Trump’s Dreadful Foreign Policy

Recently, I met with a group of officials from different countries who came to the US to learn about our political system and the decision-making process regarding US foreign policy under the Trump administration. Had I been asked this question while Presidents Obama or Bush were in office, I could have answered with some specificity…

January 30, 2020 Read more

The Butcher of Ankara’s Visit to the House of Lies

Trump’s inviting of Turkey’s President Erdogan to Washington comes at a peculiar time when the House of Representatives is pursuing the impeachment inquiry against Trump and when Erdogan is preoccupied with his invasion of Syria and the growing frustration of the Turkish public with his ruthless domestic and adventurous foreign policy. The question is, what…

November 8, 2019 Read more

The Beginning Of The End Of Erdogan’s Era

The result of the recent municipal elections in Turkey represents a major shift in public sentiment toward President Erdogan, which will have major political ramifications that will bring him down in disgrace. It is true that the economic crisis and the ineptitude he exhibited in dealing with it played an important role in the election…

April 25, 2019 Read more

Sacrificing Greatness For Personal Ambition

An Open Letter to President Erdogan Over the past year, I had the opportunity to speak to many Turkish scholars and former government officials, the majority of whom left your country because they feared for their lives and their loved ones. The one question that kept on surfacing is why a leader like you—who has…

February 14, 2019 Read more

Truthful Reporting In The Balkans Is Life-Threatening

Alon Ben Meir and Arbana Xharra Kosovo investigative journalist Parim Olluri knew the assailants who physically attacked him two years ago in front of his house, while the police and other security institutions remained silent. “I sent names to the Kosovo Police as well as to the Prosecutor’s Office, but none of them took any…

February 6, 2019 Read more

Gülen And Erdogan’s Islamic Rivalry And Its Consequences

By Alon Ben Meir and Arbana Xharra Until five years ago, Fethullah Gülen and Turkey’s President Erdogan were allies who supported each other. Both use Islam as the basis for their doctrine, which made them ideologically different from the revolutionary secularist stateman Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the new Republic of Turkey in 1923….

December 3, 2018 Read more

Erdogan’s Hooligans Came Knocking On NYU’s Doors

Last week I conducted a panel discussion about Turkey under the leadership of Erdogan. The day before the event, we were alerted that several of Erdogan’s stooges will await us to disrupt the event, and we feared that violence may erupt. Earlier in the morning, NYU received a letter from one of the Turkish dictator’s…

October 31, 2018 Read more

Diyanet: Erdogan’s Islamic Vehicle To The Balkans

By Alon Ben-Meir and Arbana Xharra A billboard at a construction site, with a photo of an Ottoman-style mosque with four minarets and the flag of Turkey, was erected recently in the center of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. With less than 2 million people, Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, is…

October 18, 2018 Read more

Bosnia, Erdogan’s “Jerusalem At The Heart Of Europe”

Alon-Ben Meir and Arbana Xharra As Turkey’s President Erdogan runs out of money, he is now, more than any time before, using religion to exploit the Balkans, especially the states that are more susceptible to Islamic influence. Bosnia is at the fore of Erdogan’s ambitious Islamic agenda, where he is sparing no political capital or…

September 14, 2018 Read more
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