Hannah Lucinda Smith
At the end of November, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered the keynote address at a forum for the country’s national public broadcaster and reaffirmed his support for Gaza. Seyma Yildirim, a Turkish pro-Palestinian activist in the audience, knew that the moment to speak up had come. “I felt compelled to highlight the inconsistency between the stated support for Palestine and the actions on the ground,” she said.
Yildirim and eight others from the Turkish activist group A Thousand Youths for Palestine shouted, “Stop fueling genocide!” in front of live television cameras, calling attention to under-the-radar Turkish oil exports to Israel. Though less visible than arms sales, oil exports are a vital component of Israel’s war machine. As the protesters were escorted from the room, Erdogan’s response was vehement: “Do not be the mouthpiece of Zionists here.”
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