Turkey's president made a startling reversal this week in one of his long-held stances on a touchy subject, firing up Islamists who were already unhappy with the country's recent rapprochement with Israel.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had always defended Turkey's role in the disastrous Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, in which an aid flotilla attempted to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Erdogan described Israel's actions as terrorism, recited the Quran for the flotilla victims at gatherings and criticized his domestic opponents frequently for not standing up against Israel. In July 2014, he spoke at a dinner and said, “If they [Mavi Marmara organizers] needed permission from an authority, we gave them permission.”
