Speaking at the parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said: "Israel will not stop in Gaza, and if not stopped, this rogue state will eventually target Anatolia with its delusions of promised land."
Turkey will "continue to stand by Hamas which is fighting for its own land's independence and defending Anatolia," he said.
Turkish media has been warning for years about Jews buying land. We reported in December about a panic among Turkish residents of northern Cyprus that Jews were buying up land, claiming that Jews consider Cyprus to be part of the promised land.
Antisemites in Turkey have been similarly warning against Jews buying land in Turkey for decades. Major Turkish news site Haber7 reported in 2004, "Jews, who see the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia Region among the promised lands, settle in the GAP Region [southeastern Anatolia] by purchasing land, just like they did in Palestine, in order to achieve their secret goals."
In 2012, Turkey made it easier for foreigners to buy land. As a result, there was a land rush, with investors from many countries worldwide from both the West and the Middle East. From 2015-2020, the top purchasers the top purchasers were from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt - and Palestinians have been purchasing land there as well.
But only when Israelis buy (or rent) land do the Turks start to panic. And many of them are saying that Jews claim Anatolia as part of Greater Israel.
Those accusations have been increasing in recent years and especially since the Gaza war. Former MP Abdulkadir Karaduman submitted a question to Turkey's parliament about land purchases by Israelis and Jews, saying, "When we look at the developments in the last 20 years, the completion of the establishment of the Greater State of Israel has ceased to be a conspiracy theory and has emerged as a reality and a major national security problem."
Villagers in Karaman were alarmed when foreigners started buying land there for inflated prices. The mayor of Başkışla Village claimed that they were intermediaries from Israel, and put up a sign saying "There is no land for sale in our village."
One politician claims "The Israelis took the entire Iğdır Plain. More than half of the Harran Plain was purchased by the Israelis. Israelis buy a significant part of our cultivated areas in Turkey. Either themselves or their partner companies here." When the purchasers are any foreigners they claim that they are intermediaries for Israel; when they are Turkish the antisemites claim that they are Jews purchasing it for Israel.
Iğdır would actually be a good place for Israel to want to have a presence. It is strategically located near Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. But this would make sense as a listening post, not as a way to take over Turkey. And there is little evidence that Israel has actually purchased anything there.
So from where did Erdogan get the idea that Israel has territorial designs on southeastern Turkey?
Turkish websites often publish variants of the map at shown at the top of this post. Nothing in the Hebrew scriptures indicates any aspiration for the land of Israel to extend north into Turkey. But every rumor has a tiny seed that it grows from, and this one is no exception.
There is no indication that Herzl took Hechler's borders seriously; his own opinion of Hechler in that same diary entry says "This man Hechler is, at all events, a peculiar and complex person. There is much pedantry, exaggerated humility, pious eye-rolling about him- but he also gives me excellent advice full of unmistakably genuine good will. He is at once clever and mystical, cunning and naïve."
Never has any Jew or member of the Zionist movement indicated any desire to extend the Jewish state into Turkey. It all comes from an obscure comment by an over-enthusiastic Anglican clergyman who wanted a Jewish state to have his own conception of massively expansive borders beyond what any Jew ever desired. But from that one comment grows a huge amount of antisemitic conspiracy theories that are accepted by many Turks, including its president.
