Daily Times

In July, President Erdogan described that month’s return of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a sixth century Orthodox-church-turned-mosque-turned-museum, to the status of a Muslim house of worship as paving the way for the “liberation” of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site. Rather than seeking to regain lost Ottoman territory, Mr. Erdogan is staking a claim to thecustodianship of Jerusalem’s Haram ash-Sharif or Temple Mount and Al Aqsa mosque compound that currently rests with a Jordanian-controlled religious endowment known as the Waqf.RecepTayyipErdogan said: “Jerusalem is ours. One of our cities,” the Turkish president declared at the opening of the legislative session of the Turkish parliament in Ankara.

Erdogan said, “In this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance. So, Jerusalem is our city, a city from us. Our first qibla al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem are the symbolic mosques of our faith. In addition, this city is home to the holy places of Christianity and Judaism.”US unwavering support to it will remain the same, whether there would be a change of guard in the US or not. Turkey also has announced the capital of Israel as ‘Jerusalem is ours’, triggering what might be considered as the next focal point of a civilisational war.A polarized western appraisal of the Arabs-Israel deal holds that The US and Israel’s masterstroke was that they made the Arab states believe that Iran was an existential threat to them despite Arab states sponsoring an eight-year Iraq war against Iran. But now Arab-states, in order to equalise with Turkey, are likely to form an Israeli-Arab NATO, as now the perceived threat from Turkey seem to have overshadowed Iran and the US is more than likely to sponsor it, like it is slated to do in the South China Sea, by the formation of India, Japan, US and Australia (QUAD) once after elections are done with.

The belief in Muslims’ innate attachment to Islam was critical as it served Islamists to portray their ideology as the one native ideology of the land and Islamism’s adherents as the most authentic representatives of the masses

In his speech in the UN 75th session, Erdo?an said, “Upon rejection of the document of surrender, which was attempted to be imposed on Palestine under the name of the ‘Deal of the Century,’ Israel this time accelerated its attempts to ‘have the inside track’ with the help of its collaborators.”Turkey will not support any plan that the Palestinian people do not give consent to,” the Turkish leader said.King Abdullah’s Hashemite dynasty in Jordan is the custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, making Amman sensitive to any changes in the status of the city, whose eastern sector was illegally captured by Israel from Jordan in a 1967 war.Many people in Jordan are descendants of Palestinian refugees whose families fled after the creation of Israel in 1948. While addressing an event in 2018, Pesident Erdogan said, “Muslims are way too busy fighting and disagreeing with themselves, and shy away when confronted by their enemies,” he told the audience.” Since 1947, Israel has been free to do what it likes in this region. They do whatever they feel like. But this reality can be undone … if we unite.”

Some of the Western Middle Eastern experts argue: Do not underestimate President Erdo?an’s ability to utilize Turkey’s strategic assets to advance his bold strategies. To prevent Erdo?an from provocations against Israel, it must be made clear to him the limits to the actions that Israel is willing to tolerate. Turkey stands in solidarity with Hamas, Turkey’s partner and protégé in the Muslim Brotherhood camp. Turkey has increased its efforts to enhance its position as a regional power following in the path of the Ottoman Empire, adopting daring measures that border on megalomania at home, in the region, and internationally.Poisonous Jewish propaganda against Turkey and his President is viral in the Western media-arguing that “Turkey is more dangerous than Iran.” This thesis is argued by Yossi Kohen, the director of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Kohen considers Turkey, which is “on the rise,” to be the “main threat” rather than Iran, which he defines as “the declining power.”

President Erdogan in the eye of his western critics is accused of resurrecting the thoughts of pan-Islamism in the region, in their view, his propensity towards Pan Islamism has close to the contours of Islamic orthodoxy. Objectively and historically put, in the particular context of Turkey, where more traditional forms of Islam had remained strong and the political system allowed for electoral politicking, Islamism’s limited radicalism completely vanished over time and its populism gained further strength. The belief in Muslims’ innate attachment to Islam was critical as it served Islamists to portray their ideology as the one native ideology of the land and Islamism’s adherents as the most authentic representatives of the masses. The other popular ideologies in the early Republican era- Kemalism and Communism-were alien to the land, said Islamist leaders, as those other ideologies sought to transform the ordinary people along lines inspired by the West.

There is certainly a new growing but prejudicial western view on Turkey which not disinterestedly appraises the role of Turkey in today’s regional and international affairs—largely mentioning the changing role of Turkey’s foreign policy thereby “drifting” away from its previous Western orientation. Some of the analysts who espouse this argument frame the consequences in terms of Turkey’s growing ties to China, Russia, Iran Malaysia and Pakistan. While Turkey itself has launched an “Asia Anew” policy,– characterinsing Ankara’s outsized focus via Turkey’s “drift from the West”– resulting in creating some palpable effects of its indoctrinated adventurism in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Mediterranean. The club of this thinking is alarmed by this new contours of Turkey’s increasingly reckless foreign. These are hardly the actions of a responsible regional power, much less a key member of the NATO alliance.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement supporting the Palestinian administration, saying that the “history and the conscience” of the region’s people will not forget and never forgive the “hypocritical behaviour” of the United Arab Emirates in agreeing to a deal with Israel. “While betraying the Palestinian cause to serve its narrow interests, the UAE is trying to present this as a kind of act of self-sacrifice for Palestine,” the foreign ministry said. Only the API of 2002 could provide the resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

Erdogan’s thinking is that he does not only care about the interests of his own state but also the interests of Muslim Ummah. This diversity of Erdogan’s thinking to reorient Islamic symbolisim and cultural heritage is not liked by the Western and Israeli lobbies including those Arabs who look forward to securing the interest of their states at the cost of making Muslim unity in question while appeasing both Israel and the US.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan