Grandson of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II: Herzl Was the Cause of the Fall of the Ottoman Empire

MEMRI TV ^ | 12-9-11

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Following are excerpts from an interview with Prince Orhan Aal Othman, grandson of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, which aired on TRT Arabic on December 9, 2011.

Prince Orhan Aal Othman: The Ottoman state did not collapse in a year or two, or even ten or twenty years. It began when Sultan Abdulhamid made his decision in his meeting with Dr. Herzl. Herzl made several requests to meet Sultan Abdulhamid, and he was refused - once, twice, and three times. The fourth time, he met him, and [Herzl] prepared the ground... he asked him for land in Palestine, to serve as a place for settlement of the Jews. When the Sultan rejected this request – that was the beginning of the fall of the Ottoman state. A decision was made that there should no longer be an Ottoman state, a caliphate, or a sultanate.

Interviewer: So you are saying that Herzl was the cause of this.

Prince Orhan Aal Othman: Exactly.

Interviewer: Some Turkish history books maintain that the Arabs were the cause.

Prince Orhan Aal Othman: No, of course not.

Interviewer: You are clearing the Arabs?

Prince Orhan Aal Othman: Absolutely.

[...]

I came back to Turkey because I wanted to return to my country and live in it. Will the Ottomans regain the country? I consider the new generation to be entirely Ottoman, Allah be praised. The current ruling party bears the Ottoman spirit, and rules in keeping with it. It doesn't have to be ruled by someone from the Othman dynasty. It is the same spirit.

[...]

I am an Ottoman, of course, come what may.

Interviewer: How will you establish a political party as a member of the Othman family?

Prince Orhan Aal Othman: It's not forbidden.

Interviewer: It runs counter to Turkish ideology.

Prince Orhan Aal Othman: Today, there is democracy in Turkey. We're getting into politics here... Since we have a democracy in Turkey, I can establish a political party, and nobody can tell me that I can't. The only thing the party cannot do is to demand to restore the caliphate or the sultanate. As long as you are in Turkey, and you enter parliament and establish a party - there is no problem. You can form a party as long as you believe in democracy, in a republic, in the premiership, and in parliament - and we believe in all this.

Secularism is the only thing that is a little far-fetched for us.

[...]

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Video at link

[RichInOC]

The Jews. Is there anything they can’t do?

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Apparently not...

[ClearCase_guy]

The Ottoman Empire was once called the Sick Man of Europe. But I'm thinking that if the Ottomans had held on and maintained control of the Middle East (and the oil) then they wouldn't be quite so Sick today.

I don't think the Jews called the empire to fall, but I think it's a good thing that it did fall. And I also think that the Caliphate is rising and that the future is looking bad for us. The Ottomans may not reclaim power, but the crazy Islamics may achieve a frightening degree of unity under someone.

[Biggirl]

Maybe he should check his history once again. Would it suprise him that a thing called “government corruption” led to what made the Turkish Ottoman Empire to become in time and lead it to its fall as the “sickman of Europe/Asia” ?

[Biggirl]

You beat me to it with recalling the nickname, “Sick Man of Europe”.

[Sherman Logan]

The OE began its long decline in 1700 and arguably 100 years earlier. The damage, as always, was pretty much self-inflicted for the most part.

Civilizations are almost never murdered. They commit suicide..

[jjotto]

Siding with the Germans in World War One had nothing to do with the fall of the Ottomans, of course.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

The OE began its long decline in 1700 and arguably 100 years earlier. The damage, as always, was pretty much self-inflicted for the most part.

Oh hush hush. We can't bother ourselves with real history can we? After, everyone knows that the evil Jooooooooooz are really the ones to blame for all the world's problems! /s

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Oh definitely not. It was really all the evil Jooooooooooooooz fault! /s

[Anti-Bubba182]

How original! The Joos did it.

[marron]

When the Sultan rejected this request – that was the beginning of the fall of the Ottoman state.

So there you have it. God put an end to the Ottoman state.

[rbg81]

Actually, Ataturk put an end to the Ottoman “Empire” in 1924. But, by that time, there was almost no empire left outside Turkey.

History is such an inconvenient thing.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis. He also wrecked the Titanic, crashed the stock market, and brought on both World Wars! He was *that powerful*! ;’)

[muleskinner]

Hitler was a pencil necked geek compared to Dr. Herzl.

Dr. Herzl - King of Men./s/

[alex2011]

Sounds just like another Ron Paul interview on Foreign Policy.

[ChiefJayStrongbow]

I was noticing that your comment was not a reply to another comment (all the others have “To ##” where ## is a number). How did you do that?

[BwanaNdege]

http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html

At least 185 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2011, and constituting 36% of all US recipients during the same period.

In the research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine, the corresponding world and US percentages are 27% and 39%, respectively.

Among women laureates in the four research fields, the Jewish percentages (world and US) are 38% and 50%, respectively.

Of organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 25% were founded principally by Jews or by people of half-Jewish descent. (Jews currently make up approximately 0.2% of the world’s population and 2% of the US population.)

Chemistry (32 prize winners, 20% of world total, 29% of US total)
Economics (28 prize winners, 41% of world total, 53% of US total)
Literature (13 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of US total)
Peace (9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total)4
Physics (49 prize winners, 26% of world total, 37% of US total)
Physiology or Medicine (54 prize winners, 27% of world total, 40% of US total)

Deuteronomy 14:2 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.

BTW, I am a white, Anglo-Saxon (with a bit of Cherokee & Blackfoot), Christian. Not at all ethnically Jewish.

[Verginius Rufus]

I read an article recently by Sean McMeekin, an American historian (Ph.D. from Berkeley) teaching at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He has written several books focussing on neglected aspects of WWI--especially having to do with Russia and with the Ottoman Empire.

He says that the British government's issuing of the Balfour Declaration (Nov. 2, 1917) was done because they were afraid the Germans were about to do something like that--a German Zionist had recently made such a suggestion in an editorial in a German newspaper.

This article was in the June 2011 issue of Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society (Vol. XII, No. 3).

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

What? Really? If you have more info or a link or something I’d be interested in looking at it....Thanks.