Turkey scolds Israel after uproar over visit of Hamas chief

[bemildred]

A visit by the exiled political leader of Hamas to the Turkish capital has triggered a new diplomatic rift between U.S. allies Israel and Turkey, two years after the Turkish premier accused Israel of engaging in state terrorism against Palestinians.

Turkey on Friday rejected Israeli criticism of the visit of Khaled Meshal and said an Israeli spokesman's comparison of the Palestinian group to Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey was an "unfortunate statement."

---

Israel and Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim state, have long had strong military ties and important trade links. But relations grew strained in 2004 when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party has its roots in Turkey's Islamic movement, accused Israel of state terrorism in an interview with Haaretz.

Haaretz

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. This is interesting

because Turkey is a secular state. Just recently, a teacher was fired for wearing a headscarf in the street; the reason being that this set a "bad example" for her students. It is illegal in Turkey for women to wear headscarves indoors in public places. So the PM may have ties to Turkey's Islamic movement, but his government is actively suppressing public expression of religion.

I bring that up because it makes the visit of the Hamas leader even more interesting.

[Igel]

2. Turkey's currently in a bit of a bind.

On the one hand, Kemal's legacy is secularism. At the same time, Erdogan's party is pushing for greater Islamization, while still enforcing some nationalistic laws. Some "illicit" restaurants and establishments opposed mostly by stricter Muslims have been shut down with little due process, and for plausibly fictitious grounds. He's playing to his base; his base are believers.

It'll be interesting to see how the common mix of Islam and nationalism plays out there in the next 5-10 years. Since Islam has a theology and unalterable base (the antithesis, so to speak, given Turkey's recent history), while the thesis has a much weaker base, the synthesis will easily be treated as a new thesis, and subjected to the same antithesis, over and over.