TURKISH PAPER CLOSE TO ERDOGAN CALLS FOR "OIC ARMY OF ISLAM" ATTACK
AGAINST ISRAEL
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
The Turkish daily newspaper Yeni Şafak, which is said to be close to Islamic supremacist despot President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AKP party, published an article titled “A Call for Urgent Action.” The article called on Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states “to form a joint ‘Army of Islam’ to besiege and attack the state of Israel.” The article included a strategic plan with an interactive map and hailed Pakistan, “the only nuclear country,” saying that it has “‘a special status’ among the OIC countries.”
Given the direction of Erdogan — who has repeatedly expressed ambitions for a revived Ottoman Empire — this jihadi “call for urgent action” against Israel is troubling.
After the 2016 Turkish coup attempt, a Fox report noted that a virulent form of anti-Semitism had become “a feature, not a bug” in Turkey, and that even the “Gülen boogeyman meme takes on shades of ‘must be the Jews’ as well. Pro-Erdogan media have claimed that exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen must have Jewish lineage, thereby putting Jews at the center of the supposed coup plot.”
Israeli Muslim politician Taleb Abu Arar also accused Israel of supporting the coup in Turkey.
Also, not long ago, 90,000 mosques invokec Qur’anic “conquest” prayers calling on Muslims to be “ruthless against unbelievers,” right before Erdogan’s troops were deployed against the Kurds.
“Turkish Newspaper Close To President Erdogan Calls To Form Joint Islamic Army To Fight Israel”, Memri, March 7, 2018:
Introduction: On December 12, 2017, ahead of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, the Turkish daily Yeni Şafak, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party, published an article titled “A Call for Urgent Action,”[1] which also appeared on the paper’s website under the title “What If an Army of Islam Was Formed against Israel?”[2] The article called on the 57 member states of the OIC to form a joint “Army of Islam” to besiege and attack the state of Israel. It notes that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and presents statistics to prove this. It also advocates establishing joint bases for the army’s ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear country, has “a special status” among the OIC countries. An interactive map provides information on military forces stationed in various locations and the role they can play in the potential joint Muslim attack on Israel.
The Source Of The Yeni Şafak Article: The SADAT Company Website
The main points of the article are taken from the website of the Turkish SADAT International Defense and Consulting Company, which provides consultancy on defense and warfare, both conventional and unconventional, and on military organization, training and gear. The company has an agenda of promoting pan-Islamic military cooperation. According to its mission statement, it seeks “to establish defense collaboration and defense industry cooperation among Islamic countries, to help the Islamic world take its rightful place among the superpowers by providing… strategic consultancy and training services to the militaries and homeland security forces of Islamic countries.”[3]
According to Israeli security sources, the SADAT company is involved in aiding Hamas, and seeks to assist – with funds and military gear – the creation of a “Palestine Army” to fight Israel.[4]
SADAT Founder Adnan Tanrıverdi
The SADAT company was founded by Erdoğan’s senior advisor on military affairs, retired general Adnan Tanrıverdi, and is chaired by his son, Melih Tanrıverdi. Adnan Tanrıverdi (b. 1944) served in the Turkish army’s Artillery Corps and headed the Home Front Command in northern Cyprus. He is an expert on assymetric warfare, and was dismissed from the Turkish military in 1996 for his Islamists leadnings. A former Turkish army officer, Ahmet Yavuz, described him as “an enemy of Atatürk” and stated that his dismissal from the army was not surprising…..
