Xenophobia in Turkey is well-documented. The 2007 Pew Global Attitudes surveys, for example, showed that negative views of the United States were “widespread and growing” in Turkey, a NATO member and European Union applicant. According to the Pew Research Center:

“Of the 10 Muslim publics surveyed in the 2006 Pew Global Attitudes poll, the Turkish public showed the most negative views, on average, toward Westerners.

“On this scale, the average for Turkey is 5.2, which is a higher level of negativity than is found in the other four Muslim-majority countries surveyed (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Pakistan) as well as among the Muslim populations in Nigeria, Britain, Germany, France and Spain.

“Large and increasing majorities of Turks also hold unfavorable views of Christians and Jews.”

The 2014 Pew survey of Turkish public opinion also found a major rise in xenophobia, revealing that Turks expressed a strong dislike for just about everyone.

“Such anti-Americanism inherent in the population of an American ally is noteworthy,” wrote Professor Doug Woodwell. “Turkish public opinion as a whole is perhaps the most xenophobic on earth… Whatever the future, at least Americans can rest assured; while Turks may have a lower opinion of the US than any other country, they are equal opportunity haters.”

“Turkey Alone Against the World”

Turkey’s hostility toward outsiders has a long history. Ever since the Turkish republic was founded in 1923, Turkish schoolchildren have been taught myths that propagate “Turkey alone against the world.”

The narrative taught in Turkish schools goes like this: World powers — including the Western and Arab nations — brought on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and all non-Turkish peoples in Anatolia betrayed the Turks and revolted. Then, in the 1920s, the Western powers attacked the Turks, the rightful owners of Anatolia, who had been abandoned by everyone. But the Turks heroically fought back, miraculously defeated the enemies and traitors, and re-established their country, which is still surrounded by enemies busy plotting schemes to destroy Turks and Turkey.

This narrative does not contain a single critical view of Turkish history. Every historical act carried out by Turks is praised and idealized. History textbooks ‎do not utter a single word about the crimes committed by Turkey against the country’s minorities. Moreover, several Turkish government and military officials have used insulting expressions targeting minorities countless times — proudly and recklessly — making racism and the suspicion or hatred of non-Turks mainstream realities in Turkish politics.

There is even an official “Turkish Theory of History,” created by the new Turkish Republic in 1930s with the encouragement of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic’s founder. Through the “Turkish Theory of History,” the Turkish people were fed with supremacist, racist myths in which Western civilization was belittled and the so-called Turkish civilization was extolled.

A propaganda poster from the time of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s rule shows Ataturk slaying opponents of his reform. (The sword features the word “reform”)

According to this theory, it was the Turks, the first residents of the Central Asia, who established the first civilization of the world. Later, due to the rising levels of drought in the Central Asia, Turks spread to several parts of the world and brought civilization to the rest of the world. Turks had the main role in establishing and advancing the Islamic civilization, as well.

Moreover, the theory states that the oldest history of Turks can be traced back not only to the Central Asia, but also to Anatolia, which started to Turkify in the late Paleolithic era. Greeks were actually Turkish. And great developments in Europe and Asia always took place not from the West to the East, but always from the East to the West.

Many Turks also believe in the “Sun Language Theory” or the Turkish language theory, according to which all modern-day languages were derived from Turkish, the first language ever spoken by what was once the greatest civilization on earth. All other languages could be traced back to a Turkic root, and the Turks were the first people ever to have used the script.

These Turkey-centric theories were taught in Turkish schools and universities in the 1930s under the rule of Ataturk. Through these myths, racism and irrational views were instilled in the Turkish public.

Ever since, many Turkish governments have used similar untruthful, irrational propaganda to their advantage and further helped create a nation that has very little to do with the real world and history.

Even decades later, for example, after Turkey became a member of NATO, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have made it clear that they are not friends of the West.

