Turkey clamps down as Israel manoeuvres

The Israeli government has announced (28 June) its intention to recognise Turkey’s genocide of Armenians during World War One. Maybe over one million Armenians, out of about two million in the area, were killed. Others were expelled or forcibly assimilated, in territory where their community had lived for thousands of years.

Traditionally, Israel refused to recognise the genocide because of their close relationship with Turkey and an idea that recognising other genocides diminished the uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust. Since Erdoğan came to power relations between Turkey and Israel have gradually and unevenly worsened. They are now especially poor as their respective security states circle post-Assad Syria like vultures, and questions about the role of Turkey in the Gaza “Board of Peace”.

The Turkish government responded to Israel’s announcement angrily, saying that Israel is simply trying to distract from its own genocide against Palestine, and that “in our history there is no genocide, no massacres, no oppression, no colonialism”. The official terminology in Turkey for the Armenian genocide in Turkey is simply “The Events of 1915”. Since this spat, an Armenian graveyard in Istanbul has been vandalised.

The Azerbaijani government, a close ally of Israel, has also denounced recognition of the Armenian genocide. They have felt deeply betrayed after their loyal silence and support throughout the war in Gaza, complaining that the same actors accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza are the same ones accusing Azerbaijan of “ethnic cleansing” in its recent wars with Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh.

Azerbaijan

“For Baku, this is a red line. Azerbaijan did not come out against Israel over Gaza, Lebanon or Iran, despite an international campaign and pressure placed on it. The Azerbaijanis feel Israel did not respond with the same level of consideration”.

The main reason for the recognition coming now, rather than many years ago, is likely a cynical move against Turkey. Indeed, the planned vote on the Knesset to confirm the Israeli cabinet’s recognition of the genocide has now been suspended and will not take place before the parliamentary elections in October.

Broader repression

This has come at a time of broader repression in Turkey. The country has become vastly more undemocratic in the decade since sections of the military failed to overthrow Erdoğan, and political dissent has effectively been criminalised.

The comedian Deniz Göktaş is on trial for “insulting the president” and “demeaning religious values” after releasing his latest stand-up special “Black Sea” on YouTube, where he calls Erdoğan a dictator and makes jokes about burkinis and the Quran, calling it “the fourth book in the series” (after the Torah, Psalms, and Gospels).

Ekrem İmamoğlu, formerly the leading politician in the opposition party CHP and the Mayor of Istanbul before his arrest, is now facing stacked charges which add up to a prison sentence of 2,430 years. After he was removed as leader of the CHP he was replaced by Özgür Özel, who was himself removed by court order in May and replaced by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the previous long-time head of the CHP: the revolutionary socialist group Marksist Tutum has covered this affair and Kılıçdaroğlu’s role in it at bit.ly/chp-coup.

There was also extensive repression in the run-up to the NATO summit in Ankara (7-8 July), and there was particular anger at the government fixing long-deteriorated transport infrastructure solely for this event.

The left response to the NATO summit has left something to be desired, often falling into nationalist arguments. The Communist Party of Turkey, a Stalinist organisation which frequently presents itself as “patriotic”, advertised its own anti-NATO protests with the slogan “we are marching for our country and our honour against NATO”, and marched with communist flags and Turkish flags.

Marksist Tutum have criticised this attitude and instead raised the slogan “Don’t look outside, NATO is already inside!”, arguing that criticism of the Turkish state and militarism should not be sidelined by presenting NATO as a purely external phenomenon.