When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued, in an Aug. 20 speech, that Israel is “behind” the military coup in Egypt, he certainly did not make a great impression in the West. Various media commentators, including a contributor to Al-Monitor, blamed him for bigotry against the Jewish state, even likening him to Borat, the notorious anti-Semitic character played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the famous 2006 mockumentary. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Josh Earnest criticized Erdogan’s comment as “offensive and unsubstantiated and wrong.”
Yet I still wonder, despite all the urge for political correctness, whether Erdogan was really delusional on this issue. Was he, in other words, really out of touch with reality when he pointed to a link between Egypt’s coup and Israel’s agenda?