In 2014, Erdogan accused the international media of waging a “psychological war” against Turkey, slamming local media outlets for collaborating in this campaign:

“There is a psychological war against Turkey in the western media, based on complete lies. Each day, some international newspapers come up and conduct a perception operation. Turkey is not a country that will bow either to domestic treason networks or to perception operations abroad.”

The Turkish president also accused the Western world of hating Muslims but loving their money, and of wanting to see people of the Muslim faith dead. “They look like friends, but they want us dead; they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?” he asked.

Apparently, all of this anti-Western, Islamic-Turkish supremacist propaganda have deeply shaped the way many Turks think. According to a report based on the results of a survey entitled, “Nationalism in Turkey and ‎in the world,” conducted by Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu of Sabanci University and Professor Ali ‎Carkoglu of Koc University in 2014, a large majority of Turkish people think there is nothing in ‎their history that they should be ashamed of.‎

“People don’t feel close to Europe or to the Middle East,” said Carkoglu.

“They basically feel close only to themselves. This global identity is something strange to Turkish mind. Turks are Turks and one striking fact is that we [asked] if everybody would be a Turk, would the world be a better place, and Turks gave a very high rating. No self-criticism whatsoever… One issue that differentiates Turkey from the rest of the world is that our national identity is primarily shaped by religious identity. What makes a Turk a Turk is not so much due to ethnicity, or the language people speak, but is primarily about being Muslim.”

The Turkish supremacist narrative invented by Turkey’s rulers and ideologues since the founding of the country has obviously created in Turkey millions of xenophobes and paranoids, who hold negative views of all non-Turkish peoples. And this has paved the way for countless atrocities against the indigenous minorities of Anatolia.

Never once in their history have Turkish people taken to the streets en masse in protest as the Greek, Armenian, Assyrian, Kurdish, Alevi, or Jewish citizens of the country were (and still are) exposed to unspeakable injustices — including mass slaughters, pogroms, forced expulsions, forced displacements, harassment or social pressures. The Turkish state has implemented its discriminatory and even genocidal policies either with the active participation or the silent approval of the vast majority of the public.

But there is something that many Turks have recently taken to the streets to discuss and protest. As the New York Times reported on August 2:

“Turks can agree on one thing: the U.S. was behind the failed coup. … Turkey may be a deeply polarized country, but one thing Turks across all segments of society — Islamists, secular people, liberals, nationalists — seem to have come together on is that the United States was somehow wrapped up in the failed coup.”

Apparently, anti-Americanism is reaching new heights in Turkey, and many Turks do not need solid facts and evidence to determine who is behind the coup. What their government or head of their state says is enough for them.

Meanwhile, Ankara recently declared that it has “concerns about the rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe,” according to a written statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported the pro-government newspaper Sabah:

“Once again, we would like to emphasize the concerns we have about the racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia that have seriously increased in Europe in the recent period.”

The statement was released to commemorate five Turkish citizens living in Germany, who were slaughtered in a 1993 arson attack in Solingen. “We wish that such deplorable incidents do not take place again.”

This condemnation came from the government of a country that has slaughtered millions of its own citizens — for being non-Turkish or non-Muslim — and that has never once apologized for its crimes.

Would the Turkish government still make the same announcement if they knew about the political inclinations or ethnic backgrounds of the victims? What if, for example, the victims had been anti-government activists? Or if those anti-government Turks had been slaughtered not in Germany, but in Turkey? What if the victims had been Kurds who requested national rights from Turkey? Or Armenians whom Turkish President Erdogan called “ugly” on national TV in 2014? Given how unspeakably the Turkish government has been treating its dissident citizens and minorities, we all know the answer.

Apparently, to the Turkish government, only Turkish lives matter, and even then only the lives of “good” Turks are valued — those who never ever raise an objection even when people are persecuted or slaughtered.

Robert Jones, an expert on Turkey, is currently based in the UK.

It is election season in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians are preparing to cast their votes in the local and municipal elections, scheduled to take place on October 8. The upcoming elections will be different from the last one, held in 2012 only in the West Bank, when Hamas boycotted the vote, allowing the rival Fatah faction to claim victory.

