Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used a speech on human rights Saturday to accuse the West of “barbarism” for its stance on the Israel-Hamas war and what he alleged was its toleration of Islamophobia.

“Israel has carried out atrocities and massacres that will shame the whole of humanity,” Erdogan told a packed hall in Istanbul the day before the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“All the values relating to humanity are being murdered in Gaza. In the face of such brutality, international institutions and human rights organizations are not taking any concrete steps to prevent such violations,” the Turkish leader said.

The human rights declaration, proclaimed by the U.N. General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948, enshrines a standard for human rights and freedoms for all people.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah… I’ll scratch “find myself agreeing with goddamn Erdogan” from my The World Is Fucked bingo card

      • Nepenthe@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        I’ll admit, there have been multiple times recently I’ve started to wonder if he’s somehow a pod person. And he’s…certainly one to speak, as a national representative.

        But as much as it irks me, I’d rather admit to common ground than find myself sacrificing my own morals on the basis that I don’t like who said it.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Well sure, but also keep in mind that Erdogan loses his shit anytime someone even alludes to the fact that the Armenian Genocide was a real thing that actually happened.

        This is not Erdogan being a good dude. This is Erdogan latching on to a thing because it’s politically useful for him to do so. Stopped clocks etc etc.

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
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      7 months ago

      Not really, the support for Israel has nothing to do with islamophobia

      • Why9@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s unfathomable to think, with a war that has been publicised this much since it escalated on October 7th, that people like you are still so uninformed that you genuinely think so.

        You should be better informed. It’s incredibly dangerous in today’s climate to be ignorant of the truth.

        • Miaou@jlai.lu
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          7 months ago

          Lol sure. Israels biggest allies in the region include the biggest sponsor of radical islamism in the world as well as Egypt, but sure, tell yourself that

          Palestine could have accepted a long time ago whatever terms Israel was laying down for them, but Iran wanted a proxy war, so that did not happen. And now the Israel’s nazi in command is feeding off that to gather support for himself as well.

          So there are two ways to look at this. Either we all agree this is all about politics and not so much about religion, or you ask westerners to choose between Muslims and Jewish purely based on feelings like people are doing here (spoiler alert: the other side is calling antisemitic). If we choose the latter, pray tell me, which side will the west mostly side with? We both know the answer. So, IMO, if you want to save Palestinians, crying about islmophobia brings nothing.

  • generalpotato@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The West can jerk itself off at the thought of being “civilized” as much as it wants, but it never was “civilized”. Imperialism has always been barbaric and we’re seeing another example of it in Palestine.

    He’s right.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The reaction of countries like Germany on this has lead me to conclude that the lesson learned from the Holocaust was not that violent cold-hearted racism is unnacceptable but rather that violent cold-hearted racism against a specific group which was targettted by the Nazis is unnacceptable, but it’s fine if it’s against other groups.

    In other words: Genocide is still fine and the “Never again!” was only ever about who is included the “us” when the more violent, rabid, German-style Fascists go full genocidal, not about stopping such people or at the very least doing so when they go full genocidal.

    • lledrtx@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Huh that’s the interesting observation. I feel like it could be a more general human nature? On Reddit and Lemmy, I constantly see people who are not racist against black people be racist against Asians. Almost like they didn’t learn that racism is bad, but that racism against black people is bad. Almost like they need to be taught separately for every group…

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        TL;DR - they’re still racist and prejuding individuals based on being in a “group” defined by some non-behavioural characteristic said individuals were born with, it’s just that progressive racism now classifies as “good” or “victims” some groups that traditional racists used to deemed “bad” such as Black people or Jewish people.

        They’re still being prejudiced, and did nothing more than adjusting the presumptions attached to some race-defined groups.

        Modern Liberalism in the moral sphere is not anchored on Principle but instead it’s a different labelling of “good” and “bad” on top of the of putting people in groups, same as the Fascists just with different “good” and “bad” groups.

        People are still being classified into “groups” by how they look, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion and were they come from, and then assumptions about individual behaviour are being done based on those “classifications”, all of which is how racists think complete with prejudiced expectations that individuals are “good” or “bad” depending on the “classification” they’ve are deemed to be in based on things they were born with: the classifying and presuming never stopped, it’s just that some groups previously presumed “bad” are now presumed “good”.

        Or to put things another way - it’s a rebranding of racism with adjusted “good” and “bad” classifications, not a change to a following of the principle that people should be judged by what they do, not based on non-behavioural characteristics they were born with and presuming that massive groups of individuals are all the same because of sharing one such characteristic.

        Hence how you end up with things like it being deemed anti-semitism to criticise the racist genocidal actions of a government because they happen to fall into a classification now deemed “good” even though their actual actions are pretty much hard-core German-style Fascism, the very opposite of good.

        By the way, this is not just a phenomenon in Germany, but I expected a lot more from the majority of Germans (or at least from the power elites in that country) and instead it now seems even the country that did the Holocaust kept the racism and just did a rebranding.

