Turkey: AKP leader says Jews control world economic lobby, work against AKP

This is what Foreign Policy calls "playing off" anti-semitic tropes.  


I call it outright antisemitism.


Via Foreign Policy:

Whatever the case, it is clear that the ruling party’s campaign, which was at times marked by a paranoid style that raised the specter of international conspiracies to weaken Turkey, underwhelmed many voters. The party captured roughly 18 million votes, some 3 million fewer than it won in the last general election.

AKP leaders have argued an array of “lobbies” are aligned against them, and bolstering the campaigns of their rivals. The claims have at times played off anti-Semitic tropes.

“There’s an economic lobby in the world, which is under the hand of the Jewish lobby, and these are the ones who want the AKP to fall,” Muhammed Akar, the chairman of the AKP’s Diyarbakir branch, told Foreign Policy. “Not only the Jewish lobby, there is another movement — the Crusaders. Because the AKP government is the voice of the Muslims in Turkey, and all the world.”  more