Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/world/middleeast/netanyahu-charlie-hebdo-rally-appearance-prompts-turkey-dispute.html?_r=0
Key Points:
The latest exchange came on Thursday when Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey said both the Paris gunmen who attacked a French newspaper and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, were guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had already criticized Mr. Netanyahu for participating in the march of solidarity with other world leaders in Paris on Sunday, saying that Israel had been “waging state terror” in Gaza. A top Israeli official fired back, calling Mr. Erdogan an “anti-Semitic bully.”
As Mr. Erdogan’s power has grown, he has further distanced himself from Turkey’s secular past, seeking to burnish his Islamist credentials and put Turkey forward as an exemplar for the Muslim world. He has increasingly cast Turkey as a defender of the Palestinians and a supporter of Hamas, the militant Islamist group in the Gaza Strip that fought a 50-day war with Israel last year.
“What do you think of Netanyahu, who has been waging state terror by massacring 2,500 people in Gaza, waving hands?” Mr. Erdogan said, referring to the Israeli prime minister waving at the rally.
“He waves as if people in a grandstand have been waiting to accept him in excitement. I, of course, find it hard to understand how he dared to go there. First, give an account of the children, the women that you have massacred.”
Turkish leaders across the board have condemned the violence, but in many cases they have couched their criticism with defenses of Islam and have not rallied to the cause of freedom of expression in the same way that Western leaders have.
Key Points:
The latest exchange came on Thursday when Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey said both the Paris gunmen who attacked a French newspaper and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, were guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had already criticized Mr. Netanyahu for participating in the march of solidarity with other world leaders in Paris on Sunday, saying that Israel had been “waging state terror” in Gaza. A top Israeli official fired back, calling Mr. Erdogan an “anti-Semitic bully.”
As Mr. Erdogan’s power has grown, he has further distanced himself from Turkey’s secular past, seeking to burnish his Islamist credentials and put Turkey forward as an exemplar for the Muslim world. He has increasingly cast Turkey as a defender of the Palestinians and a supporter of Hamas, the militant Islamist group in the Gaza Strip that fought a 50-day war with Israel last year.
“What do you think of Netanyahu, who has been waging state terror by massacring 2,500 people in Gaza, waving hands?” Mr. Erdogan said, referring to the Israeli prime minister waving at the rally.
“He waves as if people in a grandstand have been waiting to accept him in excitement. I, of course, find it hard to understand how he dared to go there. First, give an account of the children, the women that you have massacred.”
Turkish leaders across the board have condemned the violence, but in many cases they have couched their criticism with defenses of Islam and have not rallied to the cause of freedom of expression in the same way that Western leaders have.
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