Kenan Camurcu

One should feel ashamed to criticize leftists regarding Palestine. Despite their misguided intentions, they felt a sense of responsibility for the "Palestinian cause" and journeyed there. This was fifty, sixty years ago, amidst insurmountable difficulties, tremendous hardship, great sacrifice, and courage. Some even lost their lives. May their memories endure. Şahin (Alpay) recounted that now-historic adventure to Ruşen Çakır, coinciding with his newly published book. I had also heard it directly from him in a conversation with his comrade, Cengiz Çandar.

It was wrong for leftists to fight in "Palestine" at the cost of their lives, because while Arafat, the inventor of the "Palestinian nation," filled his pockets with the donations, funds from Arab states, and illicit, murky, and dark money sources that began to flow thanks to this invention, they sacrificed their lives for nothing. When Arafat died, he had a fortune of $1.3 billion, comparable to his latter-day successors Haniyeh and Meshaal. This is what's known. The exact figure, factoring in secret partnerships and investments, remains unclear. The whereabouts and ownership of the money are also unknown. The young leftists who died for the Palestinian cause, however, never even had the chance to start their lives. Yet, at that time, the very fundamentalists who should have bowed in respect and appreciated their sacrifice were calling them "anarchists." This was the equivalent of today's "terrorist" designation. An ignorant insult from an era when the mire of anti-communism smeared every token of truth and honesty. Conservatism (fundamentalism, political piety, Islamism) continues to perpetuate the same evils with the same sentiments and animosity.

The "Palestinian cause" as embraced by Islam is, quite literally, the Palestine industry. It's a toxic market for antisemitic pus. There's a profound hypocrisy in speaking of loyalty to truth yet refusing to examine it. Yet, two fundamental principles are inscribed in the holy book they hold: you shall uphold justice, truth, and righteousness even against yourself (Quran 4:135), and even if you harbor hatred for a people due to unhealthy sentiments, you shall not deviate from justice, righteousness, and truth (Quran 5:8). They disregard both principles. They have no relation, near or far, to truth. Nor do they care to know it. Because Islam, for them, is a low-level political identity that requires no moral obligation, human sensibility, or spiritual perfection. It's the ideological inheritance of those at the level of participants in Pax-Arabiana, those whose request to be elevated to the rank of believers was rejected in the Quran (49:14); it's an outer circle, periphery, shell, a suburban understanding.

In Turkey, for all Muslim sects, orders, and groups, Palestine is not about Palestine. If it were, instead of shouting in Turkish cities and harassing and intimidating women and children in cafes, they would have rushed en masse to confront and settle accounts, especially now that Syria has been conquered and Israeli soldiers are on Syrian soil. Not a single person dared to confront an Israeli soldier. This is the normal behavior of a mindset that considers the Qassam brigades' tactic of hiding among women, children, and elderly civilians and fighting from behind them to be strategic genius. If they succeed in ambushes in settlements, it's a heroic ballad; if they fail, it's a tearful lament about Israel killing civilians.

Hypocrisy is the Religion of the Middle East

The Muslims' Palestine isn't over there; it's here. Their Palestine consists of the political opponents, the "others," and the different segments of thought and belief here. They are very aggressive when it comes to state-guaranteed struggles against easy targets. The "Palestinian cause" is merely a backdrop used to settle scores with everyone who thinks, believes, and lives differently from them. Lest it be misunderstood that they are engaged in some political endeavor, good or bad, out of political and ideological concerns, the issue always boils down to power and wealth. They spend their lives pursuing a base, worthless, and ignoble ambition.

And what about the campaigns to boycott goods produced by Jews? They're a full-blown festival. This happens even though almost all of the aid that Gazans consume with relish consists of the boycotted Israeli brands. Even the fact that Yahya Sinwar, when he died alone in a ruined building with no Qassam fighters beside him, after leaving behind his wife with a $32,000 Hermes Birkin bag on her arm in that chaos, was found with an Israeli-made Mentos in his pocket didn't shake the boycotters from their convictions. Their eyes are that closed, their ears that deaf, their consciousness that paralyzed.

Maneuvers to dismiss these statements with cries of "Islamophobia," "hatred," etc., won't work on us. We'll say it plainly: In the Middle East, propaganda is paramount. Reality interests no one. As Professor Ahmet Arslan starkly recounted from Murathan Mungan, the religion of the Middle East is hypocrisy.

