Month: February 2015

Armenians Need to Lose Their Faith in the Free Market

23:20, February 7, 2015
By Markar Melkonian

In a best-selling book, the late Nobel-laureate economist Milton
Friedman wrote that, “…if inequality is measured by differences in
levels of living between the privileged and other classes, such
inequality may well be decidedly less in capitalist than in communist
countries.” (Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, p. 169.)

Friedman built his career on confident pronouncements like this.

A quarter of a century ago, a generation of intellectuals in Yerevan
seized on such statements, which became articles of a Free Market
faith that seemed new and exciting at the time. They hoisted the
banner of capitalism high above their heads and waved it around
furiously. Since then, they have had many cold winters to reconsider
the claim that capitalism would narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Armenians, of course, have not been alone in their disillusionment.
According to a recent report by the international relief organization
Oxfam, “In 2014, the richest 1% of people in the world owned 48% of
global wealth, leaving just 52% to be shared between the other 99% of
the adults on the planet.” Almost all of the remaining 52% of global
wealth, the report claims, is owned by the richest 20%, leaving only
5.5% of global wealth to the remaining 80% of the human population of
Earth. (Deborah Hardoon, “Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More,”
Oxfam G.B. for Oxfam International, January 2015, p. 2.) The eighty
percent at the bottom, presumably, includes the population of the
Republic of Armenia.

Oxfam reports, furthermore, that the wealth of the poorest 50% of the
human population of Earth is less in 2014 that it was in 2009, while
the wealth of the richest eighty individuals doubled in nominal terms
between 2009 and 2014.In fact, “The wealth of these eighty individuals
is now the same as that owned by the bottom 50% of the global
population, such that 3.5 billion people share between them the same
amount of wealth as that of these extremely wealthy 80
people.”(Hardoon, pp. 2-3.)

The Oxfam report is just the latest of a long series of reports and
studies that point to a huge and growing gap between the super-rich
and the rest, both in the former Soviet republics and across the
globe.These reports come as no surprise to some of us, but they
plainly contradict the claims of Friedman and the Free Market
faithful, from Washington to Yerevan and beyond. The American
journalist and former hedge-fund manager, Jim Cramer, summarized the
lesson: “The only guy who really called this right,” he said, “was
Karl Marx.” (Time magazine, “Ten Questions for Jim Cramer,” May 14,
2009.)

There is much evidence that within the wealthiest and most powerful
countries, too, the gap between the richest and the rest is growing.
A quick way to fathom the dimensions of that gap is to examine the
American Profile Poster, a graphic representation of a large amount of
data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. (Stephen J. Rose, Social
Stratification in the United States: The American Profile Poster, The
New Press, 2007.)

The figure at the very top of the poster’s main chart represents
190,000 individuals with the highest reported incomes in the United
States. The chart is evenly calibrated and the poster itself measures
about one meter in height. If it were to represent the 20,000
individuals with the highest income as a separate figure, the chart
would have to extend twenty stories above the poster! That is the
distance that separates the income of America’s super rich from the
rest of the country.

(The latest edition of the poster was published in 2007, using data
collected before the Great Recession. If anything, the recession has
further skewed the trends registered in that edition. Every indication
is that an updated chart will represent an even greater gap between
the super-rich and the rest.)

The Occupy activists of a few years back denounced “the 1%” of the
wealthiest Americans. In fact, the super-rich in the United States
make up less than one-one hundredth of one percent of the population
of the country. Indeed, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the 400
richest Americans control more than 38% of the country’s wealth, and
10% of the population of the U.S.A. controls 70% of the wealth. No
wonder, then, that even the current administration in Washington D.C.
publicly expresses alarm at the growing gap.

The United States of America enjoys huge advantages that Armenia will
never enjoy. A vast country of 316 million people, with immense
natural resources and thousands of miles of coastline, the United
States dominates its own hemisphere–and most of the rest of the
globe, too–economically, culturally, and militarily. And yet forty
percent of the U.S. population has a net worth of zero; they have no
assets. If it were not for social security, tens of millions of these
Americans would be destitute.

This is the country that the leaders of the counter-revolution in
Yerevan twenty-five years ago looked to as a model.

