The imam in Denmark who will face trial for saying he wants to kill Jews isn’t the only Muslim angry at the Chosen People.
So is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey. Indeed, Erdogan (shown) might be the angriest Turk on Earth, now that Israel has passed a law that says the Jewish state is, well, a state for Jews.
Erdogan, who has promised that Islam will subdue Europe, thinks the new law is Hitleresque, and said so in a speech. Coincidentally, liberals don’t like it, either.
Erdogan vs. Israel
Erdogan’s remarks about the law, which the Knesset passed 62-55 on July 19, were blunt.
Speaking in his country’s parliament, the hot-tempered Turk said the law proves that Israel is “the most Zionist, fascist and racist country in the world.”
And that’s not all. According to Erdogan:
The Jewish Nation-State Law passed in the Israeli parliament shows this country’s real intentions. It legitimizes all unlawful actions and oppression. There is no difference between Hitler’s Aryan race obsession and Israel’s mentality. Hitler’s spirit has re-emerged among administrators in Israel.
The law that sent the Turkish leader into a fury was its nation-state measure that’s been kicking around in the Knesset since 2011. It’s provisions are clear about who’s on top in Israel, and just what it means to live there:
a) Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people in which the state of Israel was established.
b) The state of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, in which it actualizes its natural, religious, and historical right for self-determination.
c) The actualization of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
The law made Hebrew Israel’s official language, while giving Arabic special status. The law also says “the state views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.”
Settlements are a matter of some controversy in Israel, and Arab lawmakers were predictably unenthused. An Arab member “ripped a printed text of the bill to shreds from the podium,” The Times of Israel reported. Said another, “I declare with astonishment and sorrow the death of democracy…. The funeral will take place today in the plenum.”
Liberals outside Israel, including Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, are also upset about the law. “This is a sad and unnecessary day for Israeli democracy,” he said. “The damage that will be done by this new Nation-State law to the legitimacy of the Zionist vision and to the values of the state of Israel as a democratic — and Jewish — nation is enormous.” He added:
There are millions of us who are united in our opposition to this new law and fortified in our determination to continue to fight for an Israel that will be true to its own founding declaration of equality for all within its land, with the freedom to worship and to live with true hope for the future.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who obviously does not agree, was characteristically blunt:
We enshrined in law the basic principle of our existence. Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, that respects the individual rights of all its citizens. This is our state — the Jewish state. In recent years there have been some who have attempted to put this in doubt, to undercut the core of our being. Today we made it law: This is our nation, language and flag.
Erdogan’s Minarets
But back to Erdogan, who is somewhat of a loose cannon even in the Muslim world.
For years, he has been threatening the West. He is a hard-line Muslim who thinks, not without good reason, that Islam will triumph in Europe. “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers,” he once said, quoting an Islamic poem. Such was his radicalism that he landed in jail and was briefly banned from holding political office. Now, he runs Turkey.
A “moderate” version of Islam cannot, he avers, be squared with Islamic teaching. “Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing,” he said in November, criticizing the Saudi crown prince. Apropos of The New American’s story about the imam in Denmark threatening Jews, Turkey is building mosques in Denmark country to Islamize it, the Gatestone Institute reported in November.
Like Moammar Ghadafi, Erdogan sees a high Muslim birth rate as the key to conquering Europe without a shot: “Go live in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the best houses. Make not three, but five children. Because you are the future of Europe. That will be the best response to the injustices against you.”
Shoud the Islamization of Europe become reality, the plight of Jews in Europe (as well as others, including Christians) could become very perilous indeed.
Photo of Recep Tayyip Erdogan: AP Images
