‘ Geloof het of niet, dit boek zag ik drie weken terug bij een boekenkraam op een markt in * * * * * *.
Ik mocht het voor twee euro meenemen. Dat heb ik gedaan, omdat Erdogan zo mooi op de cover staat en ik een voorgevoel had van “spanningen” tussen de NATO en Turkije. Bovendien: het thema Amerika en bondgenoten, dat belooft altijd bizarre verhalen en smeuïge achterklap.’
- ‘ Vandaar dat Erdogan besloot uit de NAVO te stappen natuurlijk. Die dacht laat ik die scharrelaar waar voor z’n twee euro geven. Als je het wat vindt, wil ik boek t.z.t. graag van je lenen. Inderdaad een mooie foto van Erdogan – in de coulissen met de oude koning van Saudi-Arabië. Goed dat je die pagina’s over Hamas op de site zet. Actueler kan haast niet. Twee euro, pffffffffff ….’
‘Toch? Die bey-effendi Erdogan is de kwaaiste nog niet.’
Citaat uit artikel Jonathan Schanzer (2014): Turkey’s Risky Business with Hamas. (2014, pp. 121-122); in ISBN: 978-0981971278.
% citaat % : During the 1990s, when Hamas carried out a wave of suicide bombings to disrupt the U.S.-brokered peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis, Turkey viewed the group with disdain and hostility. Such was the role of a U.S., NATO and Israeli ally. However, after the collapse of the Oslo peace process in 2000, the political rise in Turkey of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 and Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan in 2003, Turkey’s posture on Hamas has changed. So has its relationship with Israel. Initially, the relationship could be described as less warm. Over time, however, it has become hostile. Today, Erdogan is openly at odds with Israel while Ankara’’s ties to Hamas have grown steadily stronger.
To be sure, the AKP and Hamas share ideological roots. Hamas is a splinter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The AKP, an outgrowth of other Islamist parties that have since been edged out of Turkey (including the National Order Party, the National Salvation Party, the Welfare Party, and the Virtue Party) is today the political party in Turkey with strong political and ideological ties to the global Islamist movement. But Erdogan’s full embrace of Hamas did not come until the group won the Palestinian parliamentary elections of 2006. The U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority refused to allow Hamas to form a government following its electoral victory, and a stalemate ensued until 2007, when Hamas overran the Gaza Strip by force, thereby creating an Islamist mini-state in the coastal enclave. Immediately thereafter, Israel imposed a blockade around the Gaza Strip in an effort to prevent weaponry from entering the coastal enclave. More importantly, Israel and the United States sought to isolate Hamas politically, exhorting the international community to withhold support. The result, in the eyes of Islamists worldwide, was that Hamas won a free and fair election, but was blocked from power because of its Islamist beliefs.
Erdogan, after the imposition of the blockade, dedicated himself to breaking Hamas out of its political and economic isolation. One of his first notable attempts played out on the world stage. The Turkish prime minister lambasted Israeli President Shimon Peres, who won a Nobel Prize for his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians, at a 2009 panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In a heated disagreement over Israel’s Gaza policy, Erdogan shouted, “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill” and promptly stormed off the stage.” % einde citaat % %