Anne Frank and her family hid in an underground attic in Amsterdam to escape Nazi persecution during World War II’s darkest days. Her posthumously published diary offered the world a haunting glimpse into the fear and trauma endured by Jewish families at the time.
A tragically well-known tale is raging in Palestine right now. Children like Anne Frank are the subject of this time’s starvation and relentless bombardment by the Israeli government, just like tens of thousands of them. They don’t even have an attic to hide in, the buildings around them have been reduced to rubble by indiscriminate Israeli attacks.
Another genocide is occurring eight decades after the Holocaust, this time involving Palestinian children who have been victims of ethnic cleansing and who have witnessed it. Each of these children has a terrifying tale that the world needs to hear. One day, we may read their accounts in memoirs – if they survive long enough to write them. However, that is not acceptable for the international community. It must now address these children’s suffering. That is why we gave children in Gaza a platform to ask the world a searing question: “Why are you silent”? – through a documentary, which has become one of Turkiye’s most popular efforts to expose the brutality of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.
By acting as enslavers or as compliciters of genocide, many Western states have lost their moral authority and hegemonic discourse. Even more tragically, some have sought to justify their positions by invoking a genocide they themselves perpetrated eight decades ago. Those who once committed crimes against humanity while ignoring the nearly total destruction of another people are now doing it. Complicity in new atrocities cannot be absolved from guilt over past atrocities. Conscience cannot be cleansed by choosing fresh shame to cover old disgrace. If “never again” is to have any weight, it must apply to both today and the victims of yesterday.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, publicly denounced the operation as one that constituted genocide just days after Israel launched its military assault on Gaza in October 2023. In the months that followed, Turkiye took concrete steps to oppose the brutal Israeli campaign and halt the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza.
The Turkish government and its citizens have consistently opposed genocide. Erdogan chose to be a leading figure in the development of humanity’s moral conscience rather than to sit back and watch history.
This has been Turkiye’s position for many decades.
Necdet Kent and Selahattin Ulkumen, two diplomats from Turkey who risked their lives to rescue Jews from Nazi deportations, risked their lives during the Holocaust. During the genocide in Bosnia, Turkiye once more urged the international community to act decades later. Over the past 20 years, wherever human suffering emerged – from war zones to disaster areas – Turkiye has acted to shield the vulnerable and uphold the rights of the oppressed in the face of humanitarian crises.
Despite incurring significant political and economic costs, Turkiye bravely responded to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks with strong diplomatic and humanitarian response. It severred trade links with Israel and spearheaded UN efforts to place an international arms and trade embargo. Diplomatic ties have been cut, and Israeli officials are now banned from Turkish airspace, disrupting attempts to normalise genocide. While many governments resisted or issued statements, Turkiye succeeded in helping families who were mourning loved ones who had no graves to bury them in. They were also able to offer aid to children who were forced to drink contaminated water, to mothers who sought refuge among the ruin.
By joining the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Turkiye firmly defended international law and justice, principles that many powerful countries in theory use but never use inconveniently when they are in need. Western governments that once vowed “never again” now tiptoe around genocide, paralysed by fear of offending Israel, even as children die beneath collapsing ceilings. Not just indifference, either. It is a historic-sized betrayal.
A key enabler of Western silence and complicity in the genocide in Gaza has been Israel’s intense disinformation campaign. The Directorate of Communications at Turkiye’s direction has been working to dissipate this noise. The Lies of Israel platform, which challenges false narratives in six languages, has been launched as part of the Directorate’s Disinformation Combat Centre’s initiative. This was only the first step – clearing space for the truth to emerge and building pressure for meaningful change.
In a more dangerous way, Israel increasingly recognizes the necessity to hide misinformation. It makes use of the international community’s ongoing insensitivity to the violence. By referring to Gazans as “children of darkness”, Israeli politicians attempt to legitimise the genocide against them. Both the directorate and the Turkish people have firmly rejected this attempt to normalize inhumanity. Turkeyiye challenges both the deeper demise of global consciousness and the distortions of Israel’s propaganda apparatus. The directorate’s work is an act of resistance – not just against lies, but against a world order where apathy has become the default response to atrocity.
The Directorate of Communications’ sophisticated messaging strategy, which combines traditional and digital media, has brought the world’s attention to Israel’s disproportionate use of force and Palestinian civilian suffering. It strengthens President Erdogan’s ongoing efforts to persuade Western governments and the general public to uphold their own ascribed values.
In coordination with Turkiye’s diplomatic response, the directorate has ensured that social media and other online platforms – where most people now consume news – cannot be turned into accomplices to genocide. By producing a wide range of cultural materials, including books, films, exhibitions, and other public events, it has accomplished this. These gatherings serve as a reminder of the moral obligation that we all have. They are not just meant to be witnesses. A prominent example of Turkiye placing truth in the service of justice was the compilation and dissemination of a book documenting evidence of Israel’s crimes – an effort that has proven instrumental in supporting the case at the International Court of Justice.
The era of outdated paradigms, which prioritize the hegemonic powers’ narrow interests, has come to an end, according to Turkiye. The foundation of a new international order must be the upholding of all people’s rights, especially those who are powerless. To this end, the Directorate of Communications has amplified the voices of Palestinian victims, particularly children, giving them a platform to speak truth in international forums and to express themselves through cultural initiatives such as the Bulletproof Dreams exhibition in Istanbul.
The situation has become a precondition for Western leaders to take hesitant steps away from their protracted silence because of Turkiye’s consistent and early moral leadership in Gaza. Following months of silence, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada have now urged Israel to “stop its military operations in Gaza,” provide humanitarian aid to the area, and commit “concrete actions” in the event that Israel doesn’t. The UK has since suspended trade negotiations with Israel, imposed sanctions on violent settlers in the West Bank, and issued its strongest condemnation yet of Israel’s “morally unjustifiable” actions and “monstrous” public threats to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
This change in tone from Western governments is welcomed, albeit temporary and long overdue. Otherwise, rhetorical change and a fundamental change in policy must be followed by concrete steps and a shift in direction. The time for timid diplomacy has long passed. A coalition of conscience-oriented nations that are courageous enough to align their values with action-oriented leaders who are willing to exchange courage for comfort. Justice must be delivered by those brave enough to do so, not by itself.
Should they fail, they must understand that millions of children – the very ones asking, “Why are you silent”? – will keep holding them accountable. Palestinians are being targeted for crimes every day by Israel’s genocidal government, with more lives lost in Gaza and more homes destroyed in the West Bank. This failure not only deepens Palestinian suffering but also does a grave disservice to the Israeli people, many of whom yearn for a new and just leadership.
Turkiye has clearly defined the course of action. Simply withdrawing support for Israel is no longer sufficient at this point. What is required is a coordinated, conscience-led initiative by allied nations to transform the growing momentum for Palestinian recognition into a genuine two-state reality based on the 1967 borders. This includes creating a political framework that rejects permanent injustice carried out in the name of neutrality. The children’s rescue should be the first step in this endeavor.
Let us act now – so that Palestinian children, like Anne Frank, do not have to die in silence to be remembered. They should live, not be sanctified, but to flourish.
