Turkish newspaper’s protest against the continuation of trade with the Zionist regime: stop the ships of shame

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, these days in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, many politicians , they talk about the painful events in Gaza and the crimes of the Zionist regime.

On one side of the story, government officials from the Justice and Development Party, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hakan Fidan, point out for the umpteenth time that the world must do something for Gaza.

He also repeatedly announced that Turkey is ready to be present in the region as an observer and peace guarantor, but on the other hand, the heads of some other Turkey’s political parties accuse Erdogan’s government of passivity, pragmatism, silence, and incompetence. A group of politicians also say to government officials, “We don’t expect you to do anything special.” At least stop the trade with Israel. Recently, the newspaper published in Ankara started a political-news “conceptualization” in the meantime and wrote in its main headline: “Stop the ships of shame”. .

This newspaper announced that more than 700 ships have transported goods from Turkey to Israel in the last few months. Turkey imports at least 60 million dollars of dates from Israel every year, and the import of dates has not stopped this year either. Although the majority of dates are produced in Palestine, they are sold in Turkey under the name of Jerusalem dates. In 2023, Ankara will export 5.43 billion dollars of goods to Israel, and most of the barbed wire consumed in Israel is produced by Turkey. : Turkey became helpless in the case of Palestine
Mustafa Kara Alioglu, one of the political analysts of Turkey, also in a note entitled “Why is Turkey helpless regarding Gaza?”, in this way about the current situation of Ankara In the case of Palestine, he commented: “When you constantly repeat something about a crisis and no one takes it seriously, we can say that there is a deadlock in that issue.” This is the same situation that can be seen in Turkey’s policy towards Gaza. Palestine is a critical region that the government of the Justice and Development Party has focused on for years and presented itself as a mediator and guarantor. This issue has become a part of Erdoğan’s speech, politics, daily life, discourse and political record. As if the issue of Palestine and Gaza is Erdogan’s specialized political area! Because there is no other international problem that he has talked about so much. Erdogan has talked so much about this as if Turkey’s role in the Palestinian issue is even more important than the Arab countries. As a result, a misplaced expectation and great expectations have been created.”

Karaolioglu further wrote: “An atmosphere was formed as if Turkey should carry out a mission to prevent the killing in Gaza.” It was thought that Turkey’s options are: 1. Using the influence it has on Israel. 2. Forcing Israel to stop attacks through pressure on America and Turkey’s European allies. But neither Israel, America nor Europe opened this door to Ankara. What is more unpleasant is that the leading countries of the Islamic world and the Arab countries did not want to play with Turkey, and Turkey could not force them to play either. Therefore, we should stop exaggerating slogans. Exciting statements such as that no bird in the region flies without our knowledge, or that we are the hope of the Islamic world, or that the West is treading carefully because it is afraid of us, are all invalid and have no meaning.”

The Turkish analyst believes that Ankara cannot do some things for Palestine even if it wants to. Because Turkey’s power to establish a diplomatic alliance has decreased and weakened in recent years. While pointing out that Erdogan’s slogans have isolated Turkey in the region and the world, he wrote: “The number of The number of countries with which we can cooperate in diplomacy has decreased. When it came to Gaza, we couldn’t find any country that we could work with or be part of a joint venture with. The second reason is that we have no influence, especially in the Persian Gulf countries. There is a high level of financial disparity between us and these countries, some of which we have again asked for friendship after a long conflict. We are on the side asking for loans, swaps and investments, and this leads to us losing influence, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In other words, the damage caused until recently due to Erdoğan’s team’s wrong approach to Turkey’s foreign policy and the blow to the economy made Turkey helpless. Losing friends and being in economic crisis has consequences. This is what we saw in Gaza and we faced the first serious diplomatic test that showed us that Turkey does not have the ability to influence these equations.

Ebrahim Kiras, one of the other political-economic analysts of Turkey, in criticizing the pragmatic approach of the Erdogan government regarding Gaza, pointed out that the Justice and Development Party, in recent years, in order to maintain its power and interests, It has created a new type of Islamism which, on the surface, considers supporting the oppressed people of Palestine as important and legitimate. But in practice, he is not willing to comment and take a position even about the continuation of business relations between Turkey and the Zionist regime.

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