In Turkish movie theaters, the trailer for Valley of the Wolves: Palestine is being shown ahead of the film’s release in January. The plot, apparently, is the dispatch of a Turkish hit team to take revenge on the Jews for the flotilla incident. The subtitles in the trailer are awkward, and some words are missing (e.g., “I don’t know who promised this land; I promise you under” should be “I don’t know who promised this land; I promise you six feet under.” ) The first Valley of the Wolves movie, which some of Prime Minister Erdogan’s advisers financed and which his wife instructed all Turks to see, was deeply anti-American and anti-Semitic, depicting the Iraq War as motivated by the desire of Jewish Americans to sell Iraqi body parts to Israel
Meanwhile, Turks readily acknowledge how Erdogan’s temper tantrum at Davos last year, in which he berated Israeli president Shimon Peres, was anything but spontaneous. After Erdogan’s tantrum, thousands gathered at the Istanbul airport waving Palestinian flags to greet Erdogan at 3 a.m. Putting aside questions about how Turks magically find Palestinian flags at 3 a.m., an employee of a company doing work on the Istanbul metro related how he got word that, on the day of Erdogan’s Davos panel — but before it occurred — his company received word that the metro would be open until 4 a.m. that day, and would not close at midnight as normal. No explanation was given.
How long will it be until President Obama recognizes that Prime Minister Erdogan is no friend but rather seeks to translate incitement into political popularity?