Let’s now turn from Iran to the Middle East’s other large non-Arab country, Turkey, which held nationwide municipal elections on Sunday. As in the U.S., local elections can be a barometer of the national mood, and it’s worth recalling that the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, put himself on the political map by serving as mayor of Istanbul. The Sunday vote resulted in a “historic” loss for Erdogan’s Justice and Development party (AKP), writes Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak:

With 37.4 percent of the vote, Turkey’s founding party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) won a nationwide election for the first time in 47 years. With this historic achievement the party of Turkish secularism not only smashed its 25-percent glass ceiling but at the same time secured its domination of the country’s major cities—the capital Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir. Moreover, for the first time ever the CHP even managed to penetrate the conservative central Anatolia region and gained control of conservative strongholds such as Kırşehir and Kırıkkale.

One of the most important consequences of these elections was the rise of the Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu as the ultimate opposition figure to challenge the AKP in the May 2028 general elections. The young İmamoğlu (fifty-two) managed to defeat Erdoğan’s candidates both in the 2019 and 2024 elections. In other words, he proved to the opposition that Erdoğan is not invincible.

In conclusion, the 2024 local elections indicate that the AKP’s hegemonic role in Turkish politics may be drawing to an end.

Yanarocak observes that in addition to the success of the secular parties, AKP also lost votes to rival Islamist parties, which lambasted Erdogan for doing nothing to end trade with Israel. Nonetheless, the results could be good news for relations between Jerusalem and Ankara, which Erdogan has done much to undermine.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.