As proof of the pervasive influence of hypocrisy and duplicity: if the concern for the carnage in Gaza is a matter of humanity and has no political side, then shouldn't we have heard a word, a reaction, an expression of anguish from the state and civil society regarding the simultaneous massacre carried out by Hamas-allied Janjaweed in Darfur? Yet, during the Gaza war, Islamist militants massacred 773 civilians in a single day ([şüpheli bağlantı kaldırıldı]). Hamas's Qassam inflicted the same number of casualties in Israel in one day as Netanyahu caused in Gaza in ten days of military operations, but not a single branch of Islam even expressed displeasure. If Qassam had as much power as Israel, it would have annihilated all the people in Israel in one day.

Given the clarity of these facts, we can comfortably say that the issue is not Islamophobia at all.

Moreover, what Muslims call "Islamophobia" is the Western reaction to Islam-centric sociopathy. What's wrong with the West, which has achieved its current level of development through four centuries of great effort and countless hardships in thought, politics, science, and technology, reacting to Muslims who, having done nothing during this period, now flock to the West seeking asylum and, despite being accepted, engage in disruptive acts, vandalism, and violence? The real question to be asked is why Muslims cannot adapt to the developed countries and societies they seek refuge in, why they cause problems, and why they disturb the peace.

Are the cries of "After Palestine, it's the West's turn," rising from all quarters, isolated and insignificant? Westerners don't think so, and they are right. A respected Mullah enthusiastically declares: "From the river to the sea, Palestine is Islamic and must be reclaimed. But that's not enough. Spain is also Islamic, and once we reclaim it, Rome is next, to be conquered like Constantinople. Muslims will bring the whole world to its knees". So, their concern is not the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza.

Indeed, in the Muslim quarter of the Middle East, life is a lie. Propaganda is everything, truth is nothing. In 2003, when American armored units entered Baghdad, Saddam's Minister of Information, Said al-Sahhaf, nicknamed "Baghdad Bob" by Americans, was passionately explaining the army's glorious resistance and claiming victory to cameras in a city neighborhood, accompanied by fervent slogans. Yet, Saddam's army, which hadn't hesitated to massacre defenseless Kurds and Shias, vanished without a trace during the American occupation. When the occupation settled, Al-Qaeda, reincarnated, began blowing up defenseless people at weddings, funerals, and communal prayers in mosques.

Hamas and Hezbollah Are Both Finished

At the end of conservative politician Netanyahu's 471-day military campaign that leveled Gaza, with most of Hamas's senior field commanders and militants killed, the remaining Qatar cadres began a propaganda campaign claiming victory against Israel, which accepted a hostage-prisoner exchange. All participants in the Palestine industry, with their trolls and real individuals, joined the frenzy. Qassam Brigades costumes, manufactured in Qatar and brought into Rafah via UN-monitored aid trucks, were put on children, adults, and anyone they found in the camps, forming a demonstration unit. They then brought out Israeli hostages held in places like UN buildings, humanitarian aid organizations, and Red Cross stations for the exchange. Accusing the Red Cross of serving merely as an "Uber" service for Qassam in transporting Israeli hostages might be overly optimistic. For now, let's be sure that we will learn the truth in due course.

There are foreign policy commentators eager to prove that Hamas is not yet finished, citing the hostage-prisoner exchange sequence as evidence. Let's remind them that nothing substantial remains of Hamas, and what does exist is merely a green-screen effect in a Qatar-sponsored studio, by recalling that Sinwar, the sole central figure in the organization who distributed salaries to Qassam militants by hand, died alone in a ruined building.

The same applies to Hezbollah. To speak of the organization's existence, given that it couldn't even give its leader a proper funeral or a decent grave, and it's doubtful they even recovered his body from the building rubble, is overly imaginative. Though he hastily tried to extricate himself by declaring that Hezbollah would continue without its leader, the reluctant organizational leader Naim Qassem, unable to resist Tehran's pressure, couldn't even stay in Lebanon after the new leader was killed within hours of Nasrallah's death. He doesn't feel safe in Tehran either, acting as a schematic leader of an invisible organization, hidden and on the run. In Dahiya, Hezbollah's stronghold, Nasrallah's photos and Hezbollah flags are gone from the streets. This oldest historical center of Shiism has become deserted, and the Shia population has emptied out. Migrating families couldn't find shelter, and no political group or social segment wanted to host them. These are the realities that those who speak of Hezbollah's great importance for Lebanon refuse to see. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, Hezbollah, which only received 19% of the Shia community's votes, suddenly found itself in a state of non-existence. In early December 2024, Naim Qassem announced that Tehran had sent nearly $77 million to 233,500 families who were left homeless and on the streets. It's unclear whether the money reached the families.

