Turkish President Erdogan used the opportunity of his U.N. General Assembly speech to accuse Israel of stealing Palestinian land.
By World Israel News Staff
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan twisted it on Tuesday into the sincerest form of attack. Borrowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s technique of holding up placards during his U.N. speeches to help make his point, Erdogan did the same, but this time to lash out at Israel.
“Israel, which was almost non-existent in 1947, has continued until this day to seize Palestinian land with the aim of eliminating the state,” Erdogan said to the U.N. General Assembly, while holding a placard showing various stages of Israel allegedly gobbling up parts of “Filastin,” or “Palestine.”
Erdgoan, who marked the first stage of the map (labeled 1947), as “Filastin,” ignored the fact that there was no country called Filastin or Palestine in that year.
Although the name referred to a geographic area, it was divided into a number of administrative units under the Ottoman Empire, which ruled it for four centuries until it was conquered by Britain.
Britain was was given a mandate by the League of Nations to establish there a Jewish State.
“Look at this map, where was Israel in 1947 and where is Israel now, especially between the years between 1949 and 1967?,” Erdogan said.
In 1947, “Palestinian land starts shrinking and Israel starts expanding” he said.
“How can the Golan Heights and the West Bank settlements be seized just like other occupied Palestinian territories before the eyes of the world?” Erdogan said.
The Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria (or “the West Bank”) were conquered by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War when Israel was threatened with annihilation by neighboring Arab states.
President Donald Trump recently recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed in 1981.
Criticizing the Trump administration’s coming peace proposals, Erdogan said, “Is the aim of the initiative… to entirely eliminate the presence of the state and the people of Palestine? Do you want another bloodshed?”
“All actors of the international community, and in particular, the U.N., should provide complete support to the Palestinian people beyond more promises.”
Erdogan demanded more action from the U.N. against Israel, saying “Under this roof, we are producing resolutions without any effect, so when do you think – or where do you think – justice can prevail?”
Before his U.N. speech, Erdogan met with Turkish expatriates in New York where he compared the Holocaust to a supposed “genocide” committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
“When we look at the genocide Nazis committed against Jews, we should look at the massacre happening in the Gaza Strip from the same point of view,” Erdogan said, according to the Turkish Anadolu news agency.
Netanyahu, said of Erdogan’s remarks on Tuesday, “He who does not stop lying about Israel, who slaughters the Kurds in his country, and who denies the awful massacre of the Armenian people – should not preach to Israel.”