        PS: This is also how you end up with funny things like for example, journalists who think of themselves as impeccably progressive writting opinion articles critical of “men who use sex dolls” (I kid you not) without noticing the clear parallels with articles written in the past by other people which were critical of homosexual acts - people whose thinking is anchored on principles see both kinds of articles as “criticising adults for sexual practices that harm nobody” hence an equally unacceptable criticism, but those who are prejudiced whilst using a modern list of “good” groups, think the homophobic articles are bad (because it’s not fashionable to be homophobic) but critizing other sexual practices not commonly deemed acceptable is just fine.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    7 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used a speech on human rights Saturday to accuse the West of “barbarism” for its stance on the Israel-Hamas war and what he alleged was its toleration of Islamophobia.

    In the face of such brutality, international institutions and human rights organizations are not taking any concrete steps to prevent such violations,” the Turkish leader said.

    Referring to Friday’s U.S. veto of a United Nations resolution calling for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, Erdogan said a fairer world was possible “but not with America because the USA stands with Israel.

    Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention on preventing and violence against women and has failed to implement European Court of Human Rights judgments.

    On Saturday, the president defined Islamophobia and xenophobia, which he said “engulf Western societies like poison ivy,” as the greatest threats to human rights.

    In October, Erdogan told a massive protest crowd in Istanbul that his government was preparing to declare Israel a “war criminal” due to its actions in the Gaza Strip.


    The original article contains 412 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Maalus@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Why? Everything he says is true. Gaza is left at Israels mercy, and Israel is committing genocide as the whole western world watches and does nothing

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          There is a difference between “level the entire city and kill everyone inside” and “fighting hamas”.

          Right now, based on what’s happening in Gaza, being anti-Israel is a humanitarian stance. The country is actively destroying another, causing humanitarian disasters. Every sensible world organization is calling for a ceasfire, along with countless protesters worldwide.

          • avater@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            being anti-Israel is a humanitarian stance.

            thats some very far stretched statement, I absolutely don’t agree with.

            • Maalus@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Then what do you call them continuing the war, forcing 2 million people from their homes, towards an uninhabited desert with no food or water? What do you call them not letting aid in for the first couple of weeks? (Or letting in such small numbers it wasn’t really relevant at all?)

              A ceasfire needs to happen now, and the people need to be helped, hospitalized, and Gaza rebuilt. Israel doesn’t want that, hence I am anti Israel. It’s really simple as far as geopolitics is concerned.

              • avater@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Then what do you call them continuing the war

                self defense against hamas, because they already declared that they will do another terror attack in the future and will keep continuing this.

  • avater@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I suppose fighting against Hamas is also very islamophobic, right? At least for our pal Erdogan here.

    Let’s not forget that this little dictator praised the Hamas as freedom fighters a few weeks ago and declared them not to be terrorists.

    And with his anti-Israeli rhetoric, Erdogan primarily serves his own conservative Islamic electorate…nothing more.

    • AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The vast overwhelming majority of people being murdered in Gaza are not Hamas and have nothing to do with them. What’s going on in Gaza is the extermination of an ethnic group from land that they historically inhabited alongside another ethnic group that despite experiencing a most horrific extermination of a similar type is unable to reign in its own genocidal government.

      Erdogon is truly a garbage human being and an opportunist, a monstrous piece of shit and a terrible statesman, but he has the moral high ground compared to somebody like Benjamin Netanyahu who is basically the moral equivalent of a Nazi.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I’ll give Erdy credit for being a broken clock, that’s about it. If he actually cared about self determination he wouldn’t treat Kurds like shit. He gets real mad when you call the PKK freedom fighters but is perfectly happy saying as much about Hamas

  • samokosik@lemmynsfw.com
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    7 months ago

    I am guessing why he forgets to mention antisemitism, as well. I agree, islamophobia is terrible and is rising. Same applies to antisemitism and he should have mentioned it.

    • Quokka@quokk.au
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      7 months ago

      When you shout that everything is antisemetic of course you’re going to think it’s rising.

      In the west every government supports Israel and their disgusting actions, don’t pretend this is comparable to the situation faced by Palestinians.

      • samokosik@lemmynsfw.com
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        7 months ago

        So when there is a pro-palestinian protest where people are asking for the destruction of Israel and extermination of all Jews, it’s not antisemitism, it’s just Jews being drama queens, right?

        The fact that government supports something does not mean that there is not a serious number of people who oppose government’s decision.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Ah, the traditional racist trope that because some people who happen to be from some ethnic group want/do something bad then the entire group is “bad” hence violence against all of them is justified.

          It’s funny how the people claiming that criticizing Israel is anti-semitism when they defend the violent acts of the Israeli authorities, always end up using the same style of “argument” as the Ku-Klux-Klan when they claimed to be “protecting whites”.

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Unfortunately, antisemitism has lost a lot of meaning due to how much antizionism has been conflated with it.

      Sure, it exists and is abhorrent. But most people are skeptical when they hear the word because of how much it’s been misused.

      You can blame the zionists for this one. Religious nationalism is a disgusting thing.

      • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Turkey has slightly more Jews than the Arab world combined, but the total between them all is only around 30k. Can’t be anti-semitic if you’ve got no Jews to hate.