Turkish Cleric Blames Israel For Rise of Islamic State

Israel’s troubled relations with Turkey took another bizarre turn this week when Sheikh Salahuddin Ozgunduz, one of Turkey’s most prominent Shi’ite clerics, told Iran’s Tasnim News Agency that Israel is responsible for the creation of the Islamic State (IS, formally ISIS) terror militia. “By forming and supporting the Islamic State Takfiri group, the Zionists are now employing that as an instrument, and pursuing their objectives in this way,” Ozgunduz insisted. In related news, the Islamization programs in Turkish schools which were initiated by the consecutive governments of President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn alarm from secular Turks who increasingly feel unwelcome in their own country.”We are against the governance of education by religious rules,” said Ilknur Birol, spokeswoman for the “Don’t Touch My School” initiative, an umbrella grouping for concerned parents. “This system is not rooted in youth with a forward-looking perspective enlightened by science, but in a generation that values obedience.”