This time Hamas has decided to join the political fray — a move that caught Fatah and its leaders, including Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, by surprise.

Hamas’s decision to participate in the local and municipal elections has further aggravated tensions with Abbas’s Fatah faction, which continues to suffer from deep internal divisions and rivalries.

In the past few weeks, Hamas and Fatah have been accusing each other of cracking down on each other’s supporters in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in a bid to affect the results of the election.

According to Hamas, the Palestinian Authority security forces have in recent weeks arrested scores of the Islamist movement’s supporters in the West Bank. Hamas claims that the crackdown intensified after its decision to participate in the election. Hamas also claims that some of its detained supporters have been tortured, prompting some of them to go on hunger strikes in Palestinian prisons.

Samira Halaykeh, a Hamas representative in the West Bank, said that the crackdown was an “extension” of the campaign of arrests that the PA has been waging against the Islamist movement for several years now. She predicted that the latest crackdown would actually serve as a boomerang, strengthening Hamas.

“The Palestinian Authority and its security forces must guarantee security and safety for all Palestinians so that they can practice their legitimate right to run and vote in the election,” she added. “The Palestinian Authority needs to avoid any form of intimidation and political and intellectual repression against the voters.”

Another senior Hamas representative in the West Bank, Bassem Al-Za’areer, condemned the arrests of Hamas supporters by the Palestinian Authority as “politically-motivated.” He too alleged that the crackdown was aimed at undermining Hamas’s chances of winning the election. The crackdown, he added, reflects the “state of desperation and panic” of the PA following Hamas’s decision to participate in the vote. The Palestinian Authority fears a “fair and decent competition,” he explained.

The Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on Hamas on the eve of the election has even riled some senior Fatah officials, such as Husam Khader of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank.

“Political arrests solidify the dictatorship of the ruling [Fatah] party,” Khader charged. “The Palestinian Authority is searching for any excuse to call off the election because it fears democracy more than it fears Israel.” According to Khader, Abbas decided to hold the local and municipal elections because his advisors convinced him that Hamas would boycott the vote. The top Fatah official predicted that internecine fighting in Fatah would play into the hands of Hamas in the upcoming election. This is precisely what happened in the 2006 parliamentary elections, when divisions within Fatah facilitated Hamas’s victory.

One man, one vote, one time? Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (left) and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas (also president of the Palestinian Authority) are pictured voting in the last election for the Palestinian Legislative Council, which took place in 2006.

Similarly, Fatah maintains that Hamas has been waging a campaign of intimidation and detention against Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip — also in order to disrupt the upcoming election and undermine Fatah’s performance at the ballot boxes.

In the past two weeks, several Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip were rounded up by Hamas security forces, which have also banned Fatah from carrying out public election campaigns or holding rallies. Last week, as part of this crackdown, a Hamas court sentenced a former Palestinian Authority “general” to seven years in prison for “collaboration” with the PA security forces in the West Bank. Another three Fatah activists were sentenced to five years for the same crime.

In an effort to quell tensions between Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinian Central Election Commission decided to ask the two parties to sign a “Code of Conduct” document that requires all candidates and parties to avoid smear campaigns, slander, and fomenting sectarian or racist strife. The document also requires all those participating in the election to refrain from “exploiting religious or sectarian or tribal sentiments” in their campaign and also to avoid any form of intimidation, such as declaring one another traitors, apostates and infidels.

Although Fatah and Hamas have pledged to honor the terms of the “Code of Conduct,” known in Arabic as mithak sharaf, the two sides, which are not famous for honoring agreements, seem resolved to resort to all available methods to persuade voters to vote for each one of them.

For now, the two sides have taken to social media to present their electoral platforms and wage a smear campaign against each other.

