The US, Israel, Iran, Kurds, AKP and Hizmet

İhsan Yılmaz

Last week, I was in the United Kingdom for the launch of our newly co-edited book “The Muslim World and Politics in Transition.”

Then, I went to Kazakhstan to present a paper at the Religion, Security and Citizenship in Central Asia conference jointly organized by the Washington, D.C,-based Institute for Global Engagement and the al-Farabi Carnegie Program on Central Asia. While I was overseas, I was informed that a Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy had appeared on a TV program and mentioned my name. He claimed that I spoke on behalf of the Hizmet movement and had demanded that the AKP government do four things: 1. the government must have peace with Israel; 2. it must seek peace with the US; 3. the government must be tolerant towards Iran; and 4. it must stop the Kurdish opening process.

This is blatant and brazen distortion and manipulation. I asked him to discuss this issue live on a TV program but he has not yet responded so far. What he did is part of a psychological war campaign in Turkey to present the Hizmet movement to people as having dirty and dark relations with Jews, Israel and the US at the expense of Turkey, Iran and Kurds.

What he was distorting is a paragraph of mine that appeared here in February of 2012. The title of my piece was “Should the Hizmet movement form a political party?” I was responding to some AKP supporters who did not like Hizmet's criticism of the AKP and had told Hizmet to form a political party or shut up. While I was elaborating on this issue, I also mentioned some main criticisms by Hizmet directed at the AKP's policies.

Here is the paragraph: “Hizmet has been critical of the government on issues such as Turkey's tolerant attitude toward a probable Iranian nuclear bomb, the government's fruitless fights with Israel, the Mavi Marmara incident, the failure of the Kurdish opening, the reluctance in challenging the Ergenekon terrorist organization, the prime minister's futile fight with journalists, the near end of the EU process, the AKP's suspected indifference to a new constitution and the suspected ‘Ankara-ization' (being influenced by conservative anti-democratic statist forces).”

The distortion is very clear but let me elaborate on it a little more. I have never said that the AKP must not criticize Israel. I have published many pieces here criticizing Israel. I have always said that I acknowledge Israel's right to exist in pre-1967 borders but its mistreatment of the Palestinians is unacceptable. I have even repeatedly referred to the Israeli state as a terrorist state based on its terrorizing tactics such as bombing ambulances and hospitals. I was simply warning the AKP against being obsessed with Israel, spending much of its limited political and diplomatic energy on this unproductive fight. Despite all these, many AKP supporters and members such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's chief adviser and speech writer, Aydin Unal, label us servants of Israel in a very derogatory manner.

As for “having peace with the US,” this is very funny since I am not aware that the AKP has been in a fight with the US. NATO's Patriot missiles are protecting us against Bashar al-Assad, NATO's İncirlik military base is full of American fighter jets and nuclear bombs and all the AKP newspapers were ecstatic when Erdoğan was hosted by Barack Obama at the White House a few months ago.

On Iran, I have always said do not give the impression that you are defending Iranian nuclear ambitions against the West. Otherwise, Turkey must of course have good relations with all of its neighbors, including its Kurdish ones. While our AKP leaders were hostile to the de facto autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria, I penned a piece here titled “Zero problems with (Kurdish) neighbors?” Also, I have always supported the Kurdish opening process. What is more, in my quoted paragraph above, I write that Hizmet criticizes the AKP for the failure of the previous Kurdish opening. The deputy fanatically turned my statement upside down so that the overwhelming majority in Turkey who support the Kurdish opening will hate the Hizmet movement.

They call this politics; I call it immoral and unethical Machiavellism.

Published on Today's Zaman, 11 December 2013, Wednesday