If he could, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would send us back in time to when Israel was a part of the Ottoman Empire. That is how he prefers us: a submissive religion at the mercy of the sultan's empire and its laws. To Erdogan's dismay, the Jewish people are not satisfied with playing the part of "the court Jew." We have established our own state. Last week, and 70 years too late, the Jewish state passed a law that declares Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people. The fact that the nation-state of the Jewish people is the sovereign in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount drives Turkey's megalomaniac leader absolutely crazy.
Erdogan is right. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's spirit is alive and well, just not in Israel. Turkey, which is slowly turning into a dictatorship, is the one butchering Kurds and Syrians and throwing tens of thousands of its citizens in jail. That is exactly how the Nazis started off. When it comes to Turkey, Israel's hope is that Erdogan is a passing phenomenon because Jerusalem has interests there. The problem is that, the longer he remains in power, the more his lies and indoctrination permeates the Turkish masses and the more hostility toward Israel grows.
Can Erdogan change? Probably not. Can he be deterred? It's worth a try. The right legislation could limit the inpouring of Turkish funds through which Ankara is working to "conquer" the Old City of Jerusalem. We could also find creative ways to limit the Turkish "protest tourism" Erdogan deems so important, and maybe even weigh filing – though perhaps not directly – a complaint against him at the International Criminal Court.
