Turkey Is A Turkey
Reader comment on item: Turkey-based Hamas Leader Well Known to US Law Enforcement

Submitted by Michael Fox, Dec 20, 2014 19:55

Turkey is doing a juggling act. Attempting to appear a moderate middle eastern country with a sense of secular modernity and an affinity for many western values, In reality, under the elected leadership of President Erdogan, Turkey has taken a major step backward into conservative Islam . Turkey likes the financial perks associated with the west like tourism for example and it wants the security NATO offers as an insurance policy but under the smiles, handshakes and backslapping politicians, there is an anti western pot of leeriness and contempt simmering on the back burner. Turkey is a key supporter of the Hamas terrorist organization which calls for the destruction of a sovereign nation and the killing of its Jewish population. Hamas even has headquarters in Istanbul and President Erdogan personally agitates violence against Israel.

Turkey is walking a tightrope and wants to have its cake and eat it. A long history of violence towards the Kurds, torture in its prisons and the mass genocide of its Turkish Armenian population at the beginning of the 20th century (denied by Turkey as is the Jewish Holocaust), Turkey's hands are not so clean.

Still, Turkey is a place of destination for European and Israeli tourists. What's with that?

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