Local elections are supposed to be about who can provide the people with the best municipal services and improve their living conditions. As such, one would expect candidates to run on a platform that promises new schools, roads, parks, sports centers and other municipal services. But in the case of the Palestinians, local and municipal elections seem to have assumed a new meaning and role. In fact, the upcoming election seems to be anything but a vote for a mayor or a member of a municipal or village council.

Hamas, whose leaders seem to be enthusiastic and optimistic about the upcoming vote, has seized the opportunity to wage a massive election campaign on Facebook and Twitter to promote its extremist ideology through intimidation and by accusing its rivals of infidelity, blasphemy and profanity. Hamas’s message to the Palestinian voters: Vote for us or else you will be considered infidels and you will end up in hell.

The first sign of Hamas’s frightening platform emerged when one of its top muftis, Yunis Al-Astal, issued a fatwa (Islamic religious decree) banning Palestinians from voting for any other party other than Hamas. “Any person, male or female, who votes for a party other than Hamas will be considered an infidel and apostate and his or her repentance will not be accepted even if they fasted or prayed or performed the hajj [pilgrimage] to Mecca,” the mufti ruled.

The Hamas fatwa sparked a wave of anger from many Palestinians, who were quick to accuse the Islamist movement and its leaders of waging a campaign of intimidation and terror against voters.

“This is the policy of the Muslim Brotherhood [of which Hamas is an offshoot],” commented Hisham Sawalhi, a Palestinian from the West Bank. “Those who support Muslim Brotherhood are believers, while those who oppose them are infidels.”

A Hamas-affiliated cartoonist from the Gaza Strip, Baha Yasin, published a cartoon that carries the same message as the fatwa. “A Palestinian Muslim does not vote for secular infidels,” he captioned a cartoon that depicts supporters of Fatah as unbelievers who smoke nargilas and cigarettes. The caption accompanying the cartoon also denounces the Fatah supporters for “insulting Allah” and Islam.

Rajai Al-Halabi, who is in charge of the “women’s portfolio” in Hamas, also stirred up controversy when she appeared on Al-Jazeera to declare that Islam surfaced for the first time in the Gaza Strip with the creation of Hamas.

Her declaration, which came in the context of Hamas’s election campaign, drew strong condemnations and sarcastic remarks from many Palestinians. “This means that all those who died before the establishment of Hamas were infidels, commented Hamzeh Abu Ajaleh, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip. “In any case, my grandfather did not consume alcohol and my grandmother used to cover her head,” he wrote in reaction to the statement by the senior Hamas official.

“Hamas has launched its unofficial election campaign by issuing deeds of forgiveness and taking us back to the Middle Ages,” said Palestinian political analyst Mahmoud Sabri.

“They have turned mosques into podiums for political, and not religious, lecturing. Any citizen who does not vote for Hamas will be closer to entering hell and will be asked by Allah on Doomsday why he or she did not vote for the right people. Hamas wants us to believe that if we do not support them, then we are against Islam and that we are participating in the war against our religion.”

Some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip said this week that Hamas has formed a special team to manage its propaganda campaign in preparation for the local and municipal elections. This team has begun operating on two fronts: first, a public campaign to market Hamas’s “achievements” since its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007; and second, one to wage a campaign of defamation against its rivals in Fatah, depicting them as traitors and Israeli agents and infidels and enemies of Allah and Islam.

“A vote for Hamas is a vote for the resistance and a vote in support of Allah and Islam,” reads one of Hamas’s election banners. Other banners posted on social media highlight the fact that most of the Fatah representatives are not faithful Muslims and do not pray or practice any of the other pillars of Islam.

This Hamas tactic has worked in the past. In the previous parliamentary election, Hamas used the same propaganda to brainwash and scare Palestinian voters. Hamas has also resorted to the same rhetoric in campaigns during elections for university student councils and various professional unions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some Palestinians, particularly Fatah loyalists, fear that Hamas will once again manage to persuade Palestinian voters to cast their ballots in favor of the Islamist movement by exploiting Islam to intimidate them.

