In Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination, Stefan Ihrig explores how Mustafa Kemal (known as Atatürk), who seized power in Turkey after the 1924 collapse of the Ottoman empire, became an inspiration for the German right in the aftermath of World War I. William O’Connor writes:

Hitler’s obsession with Turkey was strategic, [but] it was also deeply personal. While Ihrig does a thorough job of detailing Germany’s historic ties to the Ottoman empire—and even potentially its involvement in the Armenian genocide—it’s the Nazi leaders’ personal attachment to Turkey and Atatürk that is especially fascinating. Hitler, for instance, considered a bust of Atatürk by Josef Thorak to be “one of his cherished possessions.” . . .

The most obvious connection to make between the Nazis and Atatürk’s rule is, of course, the tragedies of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, which took place before Atatürk came to power. . . . [The Nazis] believed that Armenians were the “Jews of the Orient” and that their deaths and suppression played a key part in the emergence of modern Turkey. In speeches, Hitler would consistently refer to Armenians as being on the same level as Jews, and in one article he declared the “wretched Armenian” to be “swine, corrupt, sordid, without conscience, like beggars, submissive, even doglike.” Nazi texts proclaimed that the annihilation or expulsion of the Armenians was a “compelling necessity.”

The Biden administration’s apparent abandonment of Israel is matched by the White House’s feckless handling of rising anti-Semitism. Seth Mandel explains:

On Thursday, May 2, Biden made public remarks condemning the campus pro-Hamas protests. The very next day, major Jewish groups pulled out of a White House meeting on anti-Semitism with [the domestic policy adviser Neera] Tanden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The reason? Jewish activists who have spent their careers opposing Israel, attacking the Jewish community, and now supporting the very anti-Semitic demonstrations [the meeting was called to address] were added to the meeting after the mainstream groups had already accepted.

When Joe Biden speaks about anti-Semitism, he usually says the right words. But in charge of his deeds, he has put political incompetents manifestly unqualified for this responsibility. He should fix that immediately, because his speeches won’t much matter without a way to implement the ideas animating them.