Mas-Kom-Ya, Erdogan, and Turkey’s Islamic Jew Hatred
The modern fundamentalist Islamic movement Erbakan founded has continued to produce the most extreme strain of anti-Semitism extant in Turkey, and traditional Islamic motifs, i.e., frequent quotations from the Koran and Hadith, remain central to this hatred, nurtured by early Islam’s basic animus towards Judaism. For example, Milli Gazete published articles in February and April of 2005, which were toxic amalgams of ahistorical drivel and virulently anti-Semitic and anti-dhimmi Koranic motifs, including these protoypical comments based upon Koran 2:61/ 3:112:
In fact no amount of pages or lines would be sufficient to explain the Qur’anic chapters and our Lord Prophet’s [Muhammad's] words that tell us of the betrayals of the Jews. … The prophets sent to them, such as Zachariah and Isaiah, were murdered by the Jews…
The April 2005 edition of the monthly Aylik, produced by a Turkish jihadist organization which claimed responsibility for the November 15, 2003, dual synagogue bombings in Istanbul, contained 18 pages of antis-Semitic material. An article written by Cumali Dalkilic (“Why Antisemitism?”) combined traditional Koranic anti-Semitic motifs with Nazi anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Another article’s title repeats the commonplace, if very pejorative Turkish Muslim characterization of Jews, “Tschifit,” which translates as “filthy Jews” (a pejorative term for Jews whose usage was recorded by the European travelers Carsten Niebuhr in 1794 and Abdolonyme Ubicini in 1856, based upon their visits to Ottoman Turkey), i.e., “The Tschifits [The Filthy Jews] Castle.”
Bat Ye’or published a remarkably foresighted 1973 analysis (first translated into English here) of the Islamic anti-Semitism resurgent in her native Egypt and being packaged for dissemination throughout the Muslim world. The primary, core anti-Semitic motifs were Islamic, derived from Islam’s foundational texts, onto which European (especially Nazi) elements were grafted.
The pejorative characteristics of Jews as they are described in Muslim religious texts are applied to modern Jews. Anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism are equivalent-due to the inferior status of Jews in Islam, and because divine will dooms Jews to wandering and misery, the Jewish state appears to Muslims as an unbearable affront and a sin against Allah. Therefore it must be destroyed by Jihad. Here the Pan-Arab and anti-Western theses that consider Israel as an advanced instrument of the West in the Islamic world, come to reinforce religious anti-Judaism. The religious and political fuse in a purely Islamic context onto which are grafted foreign elements. If, on the doctrinal level, Nazi influence is secondary to the Islamic base, the technique with which the Antisemitic material has been reworked, and the political purposes being pursued, present striking similarities with Hitler’s Germany.
That anti-Jewish opinions have been widely spread in Arab nationalist circles since the 1930s is not in doubt. But their confirmation at [Al] Azhar [University] by the most important authorities of Islam enabled them to be definitively imposed, with the cachet of infallible authenticity, upon illiterate masses that were strongly attached to religious traditions.
Erbakan’s recent statements are vivid evidence of the fulminant anti-Semitism his popular movement has imbued, including among Turkey’s current ruling elites, who never criticize such pronouncements by their mentor. Indeed current Prime Minister Erdogan amplifies this bigoted, anti-Semitic discourse which resonates among the masses, illustrating graphically the same phenomenon described so presciently 37 years ago by Bat Ye’or about her native Egypt: sequentially grafting modern secular Western European elements, especially those associated with Nazism, onto a learned foundation of anti-Semitic motifs from Islam’s core texts.
Rifat Bali, a Turkish-Jewish historian, made a passionate indictment of Turkey’s tacit acceptance of anti-Semitism, published soon after the November 15, 2003, Istanbul synagogue bombings. The courageous Bali first and foremost decried the failure of Prime Minister Erdogan and his AKP government to publicly denounce both the anti-Semitic discourse of the fundamentalist Islamic movement from which Erdogan emerged (and which he claimed later to have abandoned), and those (like Erdogan’s mentor Necmettin Erbakan) insistent on perpetuating such public discourse. With bitter disbelief, Bali further noted the near unanimously shared, albeit counterfactual view, of a respected Turkish columnist, published (in Milliyet November 17, 2003) within two days of the bombings, who maintained that, “…there has never been anti-Semitism in Turkey in its racist or religious sense.”
The opportunity for honest discussion was squandered by every domain of Turkish society; not only politicians, but also media and intellectual elites. Moreover, a profoundly depressing example of collective Jewish dhimmitude was on ignominious display. The chief rabbi, as well as the secular leaders in his entourage representing the voice of Turkey’s Jewish community, even the Israeli government, as Bali observes,
…all seemed determined to ignore…[rather than] to confront face to face the anti-Semitism which is incorporated in the political Islamic movement…[i.e., which currently governs Turkey]. Bali further admonished the Erdogan regime to live up to its professed support of equality for Jews within Turkish society: Turkey’s Jews are not dhimmis in need of the tolerance and the protection of the Muslim majority. They are citizens of the Republic of Turkey.
Perhaps ceasing this disgraceful and delusional behavior starts by putting an end to the hagiography of Jewish life under Ottoman rule (including Jews living within Istanbul’s ghettos and Ottoman Palestine), and using precise, accurate, and appropriate terms that describe this half-millennium of history: jihad, surgun (forced population transfer), and chronic dhimmitude.
There was nothing “humanitarian” whatsoever in the Ottomans accepting a relatively modest number of Jewish refugees from the Inquisition. Far greater numbers were accepted in other parts of Europe itself. Indeed, the vacuum created for these skilled Jewish refugees whom the Ottomans re-settled in their burgeoning empire was created by the Ottoman jihad conquest of Byzantine and Venetian territories, and their Jewish populations, i.e., Jews who were subjected to the Ottoman jihad, including massacre, pillage, enslavement, forced conversion, and surgun deportation.
