Erdoğan criticizes NATO allies as Turkey continues to feed Israel’s war machine

Barış Demir (World Socialist Website) 16 October 2024

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the UN Security Council and his NATO allies after Israeli forces invading Lebanon attacked the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

“The image of the UN, which cannot even protect its own personnel, is a source of shame and concern for the international system,” Erdoğan said on X on Monday, adding, “Can you believe it? The Israeli tanks penetrate the UNIFIL zone, attack peacekeeping soldiers, even wounding some of them, but the UN Security Council decides to just watch all this criminality from its stands. This is called impotence, surrendering to Israeli aggression.”

In this February. 5, 2020 photo, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds up a placard with a series of maps of historical Palestine, the 1947 United Nations partition plan on Palestine, the 1948-1967 borders between the Palestinian territories and Israel, and a current map of the Palestinian territories without Israeli-annexed areas and settlements, during a speech at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey. [AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici]

Despite Erdoğan’s rhetorical criticism of Israel and the imperialist powers behind it, new data emerging in recent weeks show that Turkey’s trade with Israel, which it officially declared to have been cut off, continues indirectly. This situation reveals not only the hypocrisy of the Erdoğan government, but also the dependence and complicity of the Turkish bourgeoisie with imperialism.

Despite widespread social opposition, the Erdoğan government had stubbornly continued to trade with Israel until last May. However, after its defeat in the local elections on 31 March, the government, realizing that it had lost its social legitimacy, declared that it had officially cut trade with Israel and increased its criticism of Israel and its imperialist allies.

According to the foreign trade data for August 2024, published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) at the end of last month, trade with Israel appears to have stopped in May, as announced by the government. However, the dramatic increase in trade with Palestine over the same period strengthens claims that trade with Israel continues indirectly.

According to TurkStat data, trade with Palestine, in the midst of genocide and destruction, increased more than tenfold in July and August. Among the items with the highest increase are steel exports, vital to Israel’s arms and defence industries. In August, steel exports to Palestine increased by 119,695 per cent, from $17,000 to $20.5 million.

According to the Israeli news website ynet, Palestinian companies are being used as fronts to conduct trade. According to the report: “So far, however, despite the Turkish embargo on the export of goods to Israel, exports to the Palestinian Authority have continued, much of which has reached the Israeli economy indirectly. The method worked as follows: The goods left Turkey by ship, so to speak, with a bill of lading addressed to the PA. On board the ships, all bills of lading addressed to merchants in PA territory were replaced by bills of lading addressed to a commercial organisation in Israel... As a result, the imports from Turkey did not reach the territory of the PA but went directly to the Israeli ports of Ashdod and Haifa”.

Journalist Metin Cihan, who has been reporting exposing the Erdoğan government’s continued trade with Israel since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, confirmed this with his statement on October 6. Citing data from the Marine Traffic website, he stated that 88 ships entered Israeli ports in the last month.

Cihan revealed that the shipping company of Erdoğan’s son Burak Erdoğan had shipped cargo from Israel during the bombing of Gaza. This was unconvincingly denied by the Erdoğan government. On Monday, Cihan posted on X a new document he had received on the subject, writing:

“Manta Denizcilik’s trade with Israel was accepted, but it was claimed that there was no connection between Manta Denizcilik and MB Denizcilik, Burak Erdoğan’s company. Not many people bought it, but I think the document I have just received will end the debate once and for all.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/10/15/yvac-o15.html

Back


Links Search