After the December 2024 coup in Syria, Tehran tested sending money to its Lebanese supporters via a private airline, where communication had completely broken down. But this time, the entire plane, even diplomatic cargo, was meticulously searched at Beirut Airport, where Hezbollah members used to be assigned to critical and sensitive posts.

A note for foreign policy enthusiasts: Objective, capable observers, setting aside propaganda and wishful thinking, can see that the balances, dynamics, and equations of the new Middle East are now vastly different from before.

To speak of victory against Israel after Hamas leaders were killed and the organization decimated in the campaign that flattened Gaza is, of course, a pathological reflex, but this is the norm in the Middle East. Although it's undoubtedly a defeat for conservative politician Netanyahu, who couldn't rescue the Israeli hostages, crediting this to Hamas is peculiar to the universe of the ignorant who can't do their sums.

On the day of the "prisoner exchange," the Hamas show had only one goal: to prove that they would be a recognized actor after the war. This was to prevent "adventures" such as going back to square one with Fatah and organizing elections in Gaza. It's doubtful the plan will work. Because Trump, who supports the ceasefire, openly stated on his inauguration day that he had no hope for a ceasefire. This was even at the very beginning of the ceasefire. All solution partners, especially Qatar, must take this statement's message. It appears that Hamas, which plunged Gaza into darkness through suicide attacks called "intifada" after Israel built an international airport and opened it to the world in 1998, will be stripped of its right to exist. Hamas members are likely working on scenarios to disband the organization and establish new organizations or parties under different names. The new organizations and parties will be forced to abandon armed activities for good.

Hostage Certificates for Israelis

The first three Israeli women hostages released were given certificates resembling graduation diplomas. This was perhaps to ensure they wouldn't forget their captivity, as the document contained detailed information about their abduction. A memorable photo with the Qassam members who dragged them away as hostages and a map of a cleansed Palestine were included in the bag. This is the "gift package" that Islamists referred to. It could be the intelligence of evil at a level that would make Mengele, Auschwitz's torture expert, envious, or it could be the zeal of proselytization at the level of idiocy. Still, at the margins, it's surreal, overly deranged, highly absurd, and even comical. But facing them is a feminine intelligence, raised in a "never again" culture, always vigilant against physical and psychological annihilation schemes. Emily Damari responded to them with the phantom of her middle finger, severed while trying to protect her child when her captors fired at her dog during the October 7 home invasion.

On this occasion, let us sadly remember Choocha, Emily's dog, brutally massacred by the Qassam members. All branches of the Muslim identity, radical and moderate alike, have already chosen to behave as foreign and malignant neoplasms towards nature. But they especially hate dogs. One reason for this must be that, similar to the Iranian regime's pathological reaction, they view adopting stray dogs as a symbol of the Western lifestyle. There are, of course, other reasons and ominous plans. I had explained this issue extensively in my article, "Islam, the Religion of Nature, and Its Nature-Hating Muslims".

Permanent Peace is Impossible

Let's not vainly expect the current ceasefire to lead to an honorable peace where Gazans and Israelis accept each other and respect each other's right to exist. From the very first day the weapons fell silent, Hamas members began declaring their preparation for new October 7s and Al-Aqsa Floods. They become ecstatic with rhetoric of annihilating and ethnically cleansing Jews and erasing Israel from the map. In contrast, the majority in Israel are in favor of peace. Only a minority of radicals speak of absurd plans like depopulating Gaza and opening it to Jewish settlement for security. They can simply be ignored. But 75% of the Arabized local population in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) do not give up their antisemitic sentiments and their desire to drive the Jews into the sea.

However, it's also a fact that a significant portion of these people have no choice but to be around Hamas. They are forced to do so to access aid, funds, and financial support, and even for a meager living. After a while, they lose the ability to think about what's happening and internalize it. There was a woman who, putting her hand on her heart and looking Erdoğan in the eye, said in the style of a Diyanet preacher, "My Lord, take from my life and give to him." She was later seen, apparently not having found what she hoped for, demanding accountability in a union press statement, crying "we can't make ends meet." That's how it is. If someone says the strangest thing to the camera, they do whatever they do hoping to receive an award for that strangeness. What's happening in Gaza is no different.

Hamas-aligned Gazans now daily declare in profusely cursing social media messages that they will not stop until they destroy Israel, meaning the Jews. Against this goal of annihilation stands Israel, which, after the Nazi Holocaust, said "never again." They also plainly state that they will not stop fighting against the goal of annihilation. The words of Golda Meir, the famous prime minister during the war-torn years until 1974, are currently popular: "If we have to choose between being dead and pitiable and living with a bad image, we prefer to survive and have a bad image." In the current equation, therefore, there is no solution to this issue.

