Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks equating “Zionism” to a “crime against humanity” at the Fifth Global Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations on Feb. 28 received strong reactions from the U.N. secretary-general, United States and Israel. His remarks, however, supplement what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Feb. 6. “In the course of the 65 years since the establishment of [Israel], it has imposed war against the people of Palestine and the regional countries,” Ahmadinejad said. “Hearing the name of Zionist regime is today synonymous with war, death and bloodshed.” And Erdogan’s remarks were, "It's necessary that we must consider — just like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism — Islamophobia as a crime against humanity."
Both are followers of Islamist ideology, placing Erdogan closer to Ahmadinejad on this issue. While they jockey to expand their influence in the newly emerging order in the Middle East, where Islamist governments are coming to power one by one, Turkey appears to be gaining the edge by playing for the leadership of the majority Sunni population in the region. Iran’s siding with the bloody Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad has been badly received in its neighborhood, to say the least. It is, however, still unclear how the region is going to evolve or develop in the coming decades, but the current trend lends excitement and a sense of victory to the Islamist camp.
