Ertuğrul Özkök: As a Turkish citizen, didn't you feel the following while watching that proud scene yesterday?
A painting we miss…
First as a human being…
Imagine a massacre coming to an end…
The pain of children and women crying helplessly before the eyes of the world is ending.
How can you not be happy with these signatures?
Even that unlikable Trump seems like a sympathetic person to you.
***
You are hopeful that an era of conflict in the 2025-year history of the Middle East is coming to an end…
Doesn't something stir inside you that perhaps the fight over belief that the being called human has carried for 20 centuries, and which you, as a 21st century person, have never understood, will end here?
***
Then, as a Turkish citizen, look at this table…
Your President is signing in the front row of that table, next to the main actor, next to the other two main actors…
There is a great Türkiye at the table…
You are watching this…
Wouldn't you be proud of this scene?
***
Then you look back a little…
The heads of all the great powers of Europe are sitting in the back.
In the back row…
They're like extras in a Hollywood movie...
Germany, France, England, Spain, Italy…
Greater Europe…
At the highest level there…
But they are in the back row…
The ceremony is as if it were a signature ceremony for Europe's erasure from the stage of history...
***
Doesn't this painting make you proud?..
I'm sure it does…
He gives it to me too…
***
I don't know about you...
But there is a sadness inside me.
It's like a wild and predatory creature is clawing at me...
Because I look at Israel and Gaza at the same time.
People taken hostage by Hamas in the bloody October 7 attack are returning home.
Great joy in Tel Aviv...
Hugs.
***
I look at Gaza.
Armed Palestinian militants in Israeli prisons are being released and returning home.
Palestinian prisoners of conscience in Israeli prisons are also returning home…
Prisons on both sides are emptying.
***
The Assad Regime's Sednaya Prison in Damascus comes to mind.
That place is also emptying.
In the Middle East's bloodiest region, prisons are emptying one by one, and political prisoners are returning home.
***
Wouldn't you like this painting?
I'm glad.
I'm even crying.
Perhaps for the first time in 2025 years, a glimmer of hope is shining in a region called the Middle East, which has become a scourge not only for itself but also for us, the entire region, and the world.
The light of peace….
The light of embrace…
***
Alas…
I look at them… My conscience immediately turns its gaze to me.
To my country…
I look at them and then collapse with my cheeks in my hands.
My country comes to mind.
And a judgment of suffering begins…
***
While the dungeons of others are emptying, our prisons, Silivri, are filling up more and more each day…
While their political prisoners and convicts are returning home, here people are being taken away from their homes.
While Damascus' Sednaye is becoming more deserted, the crowds in my Silivri are increasing every day.
While even the prison of the murderer Netanyahu is emptying, the population of my Silivri exceeds 30 thousand.
***
And my President is there, signing the agreement that will empty Netanyahu's prisons...
***
What about peace in our country?
Who will sign his deal?
Isn't there a president in our country who will sign a peace agreement and evacuate Silivri?
If he won't do it, who is the person we elected with our votes?
The President of Gaza?
Or our…
Is he the President of all of us, the Turks and Kurds?
***
While the Hamas operatives remain silent, the questioning inside me begins…
Is our mayor, elected with 52 percent of the votes in Istanbul, a city of 15 million people, less valuable than the armed Hamas militants in Gaza, a city of 2.5 million people?
***
Is Selahattin Demirtaş 's 9 years in prison shorter than a Hamas militant's 9 years in an Israeli prison?
***
Are the crimes of Osman Kavala and Çiğdem Mater, who participated in a demonstration, more serious than the crimes of a Hamas fighter who sent a missile to Israel?
***
Is the health condition of Ayşe Barım and Murat Çalık any less dire than that of the Hamas member we watched limping home yesterday?
***
Is Can Atalay less elected than a Palestinian politician?
Is Hüseyin Kocabıyık , who gave a friendly warning, more of a terrorist than the Hamas militant who raided a concert with a gun in his hand?
***
As I watch that beautiful ceremony, which makes me proud, I struggle with these feelings inside me…
On the one hand, I want to applaud our President…
On the one hand, the cry inside me…
Brother, do we, as a nation, deserve peace and tranquility less than the people of Gaza?
Should we also beg Trump to come to our home after “Peace in the World” in Sharm el-Sheikh and ensure “Peace at Home” as well?
T24