What Does Hamas's Exchange List Prove?

The list provided by Hamas in the hostage-prisoner exchange agreement is proof that the longing for new Auschwitzes, scattered across social media messages, is not mere troll nonsense. For example, one of the prisoners Hamas demanded for exchange is Arafat Irfaiya, who attacked, raped, and decapitated Ori Ansbacher, a 19-year-old girl reading a book in a park on October 7. This savage will be released in exchange for Kfir, who was taken hostage by Qassam at nine months old. His family was killed. It is unknown if the child is alive. Islamists in Turkey shamelessly call nine-month-old Kfir an "Israeli prisoner." They even compared Hamas, a morally bankrupt organization that took a nine-month-old baby hostage, calling him a "prisoner of war," to the Kuvayi Milliye (Turkish National Forces). The only example resembling Hamas is conservatism, which, like the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), has no sacred values and considers everything permissible for power and wealth. It is a terrible historical phenomenon.

If Netanyahu's operations against armed and fighting Qassam members, which also result in the deaths of civilians among whom they hide, are war crimes, then what would you call Hamas's deliberate and direct targeting of everyone at a concert in Israel, elderly, women, children, civilians, dogs, and trees in settlements, and their nihilistic destruction of everything in their path?

In the Palestine industry, there is a concept of the "acceptable victim." Anyone who approves of everything Hamas and Qassam do is called a victim. However, if one objects to the deaths of children that occur when Qassam members hide among civilians and Israel returns fire, they are not considered victims. For instance, the elderly Gazan who said, "Why does the resistance [Hamas] hide among the people? Let them go hide in hell," and whose microphone was immediately cut off by Al Jazeera (https://x.xcom/YosephHaddad/status/1724840159726686274), does not fall into the victim category.

While condemning the carnage and destruction in Gaza is the voice of conscience, what is it of conscience to remain silent about Hamas's horrifying carnage and destruction on October 7, which is overlooked and excused simply because fewer people were killed? Why did the massacre committed by Qassam members in Israeli border settlements not stir a leaf in the conscience of Muslims? I tried to explain some answers to this question as best as I could in my article titled "Why Did the Events of October 7 Fail to Create a Moral Crisis in the Muslim Conscience?"

A truly powerful applause for this injustice and cruelty!

Fighting Against the Right to Exist of Jewish Ethno-Theological Identity

There isn't a single Islamist who has remained outside the pot of producing disturbing excuses and justifications for Qassam's October 7 massacre, which was focused on making the death toll a tragedy of the century, a historical record. For example, Ahmet Davutoğlu, who, as a former prime minister, would be expected to be serious, empathetic, diplomatic, and constructive, could say that those massacred at the concert couldn't find another place to hold a concert.

The observation made by the renowned philosopher Abdulkarim Soroush, who was forced to emigrate from Iran after the regime's militia gangs began attempting to kill him everywhere, is exceedingly illuminating: "Thank God modern technology did not fall into the hands of Muslims, so evils like the two world wars, the atomic bomb, and the Jewish Holocaust were not committed by us. If we had been capable, we would have done worse."

Qassam's murders are, of course, symmetrical to the carnage and destruction carried out by Netanyahu under the guise of "fighting terrorism." But there is a qualitative difference. Hamas and its supporters are fighting against the right to exist of Jewish ethno-theological identity. Attempting to base the idea of erasing Israel from the map on a political foundation would, therefore, be a justification check for a grave moral disgrace. This is simply an antisemitic and genocidal aim.

Hamas members and their supporters from various countries use the term "genocide" casually, for propaganda purposes. However, genocide is a legal definition, though its moral aspect is dominant. Therefore, using this term as an insult disrespects the memory of the historical tragedy that led to the concept's emergence. For this reason, a young man who posts "I survived the Israeli genocide" on social media, tea in hand, impeccably dressed, sprawled on a sofa with a joyful smile on his face, deserves to be reminded by his grandson of his grandfather, who, when he survived the Holocaust, had his head shaved, weighed under 40 kilograms, and could barely stand.

Netanyahu's plan to conquer Gaza may have been taught by Sultan Selim, nicknamed "the Stern." Historical records show that Selim massacred over 6,000 people, almost a third of the population, when he invaded Gaza. Neo-Ottoman circles praise Selim's massacre while condemning Netanyahu. What are the objective criteria for finding one sacred, legitimate, and just, and the other tyrannical?

