The events of October 7th and its aftermath have reminded the world of the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The destruction Israel unleashed in Gaza following the Hamas attack has caused a massive humanitarian crisis, and this crisis continues to this day. However, a significant majority of the world—especially Western states—approaches this crisis with double standards, a lack of international humanitarian values, and a purely ideological approach. Consequently, the Palestinian people are forced to continue their lonely resistance against the Israeli occupation, which they have been waging for years.
The events of October 7th and its aftermath reminded the world of the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The destruction unleashed by Israel in Gaza following the Hamas attack caused a massive humanitarian crisis, and this crisis continues to this day. However, a significant majority of the world—especially Western states—approaches this crisis with double standards, a lack of international humanitarian values, and a purely ideological approach. Consequently, the Palestinian people are forced to continue their isolated resistance against the Israeli occupation, which they have waged for years. Meanwhile, Turkey has perhaps been the country that has responded most justly and rationally to the conflict and destruction. First, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then other political leaders, and finally the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) opposed both the killing of civilians in Israeli territory and the excessive destruction unleashed by Israel, including war crimes. In parallel, Turkey launched political mediation and humanitarian aid initiatives at the highest level. Furthermore, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the reactions to it have exposed certain realities regarding Türkiye's domestic politics to the public. First, it became clear that Palestine is a common denominator for nearly all political parties and even ideologies in Turkey. So much so that political parties and leaders, who struggle to act fully together even on Turkey's own domestic issues, have managed to find common ground, despite differing motivations and ideological focuses. The sole exception to this was the factions of far-right and far-left ideologies who openly agreed to support Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The denominator of this consensus was "Islamophobia." Erdoğan's Rational Policy Construction: For many years, the opposition has accused President Erdoğan of pursuing an "ideological" and "personal" foreign policy strategy, and continues to do so. However, recent events have demonstrated to the world that it is actually Western countries that are pursuing ideological and biased foreign policies. Consequently, it has been proven once again that countries that constantly lecture the world on human rights and international values actually have a double-standard approach, and that their value-focused rhetoric is nothing more than a deception. On the other hand, President Erdoğan demonstrated a remarkably rational and perhaps even the most humane reaction among his counterparts. While calling on the parties to the conflict to exercise restraint, he impartially focused on civilians and declared that preventing civilian casualties and humanitarian destruction was his priority. In parallel, he initiated both humanitarian aid and diplomatic mediation efforts. Similarly, he reminded the world of his two-state solution proposal, which he had been repeating for years, and the unjust destruction the Palestinian people have endured for years. Along with his messages to the international community, Erdoğan has also built a rational center in domestic politics. His humane and impartial rhetoric has influenced other actors in domestic politics and created a discursive unity. Thus, actors who had previously disagreed on even the simplest issue in domestic politics, despite differing motivations or ideological focuses, have reached a consensus on a critical regional and humanitarian issue like Palestine. Furthermore, all parties with parliamentary groups issued a joint declaration for the first time in a long time. The Islamophobic Partnership of Extremist Politics: Although reactions began to diverge with the shift away from the center of ideology, most parties and actors agreed on the Palestinian common denominator. For example, despite the rather harsh pronouncements of parties like Saadet, Gelecek, Huda-Par, and Yeniden Refah, no obstacle emerged to reaching a consensus in Parliament. Similarly, various left-wing parties, particularly the TİP (Turkish Progressive Party) and TKP (Turkish Communist Party), maintained their historical ideological positions and continued to support Palestine. However, although not institutionally or at the elite level, the consensus between parties positioned on the far left and right was quite striking among the grassroots and voters. To such an extent that far-left voters questioned the traditional ideological codes of parties supporting Palestine. It was argued that the ideological codes of left-wing parties, historically anti-Israel and pro-Palestine from an anti-imperialist perspective, needed to be updated. The most important argument here was that the Palestinian struggle had taken an "Islamic" turn through Hamas. Therefore, the "Islamized" struggle could no longer be described as an anti-imperialist resistance. This struggle had been "terrorized" by attacking civilians and had lost its legitimacy. Consequently, supporting Palestine was supporting an "Islamic struggle," and it was wrong. Moreover, this was even labeled "antisemitism." On the far right, while the path may have started differently, the destination was the same. The rhetoric, which began with "backstabbing" the Ottoman Empire and the Turks and continued with "selling out land," transformed into a campaign to legitimize anti-Arab sentiment. Therefore, Palestinians were the enemy and wrong. However, the underlying motivation was different. The real motivation was both a reaction against Syrian refugees and an Islamophobic version of the xenophobia fueled by extreme Turkish nationalism. Indeed, Arab cultural values, and religion, the most important of these cultural values, were seen as a threat to the Turkish nation by those with far-right ideologies and beliefs. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict reiterated this point, and Israel, the enemy of the enemy, became the friend and rightful side. Ultimately, while most political actors in Turkey have embraced the rational discourse and position laid by President Erdoğan regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the reactions of some segments over the past week have reminded us that there are exceptions. Extremist politics in Turkey, whether right-wing or left-wing, has demonstrated that they possess Islamophobic reflexes regarding Palestine and that they share this common ground despite their ideological differences.
