Rhetoric over flotilla has gone overboard

Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week is a new blow against the separatist Kurdish terrorist organization, PKK. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the court decided that U.S. groups can’t split hairs to provide material support of a terrorist group’s “non violent” activities. Humanitarian Law Project was arguing that they were trying to help the PKK members to achieve what they want without using violence. Gunay Evinch, president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, told me, “This is a big victory for Turkey. The court is also implicitly saying that supporters of PKK are anti-Turks. Any support to PKK will be considered a criminal act.” Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has not yet publicly acknowledged the significance of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

To conclude, Erdogan’s obsessive criticism of Israel over the Gaza operation may contain some truths—but he’s gone overboard. With his strong oratory skill, he pushed the envelope to rally the Muslim rage against the state of Israel when the Israeli military operation ended with nine Turks dead on Mavi Marmara. He sidelined the fact that other ships—on the same day—peacefully cooperated with Israeli authorities while carrying humanitarian aid to Gazans. Whatever the reasons and failures of this tragedy, Turks will always remember that Israeli soldiers killed Turks. While Erdogan made the Palestinian issue one of his priorities, these Turks were killed helping the Hamas-controlled Gaza. Whereas the U.S. and Israel provided help protecting Turkey’s security in the fight against PKK terrorism for decades. For the first time in their 87 years of nationhood, Turks saw in pictures that one of their own killed by a foreign soldier. But longtime Arab Muslim aid to the PKK ended thousands lives. I don’t know whether it really matters so much who pulled the trigger at the end. What matters is, Erdogan’s policies did not make the country safer.

Based in Washington, D.C., Tülin Daloglu is a Turkish-born journalist.