Turkish University Celebrates Hamas, October 7

A university in Istanbul convened an international conference last week where terrorist leaders, government officials, and academics praised Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre and called for the destruction of Israel. The event at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University underscored Turkey’s effort to cultivate support for Hamas across the Islamic world.

CIGA’s fourth international conference on Palestine was rife with speakers who applauded Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping of 250 hostages. CIGA director Sami Al-Arian and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Forum organized the event. The United States deported Al-Arian in 2015 as part of a 2006 agreement in which he pleaded guilty to aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization and agreed to serve time in federal prison.

The conference’s opening remarks were delivered by Hamas official Usama Hamdan, a U.S. designated terrorist, who praised Hamas’s “unapologetic jihad” and prophesied a future where Israel ceased to exist. Mounir Saeed, the head of the Global Coalition for Support of Al-Quds (GCQP), gave a fiery speech claiming that Israel wants to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates — rhetoric that strongly resembled Erdogan’s recent assertions that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harbors ambitions that include the capture of Anatolia as part of “Greater Israel.” GCQP is based in Istanbul and allegedly has “close organizational and ideological ties” to the Al-Quds International Institute (QII), designated as a Hamas proxy by both the United States and Israel.

Saeed also praised a long list of key Hamas figures, including the group’s late leader Ismail Haniyeh, whom Erdogan honored as a martyr, and Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmar, a QII supporter who was sanctioned last week by the U.S. Treasury as a major financier of Hamas’s terrorist operations inside Israel.

American participants in the conference included retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former the State Department official, antisemite, and conspiracy theorist, as well as Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector, defender of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and convicted sex offender. Both men praised Hamas for fighting against Israel, the United States, and NATO. Prominent scholars at the conference include Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, who praised the October 7 massacre as an act of “resistance” to Israeli “racism.”

Despite its support for terrorism, the Turkish government faces little to no pressure from the international community to curtail such actions. It is long past time that Washington and its allies demand Ankara end its support for terrorist entities or face a full cut-off of military sales and application of sanctions to government officials who facilitate the activity of Hamas and similar groups.

Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Sophia Epley is an intern. Sophia is also a student at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. For more analysis from Sinan and Sophia, please subscribe HERE. Follow Sinan on X @SinanCiddi. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.