Notebook #1

Announcements, Erdoğan's statements on Israel, historians in Turkey, pejoration

Greetings, o Kültürkampf reader!

I have some regular content lined up for you today, but first, a few announcements.

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Announcement #1: format change.

As longtime readers know, I occasionally write in the “reading, watching, listening” and “political analysis” formats. I have decided to combine them into this, the “notebook” series.

Like those other formats, this is where I’ll share reviews, thoughts, and bits of political analysis. The first bit of it will be available for all, while the rest will be for paid subscribers only.

If you aren’t a paid subscriber yet, please consider becoming one. You’ll get access to more material, you’ll get to comment on posts, and you’ll have the sublime pleasure of knowing that you’re supporting me! Buy me one drink a month, and I’ll promise you’ll get much more content (for an example, see Announcement #3).

But first things first…

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Announcement #2: my book is coming out with I.B. Tauris early 2025! The title is “New Turkey and the Far-Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country.” It’s the culmination of several years of work, as well as a decade of witnessing political events up close in Ankara.

I’ll have more information as we get closer to the publication date. I’m currently in the copy-editing phase.

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Announcement #3: Kültürkampf is launching a podcast!

I’ll have a wonderful co-host, and we’re going to record and drop our first episode in the next few days.

The problem with writing is that I have a lot of ideas and very little time to develop them into blog posts or longer papers. I hope that the podcast will allow me to engage with more issues at a faster rate.

The pace of the writing on here will remain the same, so this will increase the total amount of content on the site.

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With all that out of the way, let’s get started.

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Erdoğan muses about military intervention in Israel

There’s a lot of people on twitter getting riled up about a comment Erdoğan made while talking to AK Party leaders in his native city of Rize. Many of you will have seen it, but here’s one example:

I think context is important here.

First, Erdoğan was in his home city of Rize, talking to a group of senior AK Party members. Note that if you’re high up in the AK Party in Rize, you’re royalty. Half the palace is probably from Rize. Many people in that room are probably related to Erdoğan in some way.

Second, Erdoğan isn’t even really talking about Israel. He’s talking about complacency among his own people. He’s frustrated because his immediate circles are now immensely rich and content, and they’re losing sight of the larger political goals of the Islamist movement. Military intervention in Israel is simply an example of the kind of thing a more powerful Turkey might do.

Here’s the full quote:

Our exports were at $36 billion, but now we’ve reached $250.

It’s going to get better.

Where was our import-export in the defense industry, and where is it now?

But my dear brothers and sisters, let none of these [successes] deceive us.

We must be very strong, so that this Israel isn’t able to do these things to Palestine. Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, so we can do something similar to them [Israel]. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to.

We only have to be strong, so that we can do what? So that we can take these steps.

I saw on twitter how some people seemed to be surprised about these remarks.

I hope that Kültürkampf readers weren’t. I’ve written on Erdoğan’s approach to the question of Palestine-Israel in general, as well as the Gaza war in particular. Of course Erdoğan thinks about military intervention against Israel. And of course those kinds of things get articulated in personal meetings, where people talk extemporaneously. This isn’t just one leader bouncing around ideas, this is a political movement with a long time horizon.

I think Erdoğan’s broader point is worth reflecting on a bit. His movement was fairly focused in the 2000s and 2010s, and that yielded very tangible results, like the Bayraktar drones, or the presidential regime, with its sprawling new institutions. That’s how Turkey has been able to project power far beyond its borders, most notably in the Caucasus and North Africa. Erdoğan is probably genuinely concerned that his people are getting complacent. He wants to continue pushing the political imagination of his followers, to set new goals in front of them. Military intervention in the Israel-Palestine conflict is one such goal.

In this kind of thinking, everything is about maximizing Turkey’s ability to generate and project power. That’s also why Erdoğan thought that it was OK to refrain from sanctioning Israel. It would have hurt Turkey’s economic well-being, which would have hurt its long-term prospects, so he held off on it. He goes on to say in that conversation how Turkey was able to cut off its relations with Israel, and how it’s going to continue doing so.

I think liberals are incapable of understanding this kind of thing though. They just focus on Erdoğan as a villain, and think about what might happen after him. Thus, the prodigal son fallacy lives on.