Turkey betraying the Palestinians

'Ends justify the means' is a slogan always raised by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

While the Turkish leader keeps using Islamic mantras, denoting hostility to Israel, he hammers out alliances with the Jewish lobby in Washington and Israel.

This has been happening since the 1980s, when he headed the Welfare Party's secretariat in one of the districts of Istanbul.

No wonder then that relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv have recently converged, even if this comes at the expense of the Palestinian cause.

Scrap the aggressive tone

Ankara has abandoned its aggressive rhetoric of accusing Israel of usurping Palestinian land.

Suffice it to say that Erdogan had recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel over ten years ago, even before former US president Donald Trump declared it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

Erdogan made this recognition during his meeting in Jerusalem in 2005 with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon who welcomed him.

In welcoming Erdogan, Sharon said: "Welcome to the eternal capital of Israel".

Erdogan did not object to this. He even said Israel needed Turkey.

"We also have to accept the fact that we need Israel," Erdogan said.

The Turkish president also recognized Israel in the normalization agreement signed between Ankara and Jerusalem on August 28, 2016.

The agreement aimed at resolving outstanding problems between the two parties due to the Mavi Marmara ship accident.

The normalization document included the phrase: "This agreement was concluded in Ankara and Jerusalem," instead of Tel Aviv.

The document represented an explicit recognition by Erdogan of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Erdogan has recently been keen on avoiding all criticism of Israeli authorities. In a tweet on April 19, 2022, he described, during his conversation with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, the crimes of Israeli forces in al-Aqsa Mosque, as 'incidents caused by some extremist groups'.

Cautious language

An examination of the Turkish wording of Erdogan's message regarding the crimes of Israeli forces in al-Aqsa Mosque shows that he used a very cautious language and avoided blaming Israeli authorities, although in the past he used harsh expressions, such as 'repression', 'terrorism' and 'terrorist state', in his speeches on Palestine and Gaza.

In another message on July 12, 2022, Erdogan said he informed his Israeli counterpart in a phone conversation that there are great potentials for co-operation in many fields between the two countries, and that he did not comment on the Israeli aggression on Gaza in early August.