But perhaps the past quarter of a century of poverty and misery is
just a passing phase. Perhaps, under more propitious circumstances
and in the even-longer run, Free Enterprise might yet narrow the gap
between the super rich and the rest, as Milton Friedman claimed it
does. Perhaps, despite appearances to the contrary, Armenian is on
the way to a natural equilibrium state in which the markets will work
their magic happily ever after.

This is a claim one hears these days, as it has become clear that
capitalism has failed to make good on its promises. The economist
John Maynard Keynes once noted that “in the long run” we are all dead.
This observation becomes worse than ominous in the case of Armenia, in
view of the long-term economic, strategic, and security consequences
of its dramatically diminished population.

But even setting that consideration aside, the facts of capitalism
wipe out the “passing phase” article of faith, too. Thomas Piketty’s
much-discussed book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has shown
that, over the course of the last two centuries, the rate of return on
capital has exceeded the rate of economic growth.

Piketty’s book, a popular presentation of exhaustive research, shows
that in the West no less than in Armenia, capitalism left to its own
“free market” devices leads to greater and greater disparities of
wealth. Without state intervention, the rich get richer and the poor
get poorer, even as productivity soars. For all of his confidence,
then, Friedman was clearly wrong: even in the long-run, capitalism
left to its own devices leads to greater and greater inequalities.

But this would hardly come as a shock to most residents of the
Republic of Armenia today.

If by now Armenia’s Free Marketeers have not seen the error of their
ways, they never will. Indeed, why should they? The leaders of
Armenia’s counter-revolutionary generation have by now safely
squirrelled away their loot and either left the country or ensconced
themselves in mansions, behind gates. Capitalism certainly has worked
for them.

But what about Armenia’s wage-earners, the unemployed, the
under-employed, those on fixed incomes, and the poor? These people,
together with their dependents, make up the larger part of the
population of the Republic of Armenia.

People who care about Armenia had better hope for a generation of
working-class Armenians who will break with the delusions of their
parents and grandparents as thoroughly as the counter-revolutionary
generation twenty-five years ago blotted the lives and hopes of their
Soviet Armenian predecessors.

We had better hope for a generation that will recognize that the guy
who really got this right was Karl Marx.

(Markar Melkonian is a nonfiction writer and a philosophy instructor.
His books include Richard Rorty’s Politics: Liberalism at the End of
the American Century (Humanities Press, 1999), Marxism: A Post-Cold
War Primer (Westview Press, 1996), and My Brother’s Road (I.B. Tauris,
2005, 2007), a memoir/biography about Monte Melkonian, co-written with
Seta Melkonian)

ARF-D member critical of Prosperous Armenia over changed position

15:28 * 08.02.15

Armenia has always been at war. So what is the reason the same people
supported parliamentary government at that time, Head of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) parliamentary group
Armen Rustamyan told Tert.am as he commented on a statement Chairman
of the Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan made at a meeting of
non-coalition political forces and civil movements.

According to Mr Tsarukyan, Armenia’s governance model must not be
changed now that Azerbaijan is committing daily ceasefire violating
and threatening with large-scale hostilities.

“Nineteen of the 27 members of the European Union (EU) have
parliamentary government, and the fact of Armenia being at war should
not be recalled now,” Mr Rustamyan said.

He highlights amendments to Armenia’s election law.

The ARF-D has been proposing parliamentary government, as well as
changes in the election system, for 25 years.

“We said that properly held elections were not enough. We saw it in
1990 and 1991, when elections were properly held, but democracy was
not easily established. So we need a system that properly elected
authorities should not be corrupted,” Mr Rustamyan said.

Any authorities are inclined to corruption and abusing their power in
their own interests.

“It is to rule it out that we speak of system reforms. They do not do
it, trying to explain to us something that has never been practiced
worldwide,” he said.

Armenia needs authorities of new quality, elections must not be rigged
and authorities must not use the government in their own interests.

“I accept this all and can put my signature to it. Yes, we need that,
but how can we achieve this aim on our own will.”

Mr Rustamyan calls for accepting the ARF-D’s proposals for radical
system reforms.

“We proposed measures to preventing people in power from using their
government posts in their own interests – other branches of power must
prevent such developments. It is in this way that a country is made a
real country.

