Turkey’s Erdogan: ‘Hamas Is Not a Terrorist Organization’

The radical Islamist president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, defended the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas in an incendiary address on Wednesday in which he abruptly canceled a planned visit to Israel in light of the horrific Hamas mass murder of over 1,400 people on October 7.

The terrorist onslaught, which Hamas has branded the “al-Aqsa flood,” was characterized by Hamas terrorists flooding Israeli residential communities, torturing, raping, abducting, and killing entire families. First responders to the communities targeted found children with knives left in their bodies, decapitated and charred babies, and unrecognizable body parts. At a music festival taking place in Israel that day, Hamas terrorists opened fire on attendees, leaving a pile of upwards of 250 bodies.

While much of the world has condemned the brutality of the Hamas attack, much of the Arab and Muslim world has sought to justify it as a legitimate response to the existence of Israel. The “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, proclaimed that even the infants slaughtered were “not civilians.” At a summit on Sunday in Cairo, Egypt, Arab leaders reportedly blocked the publication of a joint communique on the grounds that Western powers participating wanted to overtly condemn Hamas for the killings.

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Erdogan, speaking to lawmakers from his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Wednesday, enthusiastically condemned Israel for self-defense operations against Hamas and categorically declared, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization.”

“Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a group of mujahideen defending their lands,” Erdogan proclaimed. Mujahideen is a term used for Muslims engaged in jihad, or holy war. The Times of Israel reported that his defense of Hamas earned Erdogan a standing ovation.

Translations in other news outlets of his remarks are consistent with the Times of Israel. In Turkish, the pro-Erdogan Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak published a more extensive excerpt of Erdogan’s remarks, which spanned beyond Israel to cover a large number of domestic issues and Turkey’s role in the world. On the Hamas mass murders, however, Erdogan focused his ire on Israel, announcing he would refuse to visit the country in solidarity.

“We have no problem with the state of Israel, but we have never or will not approve of the way Israel has committed its atrocities to act as a [terrorist] organization rather than as a state,” Erdogan said, according to Yeni Safak. The president claimed that targeted attacks on Hamas outposts in Gaza were “not self-defense, but rather savagery,” while defending Hamas terrorists beheading infants and butchering elderly women.

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“At their last meeting, they met again and the whole West sees Hamas as a terrorist organization,” Yeni Safak quoted Erdogan as saying. “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a group of liberation fighters who struggle to protect their land and citizens.”

Anadolu Agency, the Turkish state news outlet, only paraphrased Erdogan’s remarks in its English-language coverage of Wednesday’s speech and notably omitted the declaration that Hamas was not a terrorist organization. It did mention that Erdogan made the outlandish claim that “the Jewish people know well that Turkey is the only land that has been without antisemitism for centuries.” In reality, Turkey has a long history of antisemitism, including in modern times, and has experienced a surge in anti-Jewish hate speech and hostility under Erdogan, whose government has abused law enforcement to target non-Muslims generally. Polls show a majority of Turks harbor antisemitic beliefs, fueled in part by Erdogan himself making antisemitic comments in public.

Erdogan earned a mild condemnation from the Biden White House in 2021, for example, for stating that it was “in their nature,” referring to Jews, to engage in “terrorism.”

“They are murderers, to the point that they kill children who are five or six years old. They only are satisfied by sucking their blood,” he said at the time.

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Erdogan has repeatedly defended Hamas while running Turkey and most recently welcomed the terrorist organization’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, to Ankara in July. In 2018, Erdogan made nearly the exact same comments on Hamas’s status as a terrorist group in remarks posted to Twitter.

“Hamas is not a terrorist organization … it is a resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power,” he wrote.

Despite his clear bias in favor of Islamic terrorists, Erdogan has attempted to insert himself as a mediator between Israel and Hamas since the October 7 attacks. Days after the mass killings, anonymous sources from within Erdogan’s government began spreading rumors that he was playing a protagonist role in helping convince Hamas to release the hundreds of hostages it is believed to have taken from Israel.

“Turkey is carrying out negotiations regarding the civilian prisoners held by Hamas. Upon President Tayyip Erdogan’s orders, the relevant institutions are carrying out a process regarding the civilians held by Hamas,” an anonymous alleged Turkish official told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Erdogan himself has not confirmed the reports, nor has anyone working under him on the record. Following the release of four hostages this week, Turkey received no credit publicly for playing any role. Countries involved in the negotiations instead credited Qatar, an Islamist theocracy that houses Hamas’s elite leadership, for its role in helping secure freedom for the hostages.

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