Though many countries protest and condemn the massacre Israel has committed in Gaza, there haven’t been any serious steps taken to stop it. One of the countries that reacted the harshest is Turkey, whose balance in massacres runs higher.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan frequently protests Israel, but is not considered convincing. Erdoğan hides behind the massacres in Algeria when protesting France, which is read as attempts to excuse his own massacres. After Israel killed over 50 Palestinians on Monday, Erdoğan accused Israel of “genocide”. He had had similar reactions before, but he had continued the country’s intense relationship with Israel.
Erdoğan’s latest reaction comes at a time when his country experiences unprecedented fascist oppression that translates into massacres.
Israel has killed 106 Palestinians since late March.A perpetrator of massacre and genocide supporting a victimized people has no moral or humane meaning other than political fodder. The Turkish state has killed over 300 civilians in the invasion attacks they launched on January 20 alone. Dozens among them were children, including several babies.
The Turkish state attacking Rojava is nothing new. Before the invasion, there were already systemmic attacks where hundreds of civilians were killed. Adding to that the civilians murdered by Turkey in Southern and Northern Kurdistan, the balance gets heavier. Hundreds of civilians were ruthlessly murdered in Cizre, Şırnak, Nusaybin and Sur in 2015 and 2016. People were burned alive in basements in Cizre. Some bodies were left to rot on the streets for days, others were kept in home freezers instead of the morgue. Some were hacked and pieces of the bodies were scattered in unknown places. Considering the massacres and genocides implemented by the Turkish state since its founding, Turkish administrations’ words for Gaza mean nothing.