“So you think people like Sarkozy or Hollande are so good and guided
by will alone? No, they cannot do anything because the system will not
allow them to. If they want to do anything to the detriment of the
French people, they cannot. The French people reached this government
system in four stages.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Minsk Group Co-Chairs issued a
statement on latest developments in Nagorno-Karabakh peace process

20:00, 7 February, 2015

MUNICH, 7 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and
Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group issued a statement on latest
developments in Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. As reports
“Armenpress” the statement runs as follows:

“The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic
met the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of
the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America,
and Pierre Andrieu of France) today to discuss developments in the
Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. The OSCE Secretary General Lamberto
Zannier and the Personal Representative of the CiO Ambassador Andrzej
Kasprzyk also joined the meeting.

We all agree that the military situation along the Line of Contact and
Armenia-Azerbaijan border is deteriorating, posing a threat to
regional stability and endangering the lives of civilians. The 12
casualties and 18 wounded cited by Ambassador Kasprzyk’s monitoring
reports in January represent the highest confirmed number of victims
in the first month of a year since the 1994 ceasefire agreement. After
2014, in which approximately 60 people lost their lives, we are
alarmed that this disturbing violent trend has continued. There is no
military solution to the conflict, and the sides must cease using
force. We call on the sides to end incursions, cease targeting
villages and civilians, stop the threat of reprisals and the use of
asymmetric force, and take additional steps to reduce tensions and
strengthen the ceasefire. We find it unacceptable that the security
guarantees are not fully observed during OSCE monitoring exercises.

Additionally, we reaffirm the December 4, 2014 joint statement of the
Heads of Delegation of the Co-Chair countries at the Basel Ministerial
Council, calling on the sides to settle humanitarian issues, including
the return of bodies and prisoners, in the spirit of the Astrakhan
statement of October 2010.

The Minsk Group Co-Chairs, with the full support of the
Chairperson-in-Office, are prepared to host an intensified negotiation
process that can bring to a peaceful end a conflict that has scarred
the region for too long. We strongly urge the sides to find the
political will to begin this process immediately without excuses.”

Artur Aleksanyan and Arsen Julfalakyan still among world’s top wrestlers

15:35, 7 February, 2015

YEREVAN, 7 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. Members of the Armenia’s national
Greco-Roman wrestling team, current world champions Artur Aleksanyan
and Arsen Julfalakyan are still among the top wrestlers in the world.

The new rating tables for the world’s leading wrestlers have been
posted on the official website of the International Wrestling
Federation. Armenia’s heroes of last year, including Arsen Julfalakyan
(75 kg) and Artur Alekanyan (98 kg) are still in 2nd and 1st place in
their weight categories, respectively, as the Armenian Wrestling
Federation reports, according to “Armenpress”.

Armenian Genocide Centennial has to motivate us to learn lessons from
the tragedy

18:54, 6 February, 2015

YEREVAN, 6 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. An Armenian artist and clergymen
attach importance to not only the demand for elimination of the
consequences of the Armenian Genocide, but also the study on the
motives behind it. During a press conference,artistic director of the
Hovhannes Tumanyan State Puppet Theater of Yerevan Ruben Babayan
mentioned that the Centennial has to serve as an opportunity to study
and analyze issues and learn from the lessons. “These days we’re
talking about elimination of the consequences of the Genocide, but
we’re not talking about elimination of the causes of the Genocide
since there is always a danger of Genocide,” he said, adding that one
of the lessons to be learned must be that the Armenian people have to
rely not on others, but on themselves.

Director of the Office for Conceptual Issues at the Mother See,
Father, Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan agreed that we still don’t see people
talking about the causes and added that they should have been doing
that many years ago. “Perhaps people are afraid of talking about the
causes. If people want to show the phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide
through culture, they have to do that with a clear strategy and under
conditions. It has to be viewed within the general ideology,” His
Holiness Bagrat mentioned.

Both the artist and the clergyman agreed that there is a need to
create a new idea around which all Armenians will unite.

