Cyprus-Forum.com

[Demonax]

Highly critical piece in Commentary Magazine openly questioning Erdogan's sanity. How long ago was it that some of us were calling Erdogan a deluded megalomaniac only to constantly be told what a towering genius he was?

How quickly things have swung our way!

The Madness of King Erdogan

Since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited Hamas to Istanbul in 2006, shortly after the Islamist terrorist organization won parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority, Israel-Turkey relations have deteriorated.

Erdogan has repeatedly exploited the Palestinian issue to score propaganda points both at home and with Arab and Muslim audiences and has sacrificed a strategic alliance over his pride, especially after the Israeli incursion into Gaza in late 2008 and the Mavi Marmara affair. Why Erdogan would take cheap shots at Israel has been repeatedly discussed here and elsewhere and needs not be rehashed.

But as his vicious rhetoric increasingly flirted with anti-Israel language, there was little opposition inside Turkey to this aspect of Erdogan’s boisterous style on the international stage. Even when he brought his personal animus to a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres, whom he abruptly abandoned on stage in Davos, or when he sought revenge against Israel at NATO by seeking to exclude Israel from NATO-Mediterranean dialogue programs, or when he set up a kangaroo court against Israeli military personnel in Istanbul, few dared label this trend for what it was: political insanity and a self-inflicted wound.

As if one could act irrationally on one front while being reasonable on all other fronts, Turkish society continued to back Erdogan. After all, his regional policies appeared briefly to pay dividends–Turkey’s economy was booming, trade with Iran was booming, relations with Syria were thawing, and popularity across the Arab world for standing up to Israel gave Turkey the brief illusion it could regain its role of regional guide it lost at the end of the Ottoman Empire.

Madness, unfortunately, cannot be compartmentalized. Erdogan’s latest outburst–in which he, as Michael Rubin pointed out, accused Israel of being behind Egypt’s military coup while citing as the only evidence a public conversation between French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni from two years ago (when she actually was in opposition)–is the acne of a conspiratorial mind that has lost touch with reality. So was, incidentally, the incessant, obsessive accusation, voiced by Erdogan and some of his ministers back in June, that the Gezi Park protests were orchestrated by foreign agents.

Turks should open their eyes to the fact that Erdogan’s obsession with conspiracies are a reflection of a man who is incapable of seeing reality in the eyes–and the increasingly disastrous foreign-policy outcomes of his decisions are one with this mindset, to say nothing of the harm he has inflicted on Turkish democratic standards. Turkey’s decision to flirt with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, support Islamist rebels in Syria, throw the strategic relation with Israel to the dogs, and increase tensions over Cyprus are all backfiring.

It was easy to dismiss his anti-Israel posture as clever or eccentric when Turkey’s foreign policy appeared set to conquer one success after another. Now that it is all ending in failure, maybe Turkish society can see that a man who sees dark conspiracies everywhere will not serve his country well–and that the harm he did to the Israel-Turkey relationship is part and parcel of the damage he is causing to the country as a whole.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/ ... g-erdogan/?

[DrCyprus]

Shhhh, shhh. Don't wake them up just yet... it will be all over soon.

[GreekIslandGirl]

Shhhh, shhh. Don't wake them up just yet... it will be all over soon.

Has he given you a job yet?

[DrCyprus]

Shhhh, shhh. Don't wake them up just yet... it will be all over soon.

Has he given you a job yet?

Yeah. He gave me 100 000 Turkish lira and a piece of Ikea sofa, it's fuckin' ugly but they love this kind of things in Ankara.

[Flying Horse]

Oh dear, the stitching in his lobotomy is really coming undone!!

[Demonax]

Ouch! ‘A semi-unhinged bigot’. Can Erdogan’s reputation sink any lower?

It's time to call Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan what he is: a semi-unhinged bigot.

Optimists have argued, these past few years, that Erdogan's anger at Israel was motivated by a genuine sense of grievance over the notorious 2010 flotilla incident. The flotilla, you'll recall, was a project of pro-Hamas Turkish activists that was meant to break what they termed an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel's attempt to stop the flotilla ended in the deaths of eight Turks and one Turkish-American.

The Turks demanded, among other things, that Israel apologize for its handling of the affair. Israel resisted for three years, saying that its soldiers were attacked by the Turkish activists when they boarded the ship, and that Israel had the legal right to stop the flotilla from approaching its waters. Nevertheless, the Israeli response was horribly botched, and this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaxed and cajoled by President Barack Obama, picked up the phone (with Obama sitting right there with him) and apologized to Erdogan for the unnecessary deaths. This apology was supposed to usher in a newer, quieter era in Turkish-Israeli relations.

