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Monday, February 5, 2018

TURKEY'S ERDOGAN TO MEET WITH POPE, THANK HIM FOR OPPOSING TRUMP'S RECOGNITION OF JERUSALEM AS ISRAEL'S CAPITOL

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TURKEY'S ERDOGAN TO MEET WITH POPE, THANK HIM FOR OPPOSING TRUMP'S RECOGNITION OF JERUSALEM AS ISRAEL'S CAPITOL 
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
This is not the first time a Muslim leader has thanked Pope Francis for being so very useful to the global jihad. Last September, the Pope met in the Vatican with Dr. Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, the secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a group that has been linked to the financing of jihad terror. During the meeting, al-Issa thanked the Pope for his “fair positions” on what he called the “false claims that link extremism and violence to Islam.” Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, has also thanked Francis for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.”
Pope Francis has proclaimed that “authentic Islam and the proper understanding of the Koran reject every form of violence,” doing his bit to ensure that as many Christians as possible would remain ignorant and complacent about the jihad threat that his precious “dialogue” does nothing to mitigate.
And now this. Pope Francis is a disgrace to the Church, to Judeo-Christian civilization, and to the free world.
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Jerusalem to dominate Erdoğan’s meeting with Pope Francis,” Daily Sabah, February 2, 2018:
The United States’ controversial recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is expected to dominate talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pope Francis on the president’s first trip to the Vatican on Sunday.
According to presidential sources, Erdoğan will thank Pope Francis for his stance against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision and his efforts to protect the status quo in the holy city.
The Turkish president previously expressed his appreciation to Pope Francis who strongly opposed the bitterly-contested move announced by Trump at the end of last year. The two leaders held several phone calls regarding the issue and voiced their determination to follow developments regarding Jerusalem.
The current humanitarian crisis in Syria, regional developments, terror, cooperation against Islamophobia and xenophobia are also among the topics which the two leaders are set to discuss during their meeting.
The Argentine pope met Erdoğan during his trip to Turkey in November 2014 as the first world leader to visit the Turkish presidential complex in Ankara. The return visit will be the first by a Turkish president since 1959.
Francis has repeatedly praised Turkey’s efforts to welcome Syrian refugees and has said the country could be a “great peacemaker.”…
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UPDATE:
 At Vatican, Erdogan asks Pope to help lead “concerted and continuous international effort to fight Islamophobia”
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
Pope Francis loves Erdogan: he gave him 50 minutes, not the usual 30 he accords to world leaders.
“Erdoğan discussed the plight of the Christians [sic] minorities in the Middle East and promised to mobilize Turkish support to help them in every possible way, just as the Ottomans did in their 600-year history.”
In reality, the Christians in the Ottoman Empire suffered the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of dhimmitude, punctuated with occasional open persecution. I detail this at length in my next book, The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, which is scheduled to be out this summer.
“This of course brought the president to the issue of the rising tide of Islamophobia in the West. He asked the pontiff to help Muslims and stand up to this situation, which could turn into a disaster in most areas of Western Europe. The problem that started as xenophobia has mushroomed into enmity toward all Muslims, especially in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and France. The Vatican has also drawn attention to the problem, but Turkey wants a concerted and continuous international effort to fight Islamophobia.”
“Islamophobia” is used to refer to persecution of innocent Muslims, which is never justified, as well as to honest analysis of how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and oppression, as I explain in my last book, Confessions of an Islamophobe. The conflation of the two acts as a tool to restrict the freedom of speech and bring the public discourse in the West into line with Sharia blasphemy laws. Pope Francis is unlikely to have any problem with this, since it has been on his watch that the falsehood that Islam is a Religion of Peace has become a superdogma in the Catholic Church: a Catholic can dissent openly and freely from every element of the Nicene Creed and any other dogma of the Catholic Church, and remain a Catholic in good standing. But if a Catholic suggests that Islam is not a Religion of Peace, he will be subjected to organized campaigns from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to make sure he has no platform in Catholic circles and, if possible, anywhere else.
Pope Francis and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are a disgrace to the Church, to Judeo-Christian civilization, and to the free world.
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Turkey, Vatican agree on Jerusalem,” by İlnur Çevik, Daily Sabah, February 6, 2018:
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with Pope Francis at the Vatican and discussed the status of Jerusalem at length. This is history in the making. It is the first ever visit by a Turkish head of state to the Vatican after Turkey and the Holy See established diplomatic relations in 1960. President Celal Bayar visited the Vatican in 1959 and opened the way for the establishment of these relations.
Erdoğan spearheaded the Islamic world’s action at the United Nations General Assembly to oppose the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that the U.S. will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to this ancient city. The move also received support from the pope, the spiritual leader of Catholics around the globe.
The Vatican says Jerusalem, which is a major holy city for the Muslims, Christians and Jews, should be granted a special status where people of all religions can worship freely. Thus, it is opposed to the city becoming exclusively a Jewish entity where Muslims and Christians are left to the whims of the Jews.
Turkey agrees with the Vatican and says Jerusalem could be the joint capital of Israel and Palestine.
But Jerusalem was not the only issue on the agenda. Erdoğan explained the reasons why Turkey had to launch Operation Olive Branch in the northwestern Syrian region of Afrin just across the Turkish border. Ankara hopes to secure the support of the Vatican on Afrin with the explanation that it is not invading another country, but is rather actively striving to cleanse the area of terrorists and allow suffering Syrian civilians to go back to their homes. Turkey evicted Daesh terrorists of from its border in Operation Euphrates Shield and turned the region into a safe haven for Syrians. It aims to do the same in Afrin.
Besides this, the Vatican had lauded Turkey’s efforts to end the massacre of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The Vatican had also applauded Turkey for the way took in 3,5 million Syrians fleeing the civil war in their country for the past six years and has spent $30 billion on them.
Erdoğan discussed the plight of the Christians [sic] minorities in the Middle East and promised to mobilize Turkish support to help them in every possible way, just as the Ottomans did in their 600-year history.
This of course brought the president to the issue of the rising tide of Islamophobia in the West. He asked the pontiff to help Muslims and stand up to this situation, which could turn into a disaster in most areas of Western Europe. The problem that started as xenophobia has mushroomed into enmity toward all Muslims, especially in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and France. The Vatican has also drawn attention to the problem, but Turkey wants a concerted and continuous international effort to fight Islamophobia.
Erdoğan found an attentive ear at the Vatican….
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UPDATE:
Turkish leader declares jihad on Kurds, 
dispatches soldiers to “decimate” them
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
  
