RSS
Turkey Will Stay Anti-Israel and Anti-US — Unless It’s Forced to Pay for Its Actions
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C) alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, July 26, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Palestinian Presidents’ Office
In the first days of the war that broke out following the October 7 massacre conducted by Hamas, Turkey employed a relatively balanced discourse about it. But after the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on October 17, Ankara hardened its stance and bluntly condemned Israel. This change in Erdoğan’s rhetoric reflects a long pattern of anti-Israel sentiment. Erdogan’s support for Hamas in the wake of the massacre pulls Turkey, a NATO member, further away from the West. As long as Turkey pays no price for its anti-Israeli rhetoric, it will continue, and the resulting distance between Turkey and the West could have serious consequences.
After the events of October 7, Turkey remained silent. It issued no condemnation of Hamas for the massacre and did not express any sympathy for Israel’s grief and shock. Following the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on October 17, Turkey finally spoke out on the war by issuing a condemnation of the State of Israel.
Turkey’s support for Hamas is not new. The connection between Turkey and Hamas has long been a stumbling block on the path to normalization with Israel, and it became highly visible with the Mavi Marmara flotilla clash in 2010.
In 2011, Ankara issued a direct invitation to Hamas to establish a presence in Turkey, which it immediately did. Ever since, Turkey has served as a safe haven for Hamas senior leadership. Experts label Turkey the second-largest Hamas center after Gaza — a striking fact, as Turkey is a member of NATO.
Turkey is the only NATO country to maintain such close ties to a terrorist organization. The Hamas office in Turkey is well-armed, able to launder money through Turkish financial institutions, and equipped to facilitate the entrance of terrorists into Israeli territory.
In 2015, Cihat Yağmur, a Hamas operative involved in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman, became the Hamas representative in Turkey. Among other responsibilities, Yağmur oversees terror units in Judea and Samaria and maintains connections with the Turkish government and its intelligence services.
In an interview with the Islamist newspaper Yakit in 2018, Yağmur said that unlike other Muslim leaders and most Muslim-majority countries, Erdogan genuinely loves Jerusalem, as is evident in Turkey’s substantial investments in charities and material and moral support for Jerusalem. According to Yağmur, Erdogan is the only leader who truly cares about the Al-Aqsa Mosque and understands what needs to be done.
Erdogan does not attempt to conceal his support of Hamas ,and holds public meetings with senior Hamas leaders. In July 2023, he hosted the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. In 2020, Ankara granted Turkish citizenship to Haniyeh and 12 other Hamas activists. Haniyeh’s deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, who is referred to as the commander of Hamas West Bank, is a US-designated terrorist with a bounty of $5 million on his head. Al-Arouri celebrated the massacre on October 7 on social media and is believed to be one of the chief planners of the attacks. He holds a Turkish passport, which grants him freedom of movement worldwide.
In 2012, Zahir Jabarin, Hamas’ financial chief, reported that more than 1,000 Palestinian terrorists who were released as part of the Gilad Shalit deal with Israel in 2011 were managed and funded for terrorist activities in Israel from his office in Istanbul. Jabarin serves the Hamas network by establishing businesses, obtaining permits, and acquiring commercial real estate in Turkey.
The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a Turkish non-governmental organization with close ties to the Turkish government, has been transferring cash payments to its Gaza branch since 2010. Hamas uses these payments to fund terrorism. In July 2023, Israeli authorities seized 16 tons of explosive material originating from Turkey and destined for Gaza, likely intended for Hamas rockets.
Erdogan’s political views align with the ideology of Hamas, and in 2017, he even quoted a Hamas leader calling for the destruction of Israel. Erdogan frequently compares Israel to Nazi Germany. After October 7, he referred to Hamas as a “resistance group fighting to defend its lands.” In his view, Hamas represents the essence of the Palestinian liberation movement, and for that reason he refused to condemn Hamas after October 7. Similarly to his response at the time of the Mavi Marmara incident, he threatened that Turkey could “come unexpectedly any night.” It is worth noting that a year ago, he made similar threats to send missiles to Athens. Erdogan often expresses his political positions via threat, and his words should not be dismissed lightly.
Turkey has raised the issue of Israel’s nuclear capability and suggested that Israel, as well as other countries, should be disarmed of nuclear weapons. Erdogan also told UN Secretary-General António Guterres that “Israel must be prosecuted in international courts for the war crimes it commits in the Gaza Strip” and later claimed that Israel is carrying out “the most heinous attacks in human history.” He reiterated his anti-Western rhetoric, which aligns well with Hamas’ values. In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen instructed Israeli diplomats to leave Turkey “to reassess the relations between Israel and Turkey.”
In a conversation with Al Jazeera, Turkish Foreign Minister Akın Pekcan said Hamas operates as a political party within the Palestinian state system and is a product of occupation. “We are a country that recognizes the State of Palestine, and along with us, close to 140 countries also recognize it,” he said. “Therefore, we do not classify factors operating within any country as terrorists or non-terrorists.” When asked if Turkey would lead an economic, diplomatic, and military embargo of Israel similar to the one the US imposed on Russia during the Ukraine war, Pekcan said there are no obstacles to such an initiative and added that the issue is on Turkey’s agenda.