Azerbaijani side violates ceasefire regime 1200 times from Feb 1-7

16:19 / 07.02.2015

According to the operative data of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army,
from February 1 to 7 the Azerbaijani side violated ceasefire regime
1200 times opening fire in the direction of Armenian posts for 17,000
times.

The Defense Army press service reports that the Armenian side
undertook retaliation measures and continued their military duty.

Nyut.am

“Turkey creates an impression that the hand stretched out to Armenia was
left in the air”

February 7 2015

Turkologist about the Armenian-Turkish relations

Senior researcher of the Institute of Oriental studies of the NAS of
Armenia, also turkologist Vahram Ter-Matevosyan, in the interview with
“Aravot”, expressed the following opinion that after the April 23 message,
last year, new manifestations of form and content are available in the
Turkey’s official policy. “They are continuous in nature, and each new
statement or initiative is built on the former one. Thus, at present, a
quite large package is created, which includes the country’s top
leadership’s vision about normalization of relations with Armenia and the
Armenian people. When getting acquainted with the content of various
documents included in this package, one gets the impression, and I am sure,
that it is the true objective pursued by Turkey, Ankara is moving “by the
way of self-cleansing and self-lashing”, while Armenia is not duly
signifying these “courageous moves” by Turkey” says Mr. Ter-Matevosyan. He
believes that Turkey creates an impression that the hand stretched out to
Armenia is left in the air, and the reason are the nationalistic sentiments
of the leadership in Armenia. “If we give a formulation to Turkey’s policy
over the last 10 months, then it just looks like this,” says the
turkologist.

To the question of whom the Turkish propaganda machine is aimed at, he
answers, “I am sure that firstly not at Armenians, because it is very
difficult to mislead Armenians with such nonsenses. Armenians are not the
first time and I’m sure not the last time to hear it. The international
community is an extremely elastic notion, indeed, there will be some, for
whom the Turkish approach would be more perceivable, and for the majority
of them, the Armenian approach would be more perceivable. The same logic
works for the Turkish society. The attempts of the Turkish government to
set up a “new start” at this point is failed, both the time and the methods
are wrongly chosen,” says Mr. Ter-Matevosyan.

Turning to Pan Armenian Declaration, our interlocutor considered this
document essential. “The Declaration of January 29 is an attempt to
establish a connection between the past and the present, on the one hand,
and the future, on the other hand. Its name is selected worthily, a
“Declaration”. This declaration is an important milestone. It is also the
equivalent indicator of collective will, maturity and political thought of
Armenians on Genocide issue. It is generally accepted positively by the
Armenians, although there were diversity of interpretations, which is
positive. It is quite extensive and comprehensive document, and it is not
possible to analyze it completely with one question,” says Mr.
Ter-Matevosyan, adding, – Anyway, the first problem that arose with all the
people concerned, probably refers to the fact of what actions should be
carried out in the direction of making the Armenian demands more accessible
and mature. Indeed, the paper envelop of legal requirements was also
mentioned, also the three-level demand was also presented. I hope that the
new document will be clearly and accessibly present the road map, by which
the Armenians’ rights and legitimate interests restoration process will
proceed. The first steps in the direction of declaring the years of 2015 as
a year of a change in our mindset and self-assessment are already made.”

The turkologist also opines that after January 29, Armenia’s diplomacy
tasks are also changing. “It was not a coincidence that the ambassadors of
the Republic of Armenia to abroad were also present at the Genocide
Memorial place that day. A task was put before them that day. Now, it is
necessary to elaborate an action plan for the implementation of separate
episodes of the Declaration, set a task for the diplomatic representations,
define a clear criteria for the assessment of the results and move ahead,”
says Vahram Ter-Matevosyan.

