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Turkey’s Erdogan Sends ‘Best Wishes’ to Iran After Israel Strike, Continues Fierce Criticism of Jewish State
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave his “best wishes” to Iran and accused Israel of trying to provoke a regional war in the Middle East in response to the Jewish state’s airstrikes against Iranian military targets over the weekend.
Erdogan’s comments continued his hostile posture toward Israel over the past year, during which Turkish-Israeli relations have nosedived amid Israel’s ongoing military operations against two Iran-backed Islamist terrorist groups: Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
On Saturday, over 100 Israeli aircraft targeted missile production sites and air defenses inside Iran, significantly crippling Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and production capacity. The sophisticated operation was in response to Iran firing more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel earlier in the month, as well as ongoing attacks from its terror proxies in the region, according to Israeli officials.
Responding to the strikes, Erdogan expressed solidarity with Iran and portrayed Israel as the aggressor.
“I extend my best wishes to our neighbor Iran and the Iranian government, which were the target of Israeli aggression last night,” Erdogan said at an event in the southern city of Hatay, according to Turkish media.
The Turkish president also claimed without evidence that Israel was seeking to set a “trap” to start a regional war.
“The Zionist Israeli government is attempting to ignite a regional conflict. It is crucial not to fall into the trap set by Israel and its supporters,” he said. “With this mindset, Israel will achieve nothing. We expect their wrath from Allah.”
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning Israel’s military strikes and similarly accusing the Jewish state of bringing the region toward a broader conflict. The ministry went on to falsely accuse Israel of “committing genocide in Gaza,” preparing to annex the West Bank, and attacking civilians in Lebanon.
“Ending the terrorism created by Israel in the region has become a historic duty in terms of establishing international security and peace,” the statement read, calling on the international community to take steps to avoid further escalation.
The ministry and Erdogan’s comments came two months after Turkey’s Ambassador to Iran Hicabi Kırlangıç lambasted Israel in an interview as “one of the most ruthless enemies” and condemned Western countries for supporting Jerusalem. He also said that Iran’s plan to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing over the summer of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran should be harsh enough to force the Jewish state to “fall to its knees.”
Haniyeh was killed in an explosion in Iran’s capital city on July 31. Iran, the chief international sponsor of Hamas, accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and vowed revenge. The Israeli government has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.
Iran, which initially launched an unprecedented direct attack against Israel in April, also said it would retaliate following Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks that killed the top leaders of its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, including longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
On Oct. 1, Iran acted on its threats, firing nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. The only fatality from the barrage was Sameh Asli, 37, a Palestinian from Jabalia in Gaza. He was killed by missile shrapnel in the West Bank village of Nu’eima, near Jericho, during the attack.
Following Israel’s retaliatory strikes this past weekend, Iranian officials attempted to downplay the severity of the strikes. However, an Israeli weapons systems and intelligence expert told The Algemeiner on Sunday that the Islamist regime’s ballistic missile program will need at least a year to recover from the strikes.
Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran and its proxies, Turkey has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel — and defenders of Hamas — since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October.
Last month Erdogan said that the United Nations General Assembly should recommend the use of force, in line with a resolution it passed in 1950, if the UN Security Council fails to stop Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
In August, Erdogan declared Aug. 2 a day of national mourning over the killing of Haniyeh.
The announcement came days after Erdogan made an explicit threat to invade Israel, leading Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to call on NATO to expel Turkey, which has the alliance’s second largest military.
Turkey has reportedly blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since last October because of the war in Hamas-ruled Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until the conflict ends.
Erdogan’s comments were the latest in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting the Jewish state.
Earlier this year, for example, Turkey’s foreign ministry compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In May, the Turkish trade ministry said it had ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel. The announcement came after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across the southern region of the Jewish state.
That followed Erdogan in March threatening to “send Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Hitler.
Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”
Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terrorist group’s budget.
Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.
However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 250 hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.
The post Turkey’s Erdogan Sends ‘Best Wishes’ to Iran After Israel Strike, Continues Fierce Criticism of Jewish State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Lawmakers Defend Conservative Pundit After He Makes ‘Pager’ Jab at Anti-Israel Commentator Mehdi Hasan
Mehdi Hasan. Photo: Screenshot
Some US lawmakers are rallying around conservative commentator Ryan Girdusky after CNN banned him from the network for taking a jab at anti-Israel journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday.
Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) both took to X/Twitter to defend Girdusky, praising his performance and arguing that CNN should have never platformed Hasan in the first place.
“[Hasan] spews antisemitism every day and calls Trump supporters Nazis, but God forbid anyone make a joke in his presence. He and CNN got triggered worse by a beeper than all of Hezbollah,” Mast posted. “CNN should issue an apology for rotting its viewers’ brains by having antisemitic morons like [ Hasan] on the air.”
Issa also weighed in, praising Girdusky and claiming that his presence made the program worth watching.
“It wasn’t easy, but I watched some CNN tonight. Thought [Girdusky] brought a lot to the program,” Issa wrote.
