"Hepimiz Filistinliyiz"

Call me crazy (or, more to the point, boring), but I tend not to want to spout off my opinion when I don't have a good grip on the topic at hand. Maalesef, though I try to keep up with the news, the apparently intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict falls into that category for me. But it seems worth noting that watching things unfold from Turkey is like being on the other side of the looking glass.

As much as American politicians seem sworn to support Israel no matter what its government does or says, Turkish ones have put themselves wholeheartedly on the side of Palestine. Large billboards all around the city, some featuring the prime minister's wife, others bearing hard-hitting religious messages like "You are not the children of Moses" or "This is not in your book," denounce Israel's war and call upon Muslims to support their brothers and sisters in Gaza. Every other shop seems to have a photocopied "We are all Palestinian" flyer in its window, and Palestinian flags join Turkish ones overhead.

Recently, new flyers have appeared calling on people to boycott "Israel products"--like McDonalds, the Gap, CNN, Nokia, and Nescafe. It's hard to say whether the people who came up with this list see no difference between Israel and its American and European supporters, or whether they think their target audience won't know or care.