HRIPSIME HOVHANNISYAN

Read more at:

How an Islamized Armenian found his relatives. A story of one photo

February 7 2015

I have taken this photo on September 19, 2010, on the opening day of
the Holy Cross Church on Akdamar Island, Turkey. Invited by “Hrant
Dink” Foundation, we attended the event with a group of journalists.
Islamized Armenians also visited Akdamar to take part in the opening
ceremony of the Church. They were talking in Turkish or Kurdish and
our Istanbul- Armenians compatriots were translating into Armenian.
For example, this old man by the name Farzanda from the village
Shenik, knowing that I am from Armenia, came close to me and said that
he is looking for his relative in Yerevan, who, according to him, was
born in Turin, his name is Vardan Vardanyan and is lecturing at one of
the universities in Yerevan. At that time, Farzanda grandfather was 70
years old. He was a secret Armenian who accepted Islam. Farzandan told
that his father’s name was Ulikhan and last name – Gyulbadagh(yan).
Farzanday’s Kurdish groom named Bashir left even his phone number so
that his relatives in Yerevan would contact him. Later, we learned
from a Turkish Armenian residing in Armenia that on reading Bashir’s
phone number in “Aravot” newspaper and seeing Farzanda Gyulbudagh’s
photo, the relatives in Yerevan have called him, found him and met
with him.

Gohar HAKOBYAN

Likelihood of Resumption of War in South Caucasus

Igor Muradyan, Political Analyst
Comments – 07 February 2015, 23:42

Although Armenia is obviously becoming Russia’s vassal, the United
States and Europe are wondering how Armenia-Russia relations will
develop, how Armenia will maintain relations with Russia and the
Western community simultaneously, whether there are different opinions
in Moscow on relations with Armenia.

They also wonder for what reason Armenia would like to have sources of
supply of weapons in the West, what kinds of weapons it is interested
in, how confident the Armenian political leadership is on its policy
on the West, whether the military command supports this policy.

Besides these circumstances the assessment of risks and threats of war
in the South Caucasus is interesting. As far as NATO experts know,
headquarters of NATO member states, as well as NATO did not organize
role plays, the available analyses are not deep enough, the
information received from embassies of NATO member states in the South
Caucasus is often controversial, sometimes lack of knowledge of the
subject is in place.

On the whole, it is believed that over the past years the situation in
the area of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has shifted from stable
tense to high risk. A lot of weapons are bought, militaristic
propaganda is intensifying, constant aggressive statements are made.
At present, there is no hope for significant progress of the talks.

Major states, including Turkey, Russia and Iran, are not interested in
the resumption of war. NATO and the European Union also consider the
military actions unacceptable.

The United States, Russia and France agree their actions relating to
Nagorno-Karabakh. As the possible initiator of military actions,
Azerbaijan is not ready to implement them. The one who will start the
war and the countries which will support it will appear in
international isolation, primarily by NATO, the European Union and the
United States.

Turkey postures as if for constraint of Azerbaijan, and it is
reiterated in its consultations with its partners in NATO. Turkey is
not interested in a war that would lead to a disaster. In this regard,
conclusions are made that the likelihood and risks of resumption of
war are not high, as some experts and observers may claim.

Is it possible to explain the silent observation of the weapons race
in the South Caucasus by the Western community by the interest of the
West as a factor of pressure on Armenia that leads to its
rapprochement with NATO and the European Union?

The rapprochement of Armenia with NATO and the European Union does not
stem from competition with Azerbaijan in the sphere of defense.
Breaking of the balance of forces in the South Caucasus may lead to
attempts to resolve problems through use of force, which is a threat
to the Western policy in the region.

The purpose of the Western community is not maintenance of the balance
of forces in the region. The purpose is regulation of problems but the
balance of forces is a premise for stability and security. Therefore,
it is time to discuss the possibility for cooperation with Armenia
over supply of weapons.

It is understood that the process of vassalization of Armenia was
enabled and determined by massive supply of modern weapons to
Azerbaijan by Russia.

Turkey’s Bad Joke: Crocodile Tears for Victims of Holocaust
By Burak Bekdil
February 8, 2015

[Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the
Hurriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.]

It all looks nice. It isn’t.

On Muslim Brotherhood channels based in Turkey, Egyptian clerics and
commentators called for the murder of Egypt’s President Abdel Fatteh
al-Sisi and the journalists who support him.

Under the nice wrappings of Holocaust Remembrance Day, there is an
entirely different Turkey.

Perhaps he thinks the Holocaust, too, happened because of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

For a few moments, one could think there are two countries in the
world that go by the name “Turkey.” Then reality quickly corrects the
mistaken belief.

