Recep Tayep Erdogan, the highly respected Prime Minister of Turkey deserves all admiration and appreciation. He is a man who has given new meaning to the word ‘dignity’.

 Operating in a region where cowardly and corrupt despots routinely humiliate themselves (and their people) before Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States, Mr. Erdogan has proven himself a worthy scion of the Ottomans who more or less protected Islamic lands from earlier European colonization.

 His mode of behaviour is very nostalgic. It invokes the days when Muslims could stand up to Western colonialist ambitions and imperialism.

 To be sure, Erdogan is not Sultan Muhammed El-Fateh, nor is modern Turkey a reincarnation of the Ottoman State.

 However, the Turkish Prime Minister is obviously not a weak and insecure leader who, like many Arab rulers, would compromise his country’s vital interests in the service of foreign powers.

 The reason Erdogan looks heroic is because he is the only leader in the Middle East who has not hesitated to challenge the Judeo-Nazi State which is trying to subjugate the entire Middle East to supremacist Jewish whims.

 His firm stance on the mini-Israeli holocaust in Gaza last year has been an honourable act of human dignity, an act that engenders pride in the hearts of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, people who value honesty, truth and freedom.

 Indeed, while some Arab leaders, probably including some Palestinian leaders as well, had hoped that Israel would finish off Hamas and pave the way for ‘peace’, Erdogan had the moral courage to call the spade a spade by calling the Israeli child-killers and murderers by their real names.

 In fact, the dignified, firm and uncompromising Turkish stand with regard to the recent humiliation of the Turkish Ambassador to the Zionist regime by that regime’s deputy foreign minister shows that the Turkish leadership respects itself and its people. And as the adage goes, those who respect themselves shall be respected, and those who don’t respect themselves shall not be respected by others.

 Turkey not only refused to let the incident pass quietly as the Arab leaderships would, but insisted that the Zionist regime issue an immediate and unequivocal apology.

 Initially the Zionists refused, but the Turks insisted on their stance, eventually forcing Israel to issue a written and clear apology. But since when do Zionist Jews say mea culpa? Well, they do when they face real men who respect themselves, men of the calibre of Recep Tayep Erdogan.

 Unlike Arab submissiveness and humiliating subservience to the U.S., Erdogan always insisted on dealing with the Americans and other Western powers from a position of parity.

 He would never compromise his country’s dignity and sovereignty in return for political backing from this or that capital.

 In fact, when Erdogan faced the lunatic Bush administration, he adamantly refused to allow American and NATO warplanes to use the Turkish airbase Incirlik to bomb Iraqi cities as did several Arab countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

 And when the Europeans refused to grant Turkey EU membership, largely because of its Muslim nature, he did not behave obsequiously or beg for acceptance. Instead, he expanded Turkish trade with the Muslim world, especially with Iran and the Arab countries as well as Asian countries in the Far East. Under his leadership, the Turkish economy grew several-fold. The volume of Turkish trade with the Arab world alone is believed to have surpassed $32 billion.

 The Erdogan leadership also succeeded in introducing tremendous social, economic and administrative reforms, which eventually advanced civil society and reduced the traditional hegemony of the military establishment.

 In carrying these reforms, the Turkish leadership managed to seriously limit the Zionist influence on the Turkish army. And while there is military cooperation between Israel and the Turkish military establishment, it is abundantly clear that Israel and Turkey are no longer the ‘strategic allies’ they once were during the pre-Erdogan era.

 Last year, the Turkish government refused to allow Israeli warplanes to take part in an aerial drill over Anatolia. The decision upset the Zionist regime which complained to Washington that Turkey was going too far in its hostility to Israel.

 But Turkey paid no attention, arguing that it was a sovereign country and that Turks were in no mood to allow Israeli pilots who had just murdered and maimed thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians to fly over Turkish territory.

 Moreover, Erdogan refused to condemn the Iranian nuclear programme as Arab regimes and sheikhdoms in the Gulf have done, mainly in order to receive a certificate of good conduct from Washington.

 Indeed, instead of currying favour with Washington and Tel Aviv, Erdogan argued rather courageously that Iran had every right to possess the nuclear technology, saying openly that those not wishing to see Iran possess nuclear technology should first give up their own nuclear programmes. This is while certain Arab regimes are openly conspiring with Israel against Iran.

 There is no doubt that Israel and her Masonic agents in Turkey will try to hatch plots to destabilize and undermine the Turkish government, especially that of Professor Necmiddin Erbecan. It also reminds us of early Zionist efforts to bring about the downfall of the Ottoman States which refused to grant Zionism a foothold in Palestine.

 Hence, the Turkish State, especially the present government, should be constantly vigilant in order to foil the hateful designs of the venomous Zionist snake.

 We hope and pray that the Turkish ‘disease’ will spread to the Arab world and that a new generation of smart, patriotic, Islamic leaders will appear in the Arab world, especially in countries such as Egypt where the Tyrant Mubarak is preparing his own son to be Egypt’s next President-for-life.