16 November 2023; MEMO: Turkiye’s First Lady has said that Gaza has become a city of “unknown children”, a reference to the children who were killed in Israeli bombing raids who have nobody to identify their remains. Emine Erdogan made her comment in her speech on Wednesday at the Summit of First Ladies in Istanbul under the banner “One Heart for Palestine”.
Although she pointed out that she had previously heard the term “Unknown Soldier” being used, she never imagined that “Unknown Child” would ever have to be written on shrouds in such great numbers. The wife of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that, as a mother, a woman and a human being, she refuses to “pass on such a dirty legacy to the next generation without the responsible parties being held accountable.”
Mrs Erdogan demanded “that all relevant members of the State of Israel be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court for all the war crimes they have committed. We are here today because we are demanding a ceasefire, no ifs and no buts.”
"No one should take for fools the conscientious people of the world with this ridiculous ‘self-defence’ rhetoric any more"
She also expressed her belief that those who claim that today’s “post-modern holocaust in Palestine” is a manifestation of the right to self-defence should be held equally accountable. “No one should take for fools the conscientious people of the world with this ridiculous ‘self-defence’ rhetoric any more.” The whole world, she said, can now clearly see the racist practices, systematic theft and occupation plans imposed on the Palestinian people for nearly a century. “All peoples, if not all the states in the East and West, are now advocates of the just cause of Palestine.”
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The Turkish First Lady told participants at the summit of her feelings of shame about the impotence and hypocritical politics that the so-called “civilized world”, which claims to be the bearer of humanist values, has sunk to for 40 days. “No ideology, no political interest, no economic gain is more valuable than the life of an innocent human being.” Addressing Israel and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, she asked, “What critical threshold of death are you waiting for to stop this atrocity?”
Criticising the international community’s general silence over what is happening in Gaza, she asked, “By what right do you claim to defend peace and justice and the universal values of humanity in the world? What are we to make of the silence of the world leaders who lined up to protect the rights of the victims of Charlie Hebdo, who posed with great enthusiasm in that photo [in Paris], in the face of the innocents of Gaza [being killed]? Does the definition of human beings, whose rights are protected in the Declaration of Human Rights and in many international conventions, include only those within the borders defined by the West?”
Mrs Erdogan said that she will defend a global understanding that embraces human beings with compassion and sees them as intrinsically valuable, regardless of language, religion, race or colour. “We will forever stand against the discriminatory mentality that evaluates the innocent, the refugee, the woman and the child, in short, the human being according to where they come from. We [at this summit] need to be the voice of those who are being killed in Gaza, those whose voices are being suppressed and silenced as a massacre continues. Each of us individually has a strong voice, and together we have a much stronger voice. Let us join our words for a ceasefire right now, for them and for the world. Let’s take this meeting from words to action and turn it into an initiative for peace in Palestine.”
The summit was attended by the wives of leaders and special representatives from 14 countries. The First Ladies of Azerbaijan, Brazil and Venezuela participated through video messages.