Nevertheless, it is, of course, inhumane to accept with understanding the disaster of conservative Netanyahu's massive carnage in Gaza, pressured by his ultra-conservative coalition partners. However, it is absurd to speak of genocide for Israel with the definition of aiming to annihilate a generation by targeting ethnic and religious identity. There is an Arab Muslim member of the Supreme Court in Israel, where the Jewish population is the majority (Khaled Kabub). Druze, Muslims, and Christians can serve at all levels in the army, police, and bureaucracy without discrimination. But in Gaza, ruled by Hamas, not only ethnic and religious diversity but also political views other than Hamasism are not allowed to exist. After Hamas secured a majority in parliament with 44% of the votes in the January 2006 elections, it staged an armed coup against Fatah and other opposition parties a year later and seized control, and has not held elections for 17 years. Those who questioned the fate of the money flowing into Gaza, and even every dissenting and opposition voice, were declared traitors and often executed without trial. Their bodies were left in the middle of the street with a "traitor" sign around their necks or dragged through the streets tied to the back of a motorcycle as a deterrent ([şüpheli bağlantı kaldırıldı]).

Gaza falling back into Hamas's hands means a return to this situation.

Is there anyone who knows, hears, or reacts to the fact that Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 17 years without holding elections, forced the village of Umm Nasir in the north to evacuate for use in attacks on Israel, brutally beat those who resisted the village evacuation attack, and even caused deaths during the events? No, because Islam is no longer a moral principle; it's tribal fanaticism.

The real problem is Hamas's autocratic regime, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 through a coup and separated Gaza from the West Bank. Since they have embraced the name "Palestine" given by the Romans, let's make the judgment using that name: The problem of the Palestinians is Hamas.

In Israel, on the other hand, there is an enviable democracy, with a judiciary that can summon the victorious Netanyahu, who has eliminated Hamas and Hezbollah, for questioning mid-war over a corruption file. Is there a court in Iran that can summon Khamenei for questioning? In Turkey, Erdoğan? Is there law, democracy, and justice in Gaza that guarantees the right to speak out against Hamas? In Israel, almost half of society can describe Netanyahu's Gaza operation as a "massacre," and not a single person is prosecuted, while in Turkey, investigations were launched against those who called two people killed during a military operation near Syria's Tishrin Dam "journalists" in news reports, on charges of "praising terrorism." Some were arrested.

Social Standing in the Palestine Industry

What concern could today's Iran have with Israel, despite its proud historical legacy of rescuing Jews from the Great Babylonian exile and returning them to their homeland? Why did it undertake the task of fighting Israel? I had written the answer : It was to generate the energy that would allow the radical Shiism represented by Khamenei to increase its influence among Sunni groups and spread among Shiite groups, a retouched political aim of Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 death fatwa against Salman Rushdie to "unite the ummah."

Qassem Soleimani also developed a military doctrine that if "resistance axis" organizations were not supported, bombs would explode in Tehran. The expression is undoubtedly crude and inappropriate, but Soleimani lacked the staff capability to conceive of such a thing. His Persian was not good enough to convey his meaning anyway. After his death, his will was published in the Sepah media. In many places, sentences were completed in parentheses, and the text had been edited.

From the Prophet, who stood up when the funeral procession of a Jewish man from Medina passed by, and when told "But he is a Jew," replied "Is he not a human being?" (Muslim 961), and even stood until the funeral procession was out of sight (Nasa'i 1927), to Khamenei, who fires missiles at Jerusalem and other cities without distinguishing between guilty and innocent, and without regard for children, the deviation angle in Iran is immeasurable. The corruption and decay are enormous. The supposed justification that allows all these evils to be seen as legitimate in the Palestine industry is that Netanyahu does the same things to Gazans. That is, in the eyes of Muslims, there is no longer good and bad, right and wrong. They deem it acceptable, legitimate, and permissible to retaliate in kind for what their adversary has done. Is this the Islam that has something to say to humanity, which is weary of this lack of principle and seeks morality? What is humanity to do with such a religion that is no different from other understandings and perspectives?

Israel's immense, excessive, and destructive reaction to the October 7 attack, which had Tehran's full support (Khamenei's statement in the first hours that "we have nothing to do with it" was proof of high-level involvement), is explained by the American assessment of the 9/11 attacks: When Al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole destroyer in the Gulf of Aden in 2000, killing 39 American soldiers, the necessary harsh reaction was not given, so a year later, they attacked the heart of New York, killing 2,900 people. The Yemen attack was a reaction test for the 9/11 attacks. Tel Aviv is believed to have learned from this experience and prevented and deterred subsequent attacks with the highest possible level of reaction.

It's clear that Tehran, whose mind remained fixated on Israel's failure in the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah, made a sharp U-turn after understanding the seriousness of the situation during the Gaza and Lebanon operations.

