As Jews everywhere are celebrating the Festival of Freedom and Liberty, known as Passover, others in the West are losing their freedoms.
These 3,400 years old “Jewish Spring” legacy, is celebrated each year to commemorate and rejoice their liberation from oppression. This legacy, as noted by Amb. Yoram Ettinger, “inspired the 17th century early Pilgrims of the Mayflower (1620) and Arbella (1630), who considered themselves the people of the “modern day Exodus,” departing from “modern day Egypt,” crossing the “modern day Red Sea” and heading towards the “modern day Promised Land.” Hence, the abundance of sites in the US, bearing Biblical names (e.g., 18 Jerusalem). The Exodus also shaped the worldview of the 18th century Founding Fathers, who viewed themselves as the people of the “modern day Covenant,” and has impacted the American ethos until today.”
In contrast, many Muslims who fled oppressive regimes to Western democracies have brought their oppressive religious dictates with them. Before 2015, fast growing Muslim communities systematically abused European secular court systems to sue frivolously for alleged discrimination and insult. This and manipulation of the political systems increased their abilities to obtain superfluous privileges. When this failed, violence succeeded to intimidate European institutions and individuals into submission.
The sixty-two years old Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a devout Muslim-Brother and a great supporter of Hamas, took upon himself to champion European submission to Islam, to advance his dream of resurrecting the Ottoman Empire.
On his February 2011 visit to Germany as Prime Minister, Erdogan first stopped in Düsseldorf to meet with more 10,000 Turkish immigrants, reassuring them they “remain part of Turkey [because] the land belongs to us all.” He urged them not to assimilate, demanding special Turkish high schools. He also advised them to take their place in the German society. And to assure the Islamization of the land, he encouraged them to “become politicians in Germany.”
The Muslim refugee tsunami following the rise of ISIS and the war in Iraq and Syria gave Erdogan the opportunity to instigate assistance for the jihadists on their way from the West to fight along ISIS. This helped fuel the war and increased the number of refugees fleeing from the war-zones. The zealous Muslim he is, claiming Turkey as a victim Erdogan has been extorting billions of dollars from the infidel Europeans.
Erdogan efforts to use the Islamic invasion to Germany to further Islamize the country has been successful. In a recent interview with Deutschlandfunk radio, the head of Germany’s Islamic Council Burhan Kesici stated Islam was “obviously compatible with the German constitution.” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, reaffirmed, saying Merkel has also emphasized several times that Islam “undoubtedly belonged to Germany.”
With this background and some 2,000 blasphemy cases under his belt since becoming Turkey’s president in 2014, and limitless concessions from Germany and the European Union, Erdogan, has now launched a new offensive to suppress free speech in Europe. Turkey’s diplomatic missions in Britain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherland notified organizations and businesses affiliated with the large Turkish diaspora in these countries, “to send the names, email addresses and quotes of those who send messages “insulting” the president. Thus far, only the Dutch Parliamentarians reacted angrily to Erdogan’s efforts to suppress free speech. And the British Spectator magazine announced “a grand Erdogan limerick competition, “ offering a £1,000 award to the author of the rudest limerick
In the 1990s, Erdogan served as a money launderer and arms purchaser in the Islamist-backed insurgency in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Albania. He used his position as leader of the Istanbul’s Islamist-dominated Refah Party, to become mayor. In 2001, he established his own party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and became Prime Minister, in 2003. All along he has advocated that should become an “Islamic democracy. Using this Muslim Brotherhood oxymoron invention of “Islamic democracy”, he worked to replace Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s Western legal codes with shari’a. He succeeded in “cleansing” the judiciary and the military and in slowly turning the secular Turkish republic into an authoritarian state.
Still, European and American policymakers are convinced that it is possible to do business with Brother Erdogan. Decades of intensive Muslim Brotherhood propaganda and intimidation to growing acceptance of suppressive Islamic dictates are now preventing European leaders from recognizing that under any Brother’s disguise, is an Islamist. Erdogan is a good example.
Luckily, American’s free expression, which is increasingly under attack by the enemies of freedom, is uniquely protected by the U.S. Constitution. Americans should celebrate their free speech rights and fight each and every day to ensure it remains intact.