http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6194-is-turkey-the-next-big-islamic-threatWhile often hailed as a triumph in Muslim democracy, Turkey may ultimately pose a greater Islamic threat than Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and even Iran, says former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat.
When we think of terrorism, our minds may go to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and nuclear ambitions, Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. But we wouldn’t think of Turkey, the NATO member considered for full integration into the European Union. Yet this could be a serious mistake.
This is the message of Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist and current Christian convert. In a recent interview with WorldNetDaily.com, Shoebat warned, "Turkey is the biggest threat. Turkey is the strongest military power in the region, and it's the second largest army in NATO.” He also says that Ankara is making statements that allude to Turkey’s intentions and that should serve as a red flag.
And Turkey’s actions are speaking just as loudly. Writes WorldNetDaily:
. . . Turkey's increasing disinterest in the European Union combined with its efforts to re-establish its influence in Turkic countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and its outreaches to Russian [sic], Syria and Iran are cause for concern.
. . . the shift by Tayyip Recep Erdogan, Turkey's leader, from West to East was obvious, because Turkey announced [some months ago] it was cutting Israel out of annual military exercises involving NATO forces while it sought out military exercises with Syria.
As for Turkey’s statements, Shoebat told WND, “Erdogan is saying 1.5 billion Muslims are waiting for the Turkish government to arise. This is pretty scary. Turkey rules only 70 million people so why are they talking about 1.5 billion Muslims?”
Now, for purposes of full disclosure, I should mention that Shoebat is no stranger to controversy himself, as his credibility has been questioned. In a nutshell, some wonder about how terrorizing of a terrorist he was, how Christian of a Christian he is, and whether he’s more attention-seeker than truth-seeker. Yet, whether or not he’s the real McCoy, it does seem that Erdogan is and that Turkey may very well become so — that is, the real Islamic McCoy. And to understand why, we need to know a bit about history and current events as they relate to Erdogan and the country he leads.
Erdogan is well known for his Islamist sympathies and values. In his youth he attended an Islamic school, he cut his political teeth in the Islamist “Welfare Party,” and as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s he banned alcohol in city cafes. In fact, so great is his Muslim chauvinism that it won him a ticket on the Midnight Express. As BBC News wrote in 2002, “his pro-Islamist sympathies earned him a conviction in 1998 for inciting religious hatred. He had publicly read an Islamic poem including the lines: ‘The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers . . .’” That year also saw the banning of Erdogan’s Welfare Party for violation of the Turkish constitution’s principle of secularism.
But you just can’t keep a passionate man down. Erdogan’s new party, the Justice and Development Party (a grandson of the Islamist Welfare Party), was swept into power in 2002 and he soon after was named his nation’s prime minister. And Erdogan’s rocky road to the throne did nothing to dampen his Islamist enthusiasm. In fact, as of late he has engaged in some quite striking cultural scimitar rattling: At a February Istanbul conference, he encouraged Turks living in Europe not to assimilate but to rather Islamize the Old World. Covering the story, The Local reports that Turkish government representatives at the conference proclaimed, “We have to inject European culture with Turkish.” Writes The Local:
Erdogan told the meeting[,] countries that did not allow dual citizenship violated basic rights and also likened Islamophobia to anti-Semitism.
Participants told Spiegel [German magazine Der Spiegel] that Erdogan repeated elements of his widely criticised speech in Cologne in 2008 in which he said: “Assimilation is a crime against humanity.”
. . . The title of the meeting was: “Wherever one of our countrymen is, we are there too.”
And many Turks share the popular Erdogan’s leanings. Not only is the frequency of anti-American feeling in supposedly Western-oriented Turkey among the highest in the world, there is an even more shocking barometer of Islamist sentiment: Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf has become a national bestseller.
So, is this the Turkey that has lobbied for integration into the European Union? Perhaps — the Turks have set their sights on Europe before.
This brings us to history and why Erdogan said that 1.5 billion Muslims are waiting for his nation “to arise.” Until 1923, what is now Turkey was part of the Ottoman Empire, the last “great” Muslim caliphate. It had conquered much European territory, including Hungary and Greece, and twice reached the gates of Vienna itself. In fact, the 700-year caliphate was born of the conquest of Christian lands, those of the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire (Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, was formerly Constantinople, named after the Roman Empire’s first Christian emperor, Constantine). And it was only efforts such as the Crusades — whose original purpose was to aid the besieged Byzantine Christians — that saved Europe from further Muslim expansion. Note that when the Crusades were launched, it was the Seljuk Turks with whom the Europeans had to contend.
Given this history — the fact that the Ottoman Empire was the last Muslim civilization to enjoy military victory over the Christian West — it’s not surprising that Muslims would entertain dreams of resurrecting its glory. Shoebat spoke of this and related geopolitical motivations in a 2006 interview with Glenn Beck, saying:
. . . he [Erdogan] is trying to plunge Turkey into the Islamic era of being the Ottoman caliphate. Let’s not forget, there is a rift between Iran and Turkey. Who’s going to become the superpower in the Middle East? Iran looks like the superpower right now, and Turkey is not going to stand by watching Iran becoming a superpower. So it’s going to try to plunge back Turkey into the Islamic fundamentalist. Eighty-five percent of the Muslim world is Sunni, so the Sunnis are not just going to stand by as well watching Iran become a superpower. So, the competition continues. But the point is, who is going to represent Islam? So, it’s going to have to go toward the Dark Ages because the Ottoman Empire was the wounded head of the caliphate; that’s where it has to start. Let’s not also forget, there was [sic] demonstrations by the Palestinians in Gaza calling the Ottoman Empire to re-establish the caliphate as well.
In reality, none of this should come as any surprise. While it’s common to speak of Turkey’s secular “tradition,” it isn’t really a tradition at all — it’s less than 100 years old. It’s truer to say it has an Islamist tradition, one dating back to its conquest of Byzantium. It’s also true that Turkey’s military, once its guardian of secular government, seems ever more at the mercy of Islamist forces. Also note that the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is largely blamed on secularization.
Additionally, I should point out the obvious: Whether people are secular or religious, nationalism is the default mode for nations, and resurrecting past glory is one of its pastimes. And with approximately 4.6 million Turks and 40 million Muslims overall in Europe, past times may soon come again.
Topic: Is Turkey the Next Big Islamic Threat? (Read 3757 times)