Erdogan: “Jerusalem is ours”

True to his neo-Ottoman worldview, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan referred to Israel’s capital in a speech opening the new parliament session, declaring, “Jerusalem is ours, Jerusalem is from us. In this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance.” Occupied by the Ottoman Empire from 1516, Jerusalem was captured by the British army in 1917 and held under League of Nations mandate until it was proclaimed the capital of the new Jewish state in 1948. Ignoring the Jews’ historic claim to the Holy City, Erdogan charged that the Palestinians were now “occupied despite living in Jerusalem for thousands of years.”