The 6th of the monthly e-seminars organized by ASSAM – ASDER associations was held. This month’s guest for the seminars was Bülent Yıldırım, Chairman of the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation. In the program moderated by Gürcan Onat, Vice Chairman of ASSAM, Yıldırım made important evaluations on the topics of “What is happening in Palestine?” and “Why Jerusalem?”
“Mass media tools were used for ethical values, not for Islamism, for the first time.”
In the seminar attended by Üsküdar Üniversitesi Founding Rector Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan, Yıldırım drew attention to the importance of mass media tools, stating, “Israel was forced to practically abandon its initial goal. What was its initial goal? A state with undefined borders, which were actually the borders of the Promised Land. But the stance of the Islamic world and the world’s mobilization meant that Muslims used these mass media tools for ethical values, not for Islamism, for the first time in this war. In other words, the concept of political Islam was perceived as internal opposition in Islamic communities of the last century. But if you notice, in most of the previous wars, political discourses were more effective. Palestinians always sought help from Islamic societies, but this time, the massacres committed by Israel, the attacks against freedom of worship, attacks on women, attacks on mothers, and attacks on children resonated very seriously worldwide. Israel, which completely wants to Judaize Jerusalem and evict Muslims from it, Israel, which wants to include parts of Turkey within the borders of the Promised Land, Israel, which is pursuing natural gas and oil in the Eastern Mediterranean, Israel, which sees America completely under its influence, and Israel, which felt secure with many countries in the Islamic world signing normalization agreements, suddenly faced attacks from 13-year-old children at their keyboards. The whole world rose up. This situation created a stir.”
“Israel has now entered a process of disintegration.”
Yıldırım stated, “Actually, what Israel wanted was this: While Israel knows its population is large today, when looking at birth rates, settlers, whom we call 'settlement residents', come and take the places of Palestinians, building houses. However, looking at their numbers, after a certain period, the Palestinian population could become larger than the Jewish population, and naturally, Israel would become a minority. Now, Israel, which did not want a two-state solution, is today in a position to do everything in its power to make the two-state solution acceptable. But a two-state solution can no longer exist. Because Israel has already entered a process of disintegration.”
“You need to turn children who know the language of that region in war zones into psychologists working on war trauma.”
Speaking about the shortage of psychologists in war zones, Yıldırım said, “Our biggest deficiency in war zones is our psychologists. The number of our psychologists who understand war trauma is very small. We experienced this in Bosnia. In Bosnia, there are many of our siblings who were raped and forced to give birth to children. We see the shortage of these psychologists everywhere you can think of: Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan. That is why, at your university, you absolutely need to train children who know the language of that region in war zones to become psychologists working on war trauma. That is, someone who knows Turkish cannot go there and work as a psychologist. But a Syrian girl will come and be trained from there. A Palestinian girl will come and be trained from there. They will come from other war zones and be trained from there so that we can close this gap.”
“We are in World War III.”
Emphasizing that World War III is entirely being waged against Muslim communities, Yıldırım stated, “When we look at the wars, the killing side consists of Crusaders, Zionists, Buddhists, pagans, and collaborators. You see the collaborators in Syria and Iraq. The dying side consists of Muslim communities. In other words, we are in World War III, and World War III is being entirely waged against Muslim communities. Its main center is Palestine. What is the most important way to liberate Jerusalem? We can save the center by breaking the wings of Zionism and Imperialism in all these massacred, destroyed, annihilated, and killed Islamic communities, not just in Jerusalem, and by weakening Zionism. That is why we need to spread all over the world. As IHH, they have made great efforts for the spread of anti-Zionist, anti-Imperialist ideas.”