However, there is no ignoring that there are other reasons why Palestinians may nevertheless prefer to vote for Hamas and not Fatah. Nearly two months before the election, tensions in Fatah seem to be on the rise. Many Fatah representatives are threatening to run in the election as independent candidates or as representatives of their clans. This already happened in the 2006 parliamentary election and resulted in Fatah’s defeat to Hamas. And this is why some Fatah officials already have second thoughts about the election and some of them have even openly called on the Palestinian Authority leadership to consider delaying them until further notice.

Last week, Mahmoud Abbas reportedly expelled four “rebellious” senior Fatah officials from the faction. The move came amid growing tensions among Fatah’s top brass over the upcoming election.

For Hamas, the upcoming election is an opportunity to consolidate its power and extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. Hamas also views the local and municipal elections as a test for future parliamentary and even presidential elections. Without question, a Hamas victory in the upcoming elections would have an impact on any future elections and would send a message to the world that the Palestinian Authority is weak and has lost much of its credibility and standing among Palestinians. By calling the election and allowing Hamas to participate, Abbas is digging his own grave. Not to mention that he will be presiding over the burial of any so-called peace process with Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

Yasser Arafat may have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but his PLO officials and he really deserve the prize for the art of deception. For decades now, the PLO has spearheaded one of history’s biggest scams, and now it seems that Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood movement, is about to join the bandwagon.

According to unconfirmed reports in the Arab media, Hamas is about to publish a “political document” in which it “accepts” the “two-state solution.” The purported document is already being hailed by some Western and Israeli analysts and Hamas apologists as a sign of the radical Islamic movement’s march toward moderation and pragmatism.

It is worthwhile to note that, contrary to what is being published in many media outlets, Hamas is NOT changing its Charter, which explicitly calls for the elimination of Israel. The new Hamas document is intended for outside consumption and is directed to the ears and eyes of Americans and Europeans only. The original Hamas Charter in Arabic will remain in effect even after the new document is made public and seemingly official. In fact, it does not have to do that. The New Charter, while mouthing all sorts of human rights bromides over which Westerners and the media can be counted upon to swoon, such as:

“Hamas believes that the message of Islam came with morals of justice, truth, dignity and freedom, and is against injustice in all its shapes, and criminalizes the criminals whatever their sex, color, religion or nationality,” and so on. (New Hamas Charter, Article 9).

It is, nevertheless, the same Old Hamas Charter as before. It does not even bother to renounce jihad as an acceptable means of “resistance.” This is Hamas talking in code; pursuing “resistance” against Israel means: We plan to continue launching terror attacks against Israel.

“Hamas confirms that no peace in Palestine should be agreed on, based on injustice to the Palestinians or their land. Any arrangements based on that will not lead to peace, and the resistance and Jihad will remain as a legal right, a project and an honor for all our nations’ people.” (New Hamas Charter, Article 21)

The PLO bluff began with the signing of the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993, and reached its peak three years later, when PLO leaders managed to convince President Bill Clinton and the international community, including many Israelis, that they had changed the PLO Charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel. The truth, however, is a far cry from that.

Back in 1996, the PLO’s parliament-in-exile, the Palestine National Council (PNC), held a session in Gaza City where its members decided to “entrust a legal committee with re-formulating the Palestinian Charter.”

No one knows if the committee made any of the proposed changes. It is also unclear whether two-thirds of the PNC members (the required majority) actually voted in favor of changing the PLO Charter.

To this day, some Palestinians maintain that the charter was never officially amended or revoked — and it certainly was not ratified — and that the whole performance was a lie to mislead the international community and Israel into believing that the Palestinians had abandoned their dream of destroying Israel through “armed struggle.”

The PLO Charter question, like the PLO’s pledge to work towards a two-state solution, is murky. What is clear is that many in the international community swallowed the scam and began to believe that Arafat and his cohorts were finally leading their people toward real peace, beginning with recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

A glance at PLO actions over the past two decades will show that this tiger has certainly not changed its stripes. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the PLO and its leaders, first Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas, have consistently and stubbornly rejected all Israeli peace offers, some of which were exorbitantly generous.