Tehran is currently in a panic, focused on damage control. The President, Pezeshkian, who is a dissident and reformer of His Majesty, is busy revamping the regime's image. His advisor, Javad Zarif, asserted at Davos that Iran poses no security threat to any country. Khamenei has also been particularly careful for some time to ensure that the Quds Force's name and presence are not visible. Ismail Qaani has disappeared. So has the head of the Basij, Mohammad Reza Naqdi. Khamenei seems to have learned the necessary lesson from Putin's speed in abandoning Assad. He has removed radicals who heightened enmity with fiery shouts from the stage and introduced moderate figures like his chief advisor Larijani into the game. Larijani is now repeating a line that will apparently continue until it convinces Westerners: "We had no news until October 7"

He even went further, stating: "We didn't establish the resistance axis organizations. There was a reason for their emergence in the region, and Iran supported them". Of course, this is not true. It was Tehran that established Hezbollah in 1982 with militants who broke away from Amal, and it was Tehran that established the Hashd al-Sha'abi and various other nominal organizations like Kata'ib Hezbollah in Iraq under the pretext of ISIS. It was Tehran that turned the Houthis in Yemen into missile launchers against Israel for the Quds Force and engaged in piracy activities in the Gulf of Aden to regulate oil prices. The money spent by Khamenei's "resistance axis" office on these ventures is immeasurable. These extravagant expenditures, while the public grapples with economic hardships, coupled with mandatory head covering and other primitive impositions, have led to 85% of Iranians rejecting the regime, according to public opinion polls. Election participation, which used to be over 80% in previous years, has fallen to below 40%, a level that undermines legitimacy.

Given this situation, individual efforts at purification, signaling a break from the regime's supporting column, are appearing from all sides. Ahmadinejad, who denied the Holocaust and promised to erase Israel from the map during his presidency, after being made the scapegoat for all crimes by the absolute-powered radical/extremist Shia, told an Israeli newspaper, "They are anti-Semitic, I am not".

Iranian society is educated and highly cultured. Perhaps the only place where the Palestine industry doesn't work is Iran. It's the country where "Text Gaza... send" campaigns are never even looked at. Because multi-faceted questioning and resilient reasoning are always awake there. Iranians are at a level far ahead, incomparable to the majority of the population in Turkey, who are far from the age of reason to ask simple questions. The genealogical rottenness that enables sociological support for the current autocracy in Turkey does not exist in Iran.

An autocracy or dictatorship can exist somewhere and hold power for a time through tyranny. But in a society that hasn't put its mind on vacation, it will find no supporters and will inevitably be overthrown. As an exception, in the example of the academic, intellectual, and social support Hitler found, the German spirit, the existential crisis in Europe, and the search for an exit played effective roles. This was the motive that led Heidegger, the standard-bearer of techno-scientific positivism, who advocated the superiority of ontological meaning against communism, to offer his support. But, for instance, in the revolutions in Latin America, experienced with highly romantic and lyrical struggles, crude dictatorships were utterly alone. The same was true in the glorious Iranian revolution of 1979. With its superior qualities in thought and art, Iran's current regime is also completely alone against its people.

There's no need to talk at length about Turkey. This society expressed its antisemitism very clearly and explicitly on September 6-7, 1955. There is ample potential to do the same again. The late Professor Teoman Duralı measured the society's karat: "I will say something very difficult and heavy. Just like individuals, nations also have propensities. We have no propensity for philosophy. More or less, zero for zero. I wrote all my works in Turkish. It would have been better if I had buried them. They have had no effect, no result, and will have none."

The mental schema that Professor Duralı so melancholically described is, for the last two decades, an ordinary state of affairs for the Palestine industry to thrive most prominently in Turkey, precisely because this schema's political reflection has been encouraged by a powerful government. One must not overlook the efforts of the "IBAN merchants," focused on their share of the spoils, to render truth invisible. These fundraisers do not transparently explain the details of how donations are delivered to Gaza. Yet, no one asks even one of the dozens of questions that come to mind regarding how their donations, whether in cash or transformed into other necessities, are delivered to Gaza under these circumstances. It should therefore come as no surprise how Meshaal or Haniyeh have so many millions of dollars in Qatari banks.

A new dynamic entering the Palestine issue is the reflex of secular Turkism. It reacts strongly to Arab Palestine and questions why we should have a problem with Israel. In the 1970s, because the Palestine issue was of interest to "communists," the Ülkücü (Nationalist Movement Party) circles kept their distance, though they were against Israel due to antisemitic sensibilities in their doctrine. The current generation of Turkists, however, being distant from Palestine due to ethnic sensibilities, has been purged of antisemitic sentiment. It's an interesting and different equation.