“We hope that every person develops an understanding of the Holocaust,
which constitutes one of the darkest moments in human history, and
will consider the importance of working together so that such a
tragedy, and the conditions that made this inconceivable crime
possible, will never re-emerge,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in
a written statement on January 27. How nice and thoughtful. But there
were more Turkish niceties.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was among the participants
in Poland at the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, on Holocaust
Remembrance Day. And Turkey donated a modest sum of 150,000 euros this
year as its contribution to the long-term preservation and restoration
of the concentration camp.

Also, for the first time, International Holocaust Remembrance Day was
marked in Ankara by high-level officials. Turkish Parliamentary
Speaker Cemil Cicek on January 28 addressed members of Turkey’s tiny
Jewish community and others at a Holocaust Remembrance Day event.

It all looks nice. It isn’t.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry’s statement looked like the bad joke of
the year: “We observe that anti-Semitism, which formed a basis for the
inhuman Nazi ideology, still survives today and therefore we believe
in the importance of fighting tirelessly against this phenomenon.”

The ministry was right to observe that anti-Semitism still survives
today. Sadly, most powerfully in its own country, where no prosecutor
has indicted a single one of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of social
media users who, since last summer, have praised Hitler endlessly,
claiming that the “Jews deserved it.”

Under the nice wrappings of Holocaust Remembrance Day, there is the
story of an entirely different Turkey.

Parliamentary Speaker Cicek, for instance, linked rising anti-Semitism
to Israeli actions. In his address to the Jewish community, he said:
“As we remember the pain of the past, no one can ignore the last
attacks on Gaza, in which 2,000 innocent children, women were
massacred.” Perhaps he thinks the Holocaust, too, happened because of
the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It was not a coincidence that back in 2011, a study, released by the
Turkish think tank SETA, found that only 8.6% of the Turks had a
favorable opinion of Jews. Nearly 20% of the respondents did not have
an opinion of Jews, and 71.5% said they had a negative opinion.
According to a poll that the Anti-Defamation League released in 2014,
69% of Turks harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.

More recently, the Hrant Dink Foundation in Turkey, named after the
murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist, found that anti-Semitism is the
most common racial or religious prejudice in the Turkish media.

The study tracked derogatory coverage of over 30 different groups in
media reports between May and August, only to find that Jews and
Armenians were the subjects of just over half of the recorded
incidents in a media landscape filled with “biased and discriminatory
language use.”

Jews led the list with 130 incidents, followed by Armenians (60),
[non-Greek] Christians (25), Greeks (21), Kurds (18) and Syrian
refugees (10).

Foreign Minister Cavusoglu may have bothered to travel all the way to
Poland to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, but his sentiments most
probably align with other ideologies.

Less than a month after Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu hosted
Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’s political bureau, at a high-level
party congress, Cavusoglu in January said that Mashaal, reportedly
expelled from Qatar, was free to come to Turkey. He said: “Regardless
of which country they belong to, people are free to come and go to
Turkey as they wish, as long as there are no legal impediments.”

But Hamas is not Turkey’s only love affair in the neighborhood.
Turkey’s Islamist leaders are as passionate about the Muslim Brothers
as they are about Hamas. Hence, not a word from the Turkish Foreign
Ministry (which observes that anti-Semitism is still alive today) over
the January 30 call from the Muslim Brotherhood for “a long,
uncompromising jihad” in Egypt.

Only two days before a terror attack killed 25 in Egypt’s Sinai
region, a statement from the Muslim Brotherhood said: “Imam al-Bana
[founder of the Brotherhood] prepared the jihad brigades that he sent
to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers¦”

And in programs aired on January 10 and 26 on Muslim Brotherhood
channels based in Turkey, Egyptian clerics and commentators called for
the murder of Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh al-Sisi and the
journalists who support him. For instance, cleric Salama Abd al-Qawi
said on Rabea TV that, “anyone who killed al-Sisi would be doing a
good deed.” Cleric Wagdi Ghoneim told Misr Alan TV that, “whoever can
bring us the head of one of these dogs and hell-dwellers” would be
rewarded by Allah. And commentator Muhammad Awadh said on Misr Alan TV
that the punishment for the “inciting coup journalists” was death.

But the Turkish Foreign Ministry was right. Anti-Semitism is still alive today!