The PLO and many other Palestinians have one thing in mind: to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel in order to use it in the future as a launching pad from which to destroy Israel.

This desire to replace Israel with a Palestinian state is why no Palestinian leader will ever sign a document ending the conflict with Israel — no matter what he is offered. No Palestinian leader is even authorized to pledge an end to Palestinian demands, even if he is given all the territories held by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. Anyone could justifiably come along later — after land had irreversibly changed hands — and ask by what right Mahmoud Abbas, a leader in the twelfth year of a five-year term, had any legal authority to agree to anything. That question would — and should – invalidate any agreement overnight.

Abbas has shown for the past decade that his true goal is to undermine, delegitimize and isolate Israel; not to make peace with it. Abbas is prepared to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (as well as East Jerusalem) only because he sees this solution as part of the “phased plan” to eliminate Israel. The PLO Charter, which was ostensibly changed, is still living in the minds and hearts of Abbas and many Palestinians.

We have been here before, but the minuet partner has changed.

After two decades, Hamas has finally woken up to the power of lies. Its leaders are mouthing just what the international community wishes to hear — in exchange for legitimacy, recognition and money. Like the PLO, Hamas has learned that in this instance, words are more important than actions. Utter the words: “We accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 boundaries” and you will find the world at your doorstep.

After two decades, Hamas has finally woken up to the power of lies. Like the PLO, Hamas has learned that in this instance, words are more important than actions. Pictured: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) shakes hands with Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, during negotiations in 2007 for a short-lived unity government. (Image source: Palestinian Press Office)

The new document leaves no room for doubt that Hamas continues to seek the destruction of Israel despite its alleged acceptance of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines. Hamas “will not give up any part of the land of Palestine regardless of the reasons, circumstances and pressure,” the document reads, according to the Arab media reports. “Hamas rejects any alternative to the liberation of Palestine in its entirety, from the river to the sea.”

The document goes on to clarify that even if Hamas accepts a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, “this would not mean recognition of the Zionist entity or giving up any of the Palestinian rights.” The new document repeats Hamas’s commitment to the “armed struggle” against Israel:

“Resisting the occupation, with all methods and means, is a right that is guaranteed by international laws. At the heart of this is the armed resistance, which is considered the strategic choice to defend our people and restore their rights.”

In yet more signs of Hamas’s purported “moderation,” the document re-emphasizes the movement’s “absolute rejection” of the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between Israel and the PLO. In addition, the document affirms Hamas’s commitment to work towards flooding Israel with millions of Palestinian “refugees” through the so-called right of return. In theory, Palestinians should be directed toward a State of Palestine: that is what it is purportedly being created for. “Palestine is an Arab and Islamic land; it is a blessed and sacred land that occupies a special place in the heart of all Arabs and Muslims,” the new document stresses.

But, no, the Palestinians apparently want to have their marbles and Israel’s marbles.

The talk about Hamas accepting the two-state solution is nothing but a bluff. Hamas itself is saying that it will accept a Palestinian state on the 1967-lines but without recognizing Israel’s right to exist. In other words, Hamas is telling Israel, “Hand me a state on your doorstep so that I can better position myself to destroy you.” With moderates like that, who needs extremists?

New document or not, Hamas will continue to launch rockets and perpetrate other terror attacks to kill Jews. The “pragmatism” of the “new Hamas” lies in its amplified ability to fool the West.

Not everyone, however, is fooled. Hamas is using old PLO tricks to achieve current ends: double talk, conflicting messages, some in English, some in Arabic. They fill their people’s minds with anti-Israel venom while sending love notes to the international community. Hey, it worked for the PLO, so why not for Hamas?

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but Hamas and the PLO now have crucial common ground: sweet-talk the Western donors while laying stealthy plans to destroy Israel.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab scholar based in the Middle East.