The False Narratives of the Palestine Industry

The Palestine industry is replete with abundant lies, falsehoods, fabricated narratives, and clichés. All of its slogans are of this nature.

For instance, the slogan "occupying Zionist regime" is actually an abusive phrase. These words are strung together not to express truth but for insult and accusation. Is it that "Kızıl Elma" (Red Apple), signifying the longing for ethnic unity here, is sacred, but "Zion," a symbol of return to homeland there, is a crime?

Anti-Zionism (opposition to territorial Israeli nationalism and cultural ethno-symbolism) is in reality a mask used to conceal hostility towards Semitic origins. Roger Waters, a member of Pink Floyd, is one of those who feel no need to hide, with his insult "The Star of David is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life." Muslims eagerly applauded this insult to a prophetic symbol known in their own religious tradition as the "Seal of Solomon," extensively engraved in historical religious and civil structures, thus joining the antisemitic delusion.

Those who find fault with the Zionist dream, which refers to the Jews' return to their 5,000-year-old homeland of Israel, use the Turkish version of the same fantasy, "Kızıl Elma," everywhere. They call the bordering territories of Greece "Western Thrace" and a part of China's territory "East Turkestan." Yet, just as they raise hell when Kurds call the land they have lived on for 3,000 years "Kurdistan," they also do not deem their homeland Israel suitable for Jews. Muslims may not find a contradiction or oddity in their closed world. But they cannot expect this schizophrenic obsession to be considered normal in the civilized world.

The plain truth is this: There was never a country called Palestine in history, nor a state. That region was ancient and venerable Judea. While it was a Roman province, due to freedom uprisings, the Romans, as punishment for the Jews, changed the country's name to "Palestine." Its full name was "Syria Palaestina." This was the inspiration for the Muslim conquerors' designation "Bilad al-Sham" (Lands of Syria).

The Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, appointed by the British, belonging to the same political tradition, expected a repetition of the Roman treatment of Jews from the British Mandate. He strove persistently. It didn't happen; he failed. Failing to get what he hoped for, he appealed to Hitler, who claimed succession to Rome. For this, he even formed a Nazi brigade from Muslims. Himmler, the head of the SS, celebrated their joint struggle against their common enemy, the Jews, in letters he sent to Husseini. Husseini, in turn, expressed his respect to the Führer, writing that the war against the common enemy, the Jews and communism, would surely be won, and therefore, he would cooperate with Germany with all his heart.

Arafat's secular Fatah movement and its religiousized form, Hamas, dedicated themselves to the ideologization of lawless warfare within this antisemitic channel. In Turkey, mass religious sensibility has always been nourished by anti-communism and anti-Jewish sentiment. However, Fatah, adhering to the temporary preference for Arab nationalism rather than the West, aligned itself with the USSR, and thus remained indifferent to the "Palestinian cause" for a long time. In the Hamas years, when anti-Jewish sentiment was legitimized by Islamic narratives, it adapted without difficulty. It was Khamenei who transferred this vein to Iran, both for practical reasons related to gaining acceptance within the Sunni majority and for ideological reasons rooted in hatred of Jews.

We can also use "Philistinism" from political lexicon to define antisemitic hatred and opposition. Philistinism means narrow-mindedness, coarseness, and lack of aesthetic appreciation. The Romans' naming of Judea as Palestine as punishment for the Jewish freedom uprisings stems from their characterization of the local population, excluding Jews, as crude and uncouth, and from their appropriation of Jewish land for this people. The "Palestinian cause" has no other historical basis. The "Palestinian cause," invented by Arafat with fabricated history and scenarios, subsequently became religiousized and acquired a jihadist identity, and that's all there is to it.

The militants who shamelessly display shattered child bodies in front of cameras in Gaza, or the doctors who gather corpses and hold press conferences from a podium placed among them, are the storefront face of that Philistinism, that coarseness. None of what is done is in accordance with Islamic etiquette, but they don't care whether it is or not. As long as it serves anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment, and as long as global financial and political support for expelling Jews from their homeland and ethnic cleansing is not lacking.

ISIS had no vision for the future. It was merely the representative within Islam of the doctrine of forcing God to bring about the apocalypse. The sole purpose of the brutality and terror it displayed was to ignite an all-out war that would hasten the end times. Hamas, a member of the ISIS culture, acted as a believer in the same doctrine on October 7, with full support from Tehran, provoking Netanyahu and right-wing radicalism into a destructive attack. It succeeded. However, like ISIS, Hamas did not achieve the desired outcome. The Al-Aqsa Flood of October 7 failed to trigger a war that would erase Israel from the map and lead to the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

If the Issue Is Who Shed the First Blood

The most famous cliché in the Hamas support stands is "the occupation in Palestine continuing since 1948." There's also the claim that the massive carnage in Netanyahu's current military campaign has been ongoing for 70 years.

