"Today we are no longer in the world of 2008"

Prime Minister Erdoğan's visit to Cairo under the shadow of Israel's attack on Gaza, although planned long in advance, constituted the most meaningful answer to Israel and its friends. The fact that all the spoiled and aggressive practices of Israel, which is lodged like a dagger in the peace, tranquility and stability of the region, are tolerated by the world system in spite of everything shows that what is called international law is nothing but a huge lie.

In essence, Israel, by its very existence, is an event sufficient on its own to prove false all the claims made in the modern world in the name of human rights, ethics, democracy and law. If Israel exists, the claims of international law and legitimacy are a huge lie. If Israel exists, the care shown to human rights has no credibility at all. Indeed, if Israel exists, the claim of secularism too is a strange claim. Look, no one even thinks of criticizing, in the name of secularism, in the name of religious fanaticism, either the existence or these practices of a terrorist state that bases all its references on Jewish Sharia. Yet every day tons of literature are poured out that question Muslims' relationship with politics or war, try to present it as abnormal, and label it as distance from contemporary values. That Israel, which showers its assault on Muslims, an attack that brutally killed a baby in the cradle, and which recklessly names it with a term from the Torah, can remain far from matters of religion, violence and terrorism is worth dwelling on in itself. Israel's existence in this state, on its own, is more than enough to show the hypocrisy and fraudulence of the world order we are living in.

Israel's extraordinary power to steer the media environments and public opinion all over the world is evident. With this power it can ensure that dozens of people, most of them children, who lost their lives to the tons of missiles it rained on Gaza, and hundreds more wounded, do not appear in Western media even as the smallest news item. Moreover, it can even tie its own deadly aggression to the right of defense against a few rockets from Gaza. In this setup there is no trace of justice.

The world continues to remain silent against this rampage of Israel. In the US, Obama, who does not think very favorably of Israel, came out the winner of the elections, but at least seventy percent of those who ran for the elections as senators and members of Congress on the list of his own party, the Democratic Party, had already signed, as they entered the elections, the statement sent by the Jewish lobbies that they would not pursue a policy contrary to Israel's interests in the Middle East. American democracy is such a thing, and be sure that however strong it may look today, this is the most important weak point that will lead it to collapse too.

Indeed, a US whose policies in the Middle East are under Israel's guidance is losing prestige every passing day. Right after the 11 September attacks Bush had asked, naively, or trying to appear naive, "why do they (the Muslim peoples) hate us (the US)?" Despite all the intelligence work, we do not think they have adequately reached the very clear answer to this very simple question. The greatness of great states can sometimes be tested by very simple truths, and their astonishing blindness in the face of these truths stands out. This blindness is often attributed to a grand calculation that cannot be explained but incites conspiracy theories. Yet the cause of what happens is quite often very simple, and there is no point in ascribing great minds to it through complicated explanations.

The conference hall of Cairo University, which was not opened last September, on prime minister Erdoğan's previous visit to Cairo, for him to give a speech, citing security reasons, was this time opened to the fullest. This hall had also begun to be called the Obama hall after Obama's famous speech in Cairo. The hall, with a capacity of five thousand, had been withheld from Erdoğan 14 months ago probably because of fear of his extraordinary popularity among Egyptian youth. At that time the old-regime reflexes of the military, which was looking for ways to exercise tutelage over the revolution, continued to work.

Yet now Egypt under Morsi's leadership and Turkey have drawn closer to each other beyond what could be imagined. Erdoğan is no longer a threat to Egyptian rulers but a possibility, an opportunity, a source of strength. The image the Prime Minister gives together with Morsi strengthens Morsi even more and increases his sympathy among the people even more. The rapprochement of the two countries to this extent shows that we are at a great historical juncture that we owe to the Arab Spring process. We can expect great blessing to flow from this rapprochement for Africa, for Asia and for the entire Islamic world.

Today's world order rests largely on the sharing of the domains of power that keeping Islamic countries apart from one another provides them. That is why the dictators in office until now never listened to their own peoples; they listened only to the voice of their owners. In a world with such leaders Israel's job was naturally far easier. None of them had a real problem with Israel. They were blind and deaf to Israel's occupation, to the various oppression and torture it practiced against the Palestinians, to the insults it displayed against Muslims over Jerusalem. Yet today, as Erdoğan said at Cairo University, "the world is no longer the world of 2008." In 2008 only Turkey had raised its voice against Israeli barbarity. As a result of the spring we have lived through, we are now in a world in which in many countries administrations that listen only to the voice of their peoples are in office.

This new world is a world in which both Israel and the world order that shields it are questioned with a louder voice. This is the clearest image that Egypt, hosting Erdoğan, has given to the world.