Erdogan launched what Islamists are openly calling a jihad against the Kurdish 
YPG faction. Thousands of Turkish soldiers, along with tanks and artillery, have 
blasted their way across the Turkish border into Syria.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the model of a clever jihadist leader who employs a combination of stealth and violent means to attain his expansionist dreams of a revived Ottoman Empire.
After the fall of the Ottomans, and soon after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara’s goal became to destroy all non-Turkish elements within the Republic, with a primary target being the Kurds and the Armenians. Now Erdogan has taken up that effort once again. As he aims to destroy the historic culture and identity of the Kurds, he has deceptively (and cruelly) called his jihad invading death squads “Operation Olive Branch.”
On January 20 and 21, 90,000 mosques prayed Qur’anic “conquest” prayers calling on Muslims to be “ruthless against unbelievers” and for victory against the Kurds, right before Erdogan’s thousands of soldiers were dispatched.
Yet despite Erdogan’s unsavoury record, he still manages to sell to Western leaders the idea that he is “moderate.” Earlier this week, Pope Francis rolled out the red carpet for him; Erdogan took opportunity to ask the Pope to help lead a “concerted and continuous international effort to fight Islamophobia.” He also deceitfully “discussed the plight” of Christians in the Middle East and “promised to mobilize Turkish support to help them in every possible way, just as the Ottomans did in their 600-year history.”
There are a couple problems with his hollow “promise”: Christian persecution has dramatically increased in Turkey under his hardline rule. Erdogan has even brought changes to school curricula: “Islamic law class and basic fundamental religion lectures will include lessons on jihad.” Also, Christians were not supported under Ottoman rule as Erdogan states. As Robert Spencer has noted: “In reality, the Christians in the Ottoman Empire suffered the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of dhimmitude, punctuated with occasional open persecution.”
Erdogan has also declared that the European headscarf ban started a battle between the Cross and the Crescent. He continues to deny the atrocious Armenian genocide; has supported the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood; and has long been on a global campaign to compel Western nations to criminalize “Islamophobia.”
All world leaders, especially the Pope, should be condemning Erdogan and his unrighteous persecution of the Kurds, particularly now that Erdogan has “dispatched his army into Syria to decimate them.”