Of course, it's not true. According to historical records, the organizations of the Islamized and Arabized population were the ones who initiated terror attacks against local Jews and European immigrants in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria (West Bank). As early as 1929, Muslims raided Jewish settlements in the Hebron (al-Khalil) massacre and killed children. Assessments have been written linking the Hebron Massacre to the historical roots of the October 7 attack. If the issue is who shed the first blood, the undisputed perpetrators are the Gazans, the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. The organization of Jews to retaliate against these attacks and their subsequent loss of control is a later matter.

The Islam-centric perspective is indifferent to and even disregards what others think and feel; it lacks empathy, and is even sociopathic. When Muslims conquer a country and dominate society, it is called "conquest" and the occupation becomes sacred. When others do the same thing, it is considered illegitimate, inhumane, and imperialism. In the case of Spain, when Muslims occupied another country and then that country's people became strong and took their homeland back from the Muslims, this almost goes so far as to view the original owner of the land as an occupier and invader. Among Muslims, there is still the dream of reconquering Spain, that is, occupying and invading it to bring back Al-Andalus.

Starting from 1948 until 1974, all wars were initiated by Arab states in the region and Arab organizations in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria with the goal of erasing Israel from the map, and despite losing all of them, why are the lands they lost considered "occupied"? Why is the right of the sword, which is considered legitimate for Muslims, not legitimate for Israel?

Everyone knows the famous fabricated map circulating from hand to hand that shows all of present-day Israel as Palestine before 1948. According to the fabricated map, after the 1967 war, Israel grows even larger and Palestine shrinks, and so on. It is possible to determine with basic historical knowledge that this scenario is not true. In reality, the first frame of that map should show all of Judea under British Mandate. Arabs lost land after every war they started for ethnic cleansing of Jews, leading to the current map. In fact, Israel, as the winning side of all wars initiated by Arab attacks, did not exercise its right to seize all territories; after the 1967 war, it complied with UN Security Council Resolution 242 and returned the territories it held.

The formation of the two-state solution envisioned in the UN's 1947 plan, which allocated 55% to Arabs and 45% to Jews during the British Mandate, became null and void at the end of the 1948 war, which was initiated with the aim of annihilating the Jews. Although the Palestinian National Liberation Movement's 1968 Al-Mithaq Al-Watani considered the Arab-Jewish Palestine country during the British Mandate as the state boundary, since this meant ethnic cleansing for the Jews, the Arabs accepted the regional administration plan in the West Bank and Gaza in the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords.

These topics are covered in detail in relevant books. Those interested can refer to those works.

The genocidal and ethnically cleansing enthusiasm themed around the Palestinian cause, the Jerusalem cause, etc., and moreover, the sanctification of this with a fabricated story called the Mi'raj, is proof that Islam cannot have a respected place in humanity's historical journey.

The Islam and Prophet, in whose name they speak, had no Jerusalem cause. The Canaanite Jerusalem, which the Umayyads renamed "Madinat al-Quds" (Holy City) and which was under Byzantine political and Jewish religious rule, declared Bayt al-Maqdis (the Holy House), meaning Solomon's Temple (Masjid), a sacred place (Suyuti, 9783). The first verse of Surah Al-Isra speaks of "Masjid al-Aqsa" in the sense of a mosque far from Mecca. At that time, the Prophet was signing an agreement with the Jews making Medina a common homeland.

Solomon's Temple (Masjid) was the Prophet's qibla (direction of prayer) for more than 15 years from the time he began witnessing revelations in Mecca. The story that the Prophet was upset about this and wanted the qibla to change, and was finally very happy when this change was made by a verse in the second year of the Hijra to Medina, is a fabrication. I will discuss this issue in my next article, "The Palestine Industry - 2."

There is not even an implication in the Prophet's words from the Quranic verses or other explanations that Jerusalem belongs to Islam. The fact that Muslims seized the city at some point in history does not legitimize permanent possession of it. Instead of enlisting with Hitler to prevent Jews from entering their historical homeland under the leadership of Amin al-Husseini, Muslims should have united with their Jewish cousins, who returned from two thousand years of exile, against the British occupation and revived the legacy of the Prophet's Medina Document.

Did abandoning the Prophet's Medina model and cooperating with Fascism leave a proud legacy for Muslims?

Translated by Gemini