make an end-run around the Iran sanctions and pay the Islamic Republic for a purchase of natural gas.

"Trump's announcement came at the right time for Erdogan. When Erdogan was standing on the same stage as representatives of Iran, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, calling Israel an occupying state and a terrorist state and even portraying it as a toxic weed that is spreading across Palestinian land, he creates a new discourse. He draws attention away from the [sanctions] issue that is causing him a lot of embarrassment," the researcher observes.

Cohen Yanarocak mentions another exposure that has caused Erdogan a massive headache: "Only recently, head of the Turkish opposition Kemal Kilicdaroglu revealed that Erdogan's associates and relatives transferred $15 million to the Isle of Man [a tax haven]. One of Erdogan's sons was involved. It's clear that it's very convenient for Erdogan to attack Trump and Israel and create incitement over Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa instead of addressing these accusations."

Erdogan denies the allegations and has even sued Kilicdaroglu for libel, accusing members of the opposition of trying to undermine his government. He even spoke with senior officials in Washington about Caglayan's trial and objected to the fact that the former minister was being tried in absentia. Caglayan stands accused of accepting €40 million ($48 million) in bribes from Zarrab.

Erdogan continues to spew the same venom he always has in the past. He condemns Israel from every possible platform. He has declared that he intends (although how is unclear) to establish a Turkish embassy in east Jerusalem, and is now calling Jerusalem "a line in the sand for Muslims."

The Turkish president leads the Justice and Development Party, which is a subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood, like Hamas. He claims that his roots go back to the sultans of the Ottoman empire, and talks about Jews "sullying" the Muslim character of Jerusalem. Erdogan was behind the discussion in the U.N. General Assembly that voted against Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and he is constantly involved in attempts to broker a reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

What's more: Erdogan continues to play host to Hamas, which oversees terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria, and Muslim Brotherhood leaders who fled Egypt and who incite against the government of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. They have even published a religious ruling calling for Sissi's assassination.

Last August, Israel Hayom reported an Israeli security assessment according to which dozens of Hamas members are active in Turkey, both under the auspices of what is known as the "civilian arm" and in terms of directing and attempting to operate terrorist cells in Judea and Samaria from abroad, mainly with help from Hamas in Gaza.

Last year alone, the Shin Bet security agency publicly exposed no fewer than three Hamas terrorist organization attempts launched from Turkey. Additional attempts that were thwarted and included in Shin Bet director Nadav Argaman's briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this week, also have ties to Hamas in Turkey. Israeli officials reiterate that as part of the Turkey-Israel reconciliation signed in the summer of 2016, the Turkish government cannot, or is not trying to, stop – and might even be choosing to ignore – Hamas activity within its borders.

The path to the Turkish money

In the past two weeks, Erdogan has slid into using real Hamas terminology. Article 7 of the Hamas charter of 1988, which calls for the destruction of Israel, quotes a hadith (an account of words or actions by the Prophet Muhammad) about the final war between Muslims and Jews, when the rocks and trees will supposedly say, "O Muslim. He who worships Allah. A Jew is hiding behind me. Come and kill him."

A few days ago, Erdogan chose to reference this same hadith, saying at a party conference: "Those who consider themselves the owners of Jerusalem [Jews] will not find a tree behind which to hide." At other conferences, Erdogan even screens films for his audiences that show IDF soldiers arresting rioters in Judea and Samaria, and he asks, "Aren't the soldiers terrorists?"

Statements from Hamas leaders whom Erdogan recently hosted in Istanbul were even more explicit, but the Turkish president and his people voiced no objection. At a conference devoted to the "pioneers of Jerusalem" that took place in Istanbul a few weeks ago, Maher Salah, one of the Hamas leaders abroad, referred directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu in these words: "Your country is destined to vanish from the world. Your kingdom is destined to disintegrate. I promise him [Netanyahu] that his state will not live to celebrate its 100th anniversary. … Some of the people here will be witness to the conquest of Jerusalem and the liberation of Al-Aqsa. We are the spearhead of the blessed jihad."

Similar remarks were heard at the People's Conference for Diaspora Palestinians held in Istanbul in February of this year. The main section of the summary was also worded in the spirit of the Hamas charter: "We commit before our people to make progress toward the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine, from the river [the Jordan River] to the sea."

Israeli journalist Yoni Ben Menachem reported that conference chairman Dr. Anis al-Qasem spoke harshly about the cancellation of the Palestinian charter, a document that is one of the pillars of the PLO and which calls to revoke the existence of the State of Israel.

Along with this radicalization, Turkey continues its Jerusalem activity. Last Friday, a protest inciting against Israel and the U.S. was held on the Temple Mount. The demonstration was led by activists identified with Turkey and Erdogan, who even waved his picture. A few Turkish worshippers were stopped at the gates to the compound because they were wearing shirts emblazoned with the Turkish flag. Some were arrested, and one was deported. Still none of this was enough to stop the events on the Mount. Maor Tzemach of Lach Yerushalayim proposed to Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely this week that Israel take steps against this Turkish activity just like Israel acts against groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

But the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in particular are still flush with Turkish money, which continues to flow into the city via Turkish nonprofits, some of which are connected to the Turkish government. As published in an Israel Hayom expose this summer, the money amounts to tens of millions of dollars.

Erdogan's lackeys in Jerusalem are former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Ekrima Sabri and Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and the man behind the blood libel "Al-Aqsa is in danger," which Erdogan also finds useful. Both Sabri and Salah are former members of the council of charity coalitions, headed by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who sent money on to Hamas.

A few months ago, Sabri published a religious ruling forbidding Arab schools in east Jerusalem from adopting the curriculum of Israel's Education Ministry, which is in increasing demand by east Jerusalem residents. Current mufti Muhammad Ahmad Hussein is following in his footsteps and has just published an almost identical ruling.

The pieces of the puzzle are coming together: Erdogan, who adjusts himself to the changing reality, is forming a new alliance with Russia and Iran and is trying to mediate between Hamas and the PA, but his sights are always set on Jerusalem, where he inspires Turkish nonprofit organizations to buy more and more influence.

http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/12/29/erdogan-talks-hamas-language/