“Turkey’s Erdogan Declares Jihad on Religious Minorities in Syria”, by Lela Gilbert, Newsmax, February 6, 2018:
Turkey’s irascible President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is once again infuriated with a Kurdish group and has dispatched his army into Syria to decimate them.
On January 20, Erdogan launched what Islamists are openly calling a jihad against the Kurdish YPG faction. Thousands of Turkish soldiers, along with tanks and artillery, have blasted their way across the Turkish border into Syria.
With a cynical choice of words, the Turks have code-named their invasion, “Operation Olive Branch.”
Under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey’s military is believed by some to be a threat to Middle East peace. Perhaps more alarming is that Erdogan’s troops also comprise NATO’s second largest army.
Since Operation Olive Branch was launched, Turkish soldiers have been making their way toward Afrin City. But their progress has been slower than expected.
Egypt’s Al-Ahram reported on Feb. 4, “Ankara is heightening the pitch of its chauvinistic rhetoric on Kurdish militias and U.S. policies in northern Syria, but is making painfully meagre progress in its ground offensive….”
Afrin is a canton in Syria’s northwest, populated largely by Kurds. Many in Afrin’s population belong to the YPK, a Kurdish militia that has heroically fought alongside United States forces against the Islamic State/ISIS.
In the complicated Middle East, however, one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist. In Erdogan’s narrow-eyed view, the YPK (and several other Kurdish groups) are terrorists.
So the Kurdish communities in the Afrin region — many of them civilians alongside displaced minority families who fled the Syrian war — are once again literally under the gun.
Since the fighting began on Jan. 20, Turkish fighters have slaughtered over 900 soldiers and civilians, including Christians, Yazidis, and other unarmed civilians.
Many of the displaced people in the region were originally from Aleppo, a city that has historically had a Christian community of about 250,000. Aleppo used to be the largest city in Syria. But with the rise of sectarian violence beginning in 2010, many displaced Christian families were forced to flee to Afrin, Idlib, and other northern safe havens. There they were joined by Yazidis and other minorities.
Tragically, those safe havens are now warzones.
According to UN figures, today 323,000 people are living in Afrin and nearby areas under Kurdish control. Of them, 192,000 are in need of humanitarian aid and 125,000 are what the UN terms “internally displaced persons,” or IDPs, from other parts of Syria.
As this latest fighting began to heat up, Twitter was alight with warnings from church groups in Afrin and nearby communities, pleading for help.
Some refugee parents posted online photos of their children living in tents, entirely unprotected as shells and shrapnel rained down on them. Others were photographed hiding in caves, cringing at the sound of incoming bombs and bullets.
Scores of appeals for help from trapped Christians have been tweeted and retweeted. One message from a local Pastor Hanan pleaded for international intervention and protection.
“As the Good Shepherd Church in Afrin city,” he wrote, “we demand urgent international protection for the believers in Afrin and the cease of this Turkish shelling….”
Pastor Hanan also pointed out the very real danger that the present upheaval may help ISIS or al-Qaida to make a regional comeback.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that foreign fighters are joining the battle against Turkey in support of the YPG.
One volunteer posted online, “We have fought Daesh [ISIS] before in Raqqa, in Deir ez-Zor, and now with the fascist Turkish state that we are fighting here in Afrin.”
Unrepentantly, Erdogan has threated to extend Operation Olive Branch further into Syria, and to remove all “terrorists,” so he can transport some three million refugees, presently sheltering in Turkey, back in to Syria for repatriation.
One Feb. 3 report quotes Erdogan saying that the fighting is about to end. At the same time, Hurriyet, a Turkish news source, reports that the Turkish army is getting close to the Afrin City Center. It also reports that Erdogan’s AKP party is seeking approval from Parliament, “for Turkey’s ongoing military operation into the Syrian district of Afrin.…”
Will Erdogan’s ever-expanding ambitions succeed? Will anyone — NATO, Russia, Iranian, Syrian, or any other force — stand in Erdogan’s way?
The Economist sums up the very volatile situation, and warns the conflict could spiral out of control…..
 
 
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