Erdoğan slams Israeli ‘tyranny’ over Palestinians

ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on May 7 that the Palestinians were the “symbol of all oppressed people” in the world and Israeli attacks on them showed that “tyranny’s boldness is increasing every day.”

“What is happening in Palestine, especially in Jerusalem, is nothing other than the efforts of tyranny to justify its oppressions, even to institutionalize them. The violence that the Israeli administration has recently inflicted on the Palestinians … shows that tyranny’s boldness is increasing every day,” Erdoğan said in a speech at the International Mount of Olives Peace Awards in Istanbul.

“The Palestinians are the symbol of all oppressed people in the world because of the persecution, massacres and injustices they have been subjected to,” he added.

The Turkish president said Palestinian women and children were most “exposed to the oppression of the Israeli administration,” paying the price “for wars and crises whose decisions are mostly not taken by them.”

“A significant number of Palestinian children are continuing their lives outside their homeland, in refugee camps or in other countries. Those who are able to stay in their homeland, meanwhile, are exposed to psychological and physical discrimination everywhere, from the moment they leave their house on the way to their schools, at checkpoints, in public transport, in educational institutions,” Erdoğan said.

He also slammed the international community’s “indifference over the sufferings of Palestinians.”

“The indifference of the international community towards the Palestinians, who have had tens of martyrs and thousands of injured people in these [Israeli] attacks, is the sign of a future in which no society or individual will be safe,” Erdoğan said, accusing international institutions responsible for ensuring peace and security in Palestine of “hypocrisy.”

He also praised Turkey for its humanitarian aid work, contrasting the country with “great economic powers” motivated only by “economic, political or military interests.”

“Humanitarian aid, entirely an issue of conscience and morality, does not rely on money, oil, gold, or political power,” Erdoğan said, noting that Turkey has so far spent $31 billion on Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

“Whatever anyone else does, as Turkey we will continue to use the facilities and opportunities we have in our hands for the benefit of humanity, especially our Palestinian, Syrian and African brothers. In a way appropriate to the orders of God and the inheritance left by our ancestors, wherever there is a victim we’ll worker harder to stand by them,” he said.

The Palestine cause is not an issue exclusive to any nation or city, Erdoğan said, suggesting that “the future of humanity will be determined according to the stance taken regarding the cause of Palestine and Jerusalem.”

“If the opposite happens a dark future awaits us in which all rights, freedoms, moral and conscientious measures are absent or eliminated and in which tyranny prevails,” he added.