Gaza: conveniently ignoring the truth

That may well happen.

With Erdogan steering Turkey, the post-Ottoman republic isn’t exactly steaming in the direction that Kemal Ataturk has hoped for: a vibrant secular nation. Since his day, Turkey’s population has ballooned from 14 million to nearly 70 million, with the bulk of the growth in the eastern (agrarian and Islamic) region. The western (notionally secular) part has not kept up the birthrate. The eastern regions never embraced secularism and now with their man in Ankara, they don’t have to.

The biggest mistake the West can make is to mock or belittle Islamic warriors like Erdogan. His intimate relations with the world’s leading scoundrels, including Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir are not reckless adventures. They are strategic and deeply considered. And smart from where he’s sitting.

Mirroring Eastern Europeans states and China, he is convinced that Washington is aping many empires in its decline, and therefore any behaviour of Ankara that Washington doesn’t like will not be responded to with anything stronger than words. America, especially under Barrack Obama, hasn’t the stomach for policing anymore.

After all he reasons: Iran is about to go nuclear and Obama in Washington has refused to wave the big stick at the mullahs. Would Washington really retaliate against a few ships carrying crude missiles?

Turkey’s exhibition of explicit contempt for Jerusalem and implicit contempt for Washington is terrible. But the Turkish Navy possibly challenging Israel in the Mediterranean is nothing short of catastrophic.

It signals that Europe (through Turkey’s membership of NATO) is declaring war on the Jews. And this is the stuff of nightmares.

Just ask the six million.