Thousands of Turks chanted anti-American and anti-Israel slogans, sang jihadist songs and pledged to follow the path of Hamas's Sheikh Ahmed Yassin at a rally held on Saturday to coincide with US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Turkey, according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
In a news release on Monday, MEMRI quoted the Turkish Islamist Web sites Velfecr.com and Kudusyolu.com as reporting that demonstrators carried hundreds of Hamas and Hizbullah flags and posters, as well as pictures of the movements' leaders.
Some of the banners read, "Israel Will Be Destroyed," "We Will Settle Accounts with the Murderer Israel," "If Every Muslim Pours Out a Bucket of Water, Israel Drowns," and "The Way of the Shahids is Our Way."
MEMRI said the demonstration, held in Sakarya, was organized by the Islamist Anatolia Youth Organization (AGD), with the support of other Islamist organizations.
During the demonstration, an Israeli flag with "Death to Israel" on it was burned and hateful speeches against Christian "Crusaders" and Jews, inciting the crowds to jihad, were delivered by Islamist activist Nureddin Sirin and by two AGD officials.
MEMRI noted that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan headed the AGD prior to becoming Istanbul's mayor.
Sirin was quoted as telling the crowd: "The vice president of the White House gang of terror, occupation, murders and massacres, whose hands are in blood, is coming to Turkey to seek Turkey's cooperation and support against Palestine or Lebanon, against Syria and Iran. He will ask Turkey to be an accomplice in their satanic plans and assaults. So we say to this bloody terrorist, to this murderer, before he sets foot on Turkey's Islamic land: 'Hey, murderer! Hey, terrorist! Do not come to this country! Get out! Go away from here!'"
Sirin went on: "We say to the White House of America and to the Tel Aviv gang: Islamic lands are not only Palestine, Iraq or only Afghanistan. All the lands of Islam will become the grave of Crusaders and Zionists, and with the will of Allah, in all Islamic lands, the faces of Crusaders, occupiers and Zionists will taste the slaps and the fists of Muslims that will smash them. Quds [Jerusalem] is the cause of everyone who says he is a Muslim. When the political, cultural, economic and military unity of Islam is realized, none of them [the infidels] will dare raise a hand to the Muslims. The day is nearing, when the Zionist cancer virus, this tumor, will be eliminated."
