A Few Questions for the Turkish Prime Minister
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan continued to express his disdain for Israel—or at least the current administration. He said:
“I would like to see accurate statistics on how many Israelis have been killed by the bombs thrown by Palestinians or by the rockets that were launched by them – 10? 20? 100? 200? How many? Please document it and let us know!
“But on the other hand we know that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Thousands have been killed by the Gaza attack alone. These are very clear numbers.”
If I were interviewing Mr. Erdogan, I would have had a few questions for him.
Mr. Erdogan, “hundreds of thousands”…really? Where did you get this figure? Arafat? That would be about 20% of the Palestinian population. In fact, the actual number is just over 6,000 between 2000 and 2010. And nearly all these deaths were in response to attacks against Israel, not Israeli aggression.
While you downplay the deaths that come from the Hamas rockets against Israel, surely an educated man like yourself understands that fatalities are not the only result of terror attacks. A child who has to run to a bomb shelter 5 times in the middle of the night suffers a horrible trauma, possibly for the rest of his life. Imagine going to bed each night, knowing that at any moment a blaring siren can awaken you from a deep sleep, where you then must run to shelter.
Are you aware that Palestinians have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians in the past 10 years? Are you aware that under the PLO if you sell land to a Jew in Ramallah, it is punishable by death? Do you support the fact that often, suspected collaborators are hung by a lynch mob, frequently being decapitated?
And Mr. Erdogan, recently you called for a secular state in Egypt. Are you aware that Hamas, a militant Islamic group controls Parliament in the Palestinian Authority and has virtually built an Islamic fundamentalist state in Gaza? Do you think that they are planning for a democratic Palestine with human rights? Do you want to see another Islamic fundamentalist state in the region, like Iran? Wouldn’t you agree that a democratic Israel is better for the region than another Iran-like theocracy?
The question is not who has had more deaths, but who instigated the violence. If a militant group decides to go to war with me, then yes, I sure hope to inflict more damage upon them in order to obtain victory. Disproportionate force is the goal any sensible nation. This will deter enemies from future aggression. Surely you know this from the way you have killed over 20,000 Kurds in Turkey since 1984 … (wink)
As you know, Israel has the capabilities to cause much more damage than she has. She has used incredible restraint despite a plethora of suicide bombings, sniper attacks against civilians, rockets (10,000!) being launched at her noncombatants, amongst other murderous acts (see Fogel family murder). I don’t imagine Egypt or Syria would show that much restraint. In fact, in just a few months of unrest, Syria has killed over 2,000 or its own civilians.
And lastly, Mr. Erdogan, why are you so concerned about the Palestinians, when you oppress 12 million Kurds who seek independence. It has been reported that your government has burned 3,000 Kurdish settlements to the ground and displaced two million people. Why are you so concerned about Arabs in the West Bank, when there are already 21 Arab nations that could easily absorb these people? (which was the original plan as stated in the San Remo Resolution in 1920, endored by the League of Nations and signed by 51 countries!) Why not be concerned about the more than 20 million Kurds in your own country, Iraq, Syria and Iran who have been denied the right to create a nation. 21 Arab nations—0 Kurdish nations. Hmmm… Wouldn’t you agree that this quite hypocritical on your part?