Except that Erdogan has Jews on the brain, and once you get Jews on the brain it's hard to get them off. So the other day, in talking about the strife in Egypt, he said: "What is said about Egypt? That democracy is not the ballot box. Who is behind this? Israel is. We have the evidence in our hands."

The evidence for the assertion that Israel was behind the violent suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood? Erdogan himself offered none, but an aide later said that the prime minister was referring to an Internet video Erdogan saw in which the current Israeli justice minister, Tzipi Livni, and the famous French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, were speaking at a news conference in 2011. In the video, BHL, as he is known, expressed opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood's ruling Egypt.

And that's it. The prosecution rests. A Jewish philosopher from France (albeit one with great clothes) says on television that he doesn't like the Muslim Brotherhood, and that's sufficient proof for Erdogan.

Now, if someone were to go on television in the U.S. and assert -- based on the aforementioned single piece of "evidence" -- that the Jewish state was behind the chaos in Egypt, well, that person would soon find himself with limited opportunities to offer further commentary (even on Al Jazeera, I assume). But we're talking about the prime minister of a major American military ally and the leader of a nation of more than 70 million people.

And this isn't the first time, of course. Just recently, Erdogan blamed widespread demonstrations against his government on the "interest-rate lobby," which is up there with "rootless cosmopolitans" and "dual loyalists" as an all-purpose euphemism for Jews. (His deputy, Besir Atalay, made it plain when he blamed the protests on "the Jewish Diaspora.")

Although not very good at making friends, either in Europe or in the Middle East, Erdogan is known as a very smart man. Yet anti-Semitism is making him stupid. As Walter Russell Mead of the American Interest magazine says, those who are burdened with anti-Semitism are unable to discern cause and effect relations in complex social settings. If I were an investor in Turkey, I'd keep this mind.

You see what I did there, right? A year from now, Erdogan -- if I'm lucky -- will cite this post to explain whatever affliction is afflicting Turkey at the moment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-2 ... brain.html?

[Demonax]

There's more...

Turkey’s Insane Islamist PM Claims Israel Behind Egypt Coup Based on Interview with French Philosopher

The bar for Erdogan brand crazy is getting pretty high these days ever since his chief adviser began talking about Telekinesis plots to kill him. And in all fairness, the Islamist Prime Minister of Turkey was recently hoping to add Syria to his Islamist power orbit, only to lose Egypt.

And he can easily imagine the Occupy Gezi protesters and the beleaguered Turkish military, most of which is in jail, deciding to pull a Morsi on him once his phony economy comes down over his hairy ears.

Still this isn’t exactly a man who is playing with all his marbles...

As proof of an Israeli conspiracy to overthrow Morsi, the presence of a future Israeli member of government at a discussion where someone else says that he would endorse the overthrow of a future Muslim Brotherhood government is pretty thin.

The West likes to pretend that Erdogan isn’t a lunatic. Unfortunately for them, he insists on proving them wrong.

At least it’s not another telekinesis plot.

[Maximus]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has suggested the formation of an alternative United Nations criticizing inaction of the body against recent atrocities in the world. (like the continued occupation of Cyprus by Turkey and the hosting and arming of jihadist extremist's to infiltrate Syria)

“If we really say that the world is bigger than five [permanent members of the Security Council], then the other countries could establish their own United Nations. Such a move could be made. Such a move would prompt them [the United Nations] to reform. What will the U.N do when they would pull,”



http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkis ... sCatID=338

[kimon07]

Erdoğan’s Disdain Extends from Jews to Blacks

Michael Rubin | @mrubin1971 07.07.2013 - 9:00 AM
Every Tuesday, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addresses his Justice and Development Party (AKP) cohorts. Speaking before a friendly audience, he often lets his guard down and lets the real Erdoğan shine through. Alas, increasingly it’s apparent that the real Erdoğan is not only an anti-Semite—ranting and raving about Jews or some amorphous “interest rate lobby”—but also a racist.
Criticizing Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the center-left and secular Republican Peoples Party (CHP), Erdoğan declared, “Kılıçdaroğlu is striving every bit he can to raise himself from the level of a black person to the level of a white man.” The Turkish word—Zenci—Erdoğan used is often used in a derogatory way.
President Obama has described Erdoğan as one of the few leaders with whom he has developed bonds of trust. On a policy level, Erdoğan has worked to undercut sanctions on Iran and has embraced groups like Hamas and Hezbollah designated by the U.S. government to be terrorists. On a personal level, he has exposed himself as an anti-Semite and now a racist. Perhaps it’s time for Obama to explain just what he sees in the Turkish premier. And perhaps it’s time for the Congressional Turkey Caucus—several members of which are also in the Congressional Black Caucus—to ask Erdoğan just what he meant when he described his chief political opponent in decidedly racist tones.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/ ... to-blacks/