Monday, during an episode of “CNN NewsNight,” Hasan and Girdusky got into a contentious debate regarding Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. While condemning the rhetoric shared by the speakers of the rally, Hasan compared supporters of Trump to “Nazis.”
Girdusky cautioned Hasan to tone down his rhetoric toward Trump supporters, noting that the pundit has been labeled an “antisemite” by many of his critics. Hasan responded that he’s “a supporter of the Palestinians, so [he’s] used to it.” Girdusky retorted that he hopes Hasan’s “beeper doesn’t go off,” a reference to the thousands of pagers and other communications devices used by members of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah that exploded across Lebanon last month.
The panel discussion immediately deteriorated into chaos, and Girdusky was asked to leave the show by moderator Abby Phillips. CNN subsequently issued a statement condemning Girdusky for “racism” and vowing never to allow him on the network in the future.
Some commentators took to social media to question why CNN condemned Girdusky for making a joke about Hezbollah but not Hasan for insinuating that Trump supporters are Nazis.
Hasan, a prominent anti-Israel critic, has come under fire for having alleged ties to Qatar. Zeteo, Hasan’s new media startup, has produced an unremitting barrage of anti-Israel content, accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians.
The post US Lawmakers Defend Conservative Pundit After He Makes ‘Pager’ Jab at Anti-Israel Commentator Mehdi Hasan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Man Severely Wounded in Crown Heights Stabbing Attack as Perpetrator Remains at Large
An ambulance used by Hatzalah in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
A visibly Jewish man was slashed in the face as he was walking through the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City on Tuesday morning.
The victim, a resident of Crown Heights in his late 20s, was approached by a black male in a ski mask who stabbed him without any provocation, according to a report from COLlive.com, an Orthodox Jewish news outlet. The victim survived and was taken to a local hospital in serious but stable condition.
“This is a very serious incident, and the Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned about it,” said Yaacov Berman, a liaison for Chabad Headquarters, on X/Twitter. “Witnesses at the scene testified that it was unprovoked. I just spoke to the family; he is hospitalized and requires surgery. The attacker allegedly yelled hateful rhetoric.”
Crown Heights Shmira, a public safety organization, is assisting the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in making sure the perpetrator is apprehended, according to COLlive.
Tuesday’s attack came two months after New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an analysis showing that antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crime incidents in New York City last year. Across the entire state, meanwhile, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
The surge in antisemitism in New York was also seen nationwide. Anti-Jewish hate crimes in the US spiked to a record high last year, and American Jews were the most targeted of any religious group in the country, according to a report published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last month.
Other reports have shown most of the antisemitic outrages occurred after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
The post Jewish Man Severely Wounded in Crown Heights Stabbing Attack as Perpetrator Remains at Large first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sanders Urges Progressives to Vote for Harris, Suggests She Can Be Pressured to ‘Change US Policy’ Against Israel
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Monday encouraged progressives to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, arguing that the current vice president could be pressured into changing her position on the Israel-Hamas war if she wins next week’s US presidential election.
“I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them,” Sanders said in a newly released video shared on his social media channels. “Israel had a right to defend itself against a horrific Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7.”
Sanders, one of the most prominent anti-Israel critics in Congress, has vehemently condemned the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Hamas-ruled Gaza, from which the Palestinian terrorist group launched its brutal massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. The Vermont independent was among the first US lawmakers to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and has also introduced a measure to block offensive arms transfers to Israel, accusing the Jewish state of waging “war against the Palestinian people.”
“Some of you are saying, ‘How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?’ And that is a very fair question,” Sanders said in his video.
Since officially replacing US President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket in July, Harris has faced a high-pressure campaign from progressive activists, urging her to adopt a more adversarial posture against Israel. Thus far, Harris has continued to voice nominal support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Democratic nominee has also refused activist demands to endorse the implementation of an arms embargo against Israel.
However, Harris, whose record has raised concerns among allies of Israel, has also attempted to court votes from disillusioned Arab American voters across the United States. The Democratic nominee has made a point of expressing sympathy with civilians in Gaza during many of her speeches. The vice president reportedly held a secret meeting with Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud in an attempt to repair relations with Michigan’s Arab American voting bloc.
Sanders argued that political progressives could successfully shift Harris’s position on Israel if the vice president wins the White House next week.
“I promise you, after Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change US policy toward [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Sanders said. “An immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.”
The progressive lawmaker cautioned his supporters that Republican nominee Donald Trump will be a more strident ally of Israel if he were to win the election.
“Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse,” Sanders said. “Trump has said Netanyahu is doing a good job and has said Biden is ‘holding him back.’ He has suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. And it is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.”
In addition, Sanders warned that a Trump victory could result in an erosion of progress in a litany of progressive priorities, including climate change and abortion rights.
“If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against climate change is over,” Sanders said. “While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that climate change is real and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a hoax.”
The post Sanders Urges Progressives to Vote for Harris, Suggests She Can Be Pressured to ‘Change US Policy’ Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.