You may have seen in recent days a short viral clip from New York: footage from about a decade ago, of a young Shia Muslim born in Uganda and a supporter of BDS, denouncing Israel and Zionism and defiantly saying, "We came here to shape the country in the image of our people."
The man in the clip, Zohar Mamdani, is now the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. If you like, he is a smaller-scale version of one man: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, former mayor of Istanbul and today the president of Turkey, who preceded Mamdani in shaping parts of the world in his own image.
Erdogan is currently far more troubling and dangerous for Israel and the West than Mamdani. His personality, his moves, his plans and, above all, the religious and ideological engine that directs his path are urgent and necessary subjects for examination. Admittedly, the Turkish president played a decisive role in securing the release of hostages by applying heavy pressure on his protégé, the Hamas terrorist organization. We found ourselves in a situation in which, to save hostages, there was no choice but to speak and do business even with the devil. But now the moment has come to internalize, explain and understand that this is indeed the devil.
A few years ago Pazit Ravina in Makor Rishon exposed a manifesto titled "How to Conquer Jerusalem in Ten Days," written by General Adnan Tanriverdi, one of Erdogan's trusted confidants. There the Turkish general calls on Muslim countries to cooperate to provide Palestinians with "bases on their territory from which they can show military force against Israel, and, using Islamic geography, create a maritime corridor to Gaza and an air corridor to Ramallah."
The empire will strike again
If this sounds like the Iranian proxy ring that surrounded us, you are not imagining things. Turkey seeks to build a similar proxy threat around us. It is already militarily present in Libya and Syria. It established a drone base in Cyprus. It is trying to extend influence into Egypt, and now it is present in Gaza in the form of 13 aid organizations (including TIKA and IHH) and close cooperation with Hamas, supervised by Mevlut Guloglu, who was elevated to the post of ambassador to Palestine.
In Europe, Erdogan pursues a "quiet jihad" strategy, urging Muslim immigrants "to have five children, not three, and to move with their families to better neighborhoods and schools," adding: "The places where you live and work are now your homeland and your new country. Claim ownership of them with force."
But when it comes to us, his reach is far shorter. For many years Turkey has been an economic and military home for the terrorist organization that massacred us on October 7. Istanbul was and remains a supplier of the infrastructure for the absolute evil that was built in the Gaza Strip.
The very thought of giving any role to a country that, even after the massacre, hosts Hamas headquarters on its soil, where they continue to plan attacks against us, is a severe moral distortion, and it makes no difference whether the US president enabling it is called Biden or Trump. After all, Hamas and its accomplices do not believe in genuine coexistence with Islam, but in a one-state reality in which the religion of Muhammad dominates everything.
Erdogan for years has identified himself as the successor in the chain of Ottoman sultans. He aspires to revive the empire's days of glory and sees himself as Islam's appointed guardian of Jerusalem. In his own view, Erdogan follows in the footsteps of Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent, and Turks are "their grandchildren." He has repeatedly raised the dream of an Ottoman caliphate and presents himself as the patron and protector of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide.
From his perspective, cities once ruled by "the empire," such as Mecca, Medina, Cairo, Alexandria, Beirut, Damascus or Istanbul, are "sister cities," and "the world should know and understand" that Ramallah, Nablus, Jericho, Gaza and Jerusalem are "sisters" as well, and "their residents are our brothers." "Every day that Jerusalem remains under occupation," as Erdogan puts it, "is an insult."
The Muslim Brotherhood and sister cities
When crowds in Istanbul have been shouting for two years, "Yesterday Hagia Sophia, today the Umayyad Mosque, tomorrow the Al-Aqsa Mosque," they aim to do to us in Israel and elsewhere in the former empire what they did five years ago to the Hagia Sophia by turning it back into an active mosque; and what they did to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the fourth most important mosque for Muslims, when the Turkish foreign minister accompanied Syrian rebels there to pray as if returning a treasured relic to Turkish hands, another "checkmark" on Erdogan's map.
The brazen Syrian demand to "return" the Golan to Syria is also a product of Turkish thinking, and when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentions the delivery address list that Turkey holds, Erdogan clarifies immediately: "We were the lords of the region for a thousand years, and we will remain so until the end of days... Jerusalem is our city."
The Turks pour billions into Israel's capital through well-known dawa methods, via charitable organizations and aid projects. Thus, when one of the central compounds on Salah al-Din Street fails to pay municipal property tax, representatives of the Turkish TIKA association settle the debt, and shortly thereafter a Turkish cultural center called Yabous is inaugurated there.
But it is not only money. Today Turkey is a center of anti-Jewish hostility and hatred against Israel and Zionism. Effigies of Netanyahu are "executed" by hanging, and Israeli flags are trampled in the streets. Erdogan frequently compares us to Hitler and repeatedly accuses Israel of genocide. The Turkish president and his government continue to shelter absolute evil, the Nazi-like Hamas terrorist organization, which has directed attacks and attempted attacks against Jews and Israelis originating from Turkey, and they have not ceased doing so.
Not much has changed since the Shin Bet determined some years ago that Turkey "contributes to the military strengthening of Hamas" and that "the extensive military and economic activity of Hamas in Turkey takes place without any disturbance, often with the turning of a blind eye and even the encouragement of Turkish government elements, and with the assistance of Turkish citizens, some of them close to the government."
President Trump, regrettably, is opening the front door de facto to an Islamist missionary who nurtures a culture of murder, refuses to define Hamas as a terrorist organization and continues to assist it. Terror supporters should not be interlocutors for us or for the free world, and on moral grounds there is no distinction between them and the Nazi infrastructures that the free world worked to destroy 80 years ago.