Whether Turkey decides to halt trade with Israel or not, expectations published on October 9, 2023, in The Marker indicate that even accounting for the consistent increase in the volume of bilateral trade between the countries, there remains enormous untapped potential for business cooperation between the two states. It is speculated that one million Israeli tourists will visit Turkey in 2023-24. Israelis have a short memory, and despite the tourist boycott and suspension of purchases at Turkish online sites, it is expected that trade will fully resume after tensions ease between the countries.
Considering Turkey’s pressing economic challenges, Erdogan will find it difficult to unilaterally sever ties with Israel, though he is likely to display a tougher stance towards Israel to divert attention from those challenges. However, a massacre on the scale of what occurred on October 7, an atrocity of a severity that Israel had never before experienced throughout its existence as a state, makes it hard to believe that trade with Turkey will return to what it once was. The fact that Erdogan held a major rally in support of Hamas on October 28, 2023, the day before the centennial of the birth of modern Turkey, did not go unnoticed in Israel. Supporting Hamas on that day in particular painted a picture of Turkey’s future — one in which the Turkey of Atatürk and even of Demirel no longer exists.
Today’s Turkey aims to see itself in a hundred years as the Turkey shaped by Erdogan: a country with dictatorial rule and rife with anti-Israel and anti-Western sentiment. Turkey does not cease to blame the West, the United States, and Israel for a wide variety of ills but never points a similar accusing finger at Russia.
The Turkish elite may be uncomfortable with the idea of dictatorship, but it is not bothered in the least by that dictatorship’s anti-Israel position. With that position, the intellectual elite in Turkey reveals its ignorance of the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. When it comes to this conflict in particular, the elite has no concerns about press freedom in Turkey. No one wonders why the Turkish media is so one-sided regarding Israel. The Turkish elite’s blind support of Hamas and implacable hatred of the Jews is as unsurprising as Erdogan’s reaction to the October 7 massacre.
Anyone who thought Turkey’s normalization with Israel would succeed, particularly insofar as it works in Turkish interests by turning it towards the West, was mistaken. Turkey opposes Israel and the Jews for the same reasons as Hamas. The hatred is not about time- and place-dependent factors; it’s about a deep-seated antisemitic enmity that tolerates the spilling of Jewish blood inside Turkey by labeling the Jews “internal enemies” and accusing them, rather than their attackers, of being criminals. It was only a matter of time before Erdogan’s rhetoric would exact a cost on the Jewish community in Turkey.
Erdogan is taking quite a few risks by maintaining this position. The partitioning policy that Turkey implemented to protect its interests vis-à-vis Ukraine and Russia, which it has operated for many decades, will not work in the Middle East nor vis-à-vis Israel. Turkey’s credibility as a regional mediator is also at stake: as Turkey moves away from the West, it loses credibility in the region. Erdogan has not proposed that Turkey act as a mediating or compromising force in the Hamas-Israel war, and that stance may prevent Turkey from mediating other conflicts.
Israel must not underestimate the degree of Erdogan’s hostility. He has never acknowledged Israel’s right to exist as a state, and in view of his consistently virulent anti-Israel rhetoric over the years, any such statement would only be made if he were either very secure or very desperate.
It is worth noting that the current tension between Ankara and Jerusalem makes cooperation on the Eastern Mediterranean gas reservoirs an impossibility for Turkey. Erdogan’s willingness to persist in his anti-Israelism against Turkey’s interests suggests that he is not yet paying a sufficient price for his statements and actions in the region.
One of the main reasons for Erdogan’s support for Hamas was his desire to divert the attention of his electorate away from the removal of Turkey’s veto on Sweden’s entry into NATO. Local elections in Turkey are coming up, and Erdogan, who has already lost Ankara and Istanbul in the past, is concerned about a similar loss. Erdogan’s deviation from the West, as expressed in his statements in favor of Palestine, stands in stark contrast to his signature on the protocol for Sweden’s NATO accession and its submission to Parliament for final approval.
Although the Turkish parliamentary subcommittee on foreign affairs has not yet voted on the matter, Erdogan’s move with the protocol seems strategically planned as an olive branch to the West. Erdogan is waiting for the green light from Washington to purchase F-16 fighter jets worth $20 billion. Turkey removed its opposition to Swedish accession to NATO after steps were taken by Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands to influence Turkish opinion.
Turkey’s main objection to Sweden’s NATO entry was its purported status as a haven for Kurds, whom Ankara regards as terrorists. It is interesting to consider what would happen if the EU and the US, where the Kurdish militant group PKK is designated as a terrorist organization, treated PKK fighters the way Turkey treats Hamas fighters.
As long as Turkey pays no price for its anti-Western policy, that policy will continue. During World War II, Turkey managed to remain neutral for most of the war despite its strategic location, which could have influenced the course of the war. That neutrality is unlikely to be sustained in the next world war.
Dr. Efrat Aviv is a senior researcher at the BESA Center and a senior lecturer in the Department of General History at Bar-Ilan University. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post Turkey Will Stay Anti-Israel and Anti-US — Unless It’s Forced to Pay for Its Actions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.