Also, one cannot get lost in comforting happy talk and ignore the chronic, grinding anti-Semitism, and vestiges of dhimmitude to which the Jews in Turkey have been subjected throughout the history of modern Turkey. This includes the large, government organized Thracian pogroms of 1934, and the blatantly discriminatory, deliberately pauperizing varlik vergisi taxation scheme and subsequent deportations of Jewish business leaders to “Turkish Siberia” during World War II. This ongoing discrimination contributed to the rapid exodus of 40% of Turkey’s Jews after WWII to Israel within two years of its creation. It was followed by the steady, continuous attrition of the Turkish Jewish population — their departure accelerating again after the notorious Istanbul pogrom against Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in 1955 — so that only 17,000 (or fewer) of Turkey’s 77, 000 post-WWII Jews remain.
Joseph Hacker’s seminal research highlights the 1523 book of the Talmudist Eliyah Kapsali (Seder Eliyah Zuta, composed in Crete) and its embellishment by the 17th century Egyptian chronicler Rabbi Yosef Sambari (in Sambari’s Divrei Yosef) — rather crudely redacted narratives which became the version accepted by modern historiography of the history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire:
…the sürgün [forced population transfer] phenomenon and all its attendant [discriminatory] features was not considered at all. If the sürgün was mentioned at all in the writings of the [Jewish] scholars of the Empire, it was held to be an insignificant, indecisive episode in the history of the Jews. The relations between Jews and Ottomans were thus felt to be both idyllic and monotonous from their very inception, no distinction being made either between kinds of Jewish populations or between one period and another throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Kapsali conceals all criticism and tries to cover up and obliterate inconvenient facts. … This is also apparently the reason for his utterly ignoring the Romaniot [Byzantine] Jews and their fate at the time of the conquest of Constantinople, and of the suffering of the others exiled there after the conquest.
The 16th century dhimmi Jewish leadership’s deliberate misrepresentation of the actual plight of Ottoman Jewry was described by Hacker with obvious contempt. Inexcusably, this pathological behavior persists five centuries later among contemporary Jewish leadership elites, who appear incapable of identifying, let alone adequately defending against, the resurgence of jihadist Islam in Turkey. Gifted writer Diana West’s evocative language depicts the ultimate outcome if this self-destructive dhimmitude is not reversed: “in denial there is defeat.”
Tragically, the contemporary leadership of the Turkish Jewish community, Israel, and American Jewish advocacy groups never mustered the intellectual courage to overcome their own craven denial. Collectively galvanized, several years ago, they might have confronted Erdogan’s AKP government over the ugly living legacy of anti-dhimmi and anti-Semitic discrimination against Turkey’s Jews, and demanded immediate efforts at amelioration of their plight: marginalization and legal punishment of Turkish politicians and public intellectuals whose discourse incites Jew-hatred, and potentially, anti-Jewish violence; the implementation of concrete reforms, ensuring in practice equal rights, opportunities, and public safety for Jews. And they should have demanded, further, that if all these measures were not implemented rapidly, with tangible evidence of success, Turkey’s Jews would be allowed unfettered, mass emigration without any economic penalties.
Such bold, forthright action – joint “anti-dhimmitude” — could have put an end to the ongoing phenomenon of a vestigial de facto dhimmi Jewish community of Turkey (via its dhimmi leadership) holding Israel and American Jews hostage to the whims of an oppressive Turkish government, in the throes of a transformative fundamentalist Islamic revival. But nothing of the sort was ever done.
Thus a Turkish Jew, Albert Pinto — illustrating modern Jewish dhimmitude, denial, and raw “fear for their lives” in Turkey as Muslims “take to the street in growing numbers against Israel” — reportedly stated, referring to the slain IHH jihadists aboard the Mavi Maramara: “What we are hearing in the media is not pleasant. Why did they kill those people? They were nice people who simply wished to help.”
More ominously, resurgent jihadism in Turkey manifest by the ruling AKP party, and its popular leader Erdogan, now brazenly espouses anti-Semitic hatred and focuses this animus on the Jewish state of Israel.
Time for Russia to take a big bite off the big Turkey. And I think the US should help in that endeavor.
Thanks Andrew for this insightful article.
The Turkish people too readily believe lies such as those in the Valley of the Wolves film and its three associated TV series. This, while real conspiracies and murders committed by the Turkish “Deep State” and shadowy Ergenekon organization are committed all around them.
I hope that the Turkish people are spared the travails of totalitarian Islamic rule seen in Iran since 1979, but this may indeed happen. Before the Iranian Islamic revolution, Iranians were self-deceived about what Khomeini would do (e.g., women scoffed at being forced to wear the veil), much as Turks are today.
For at least the last five years Turkey has been sinking into the fundamentalist Islamic mire, and with the election of Barack Hussein Obama, has decided to throw off any disguise of Western secularism and joined the Syrian, Iranian, Hizballa, and Hamas axis.
Turkey might have been content with mild Islamic identification, but Obama with his charm offensive to the Moslem world coupled with his abandoning Israel as an American ally, has given the Moslem world the impression of American weakness and fear, and Obama’s attacks on Israel created the impression of inconsistency.
Turkey now feels it has nothing to hide or explain and wants to be in the winning camp, and that means Iran.
Perhaps it’s not joining Iran that the Turks have in mind, but rather competing with Iran to be the new great power in the region. European Union membership is probably off the table, so why not go for broke and try to regain that old empire. After all, Europe is weak and going bankrupt, and the U.S. is in full retreat. And if no one prevents Iran from going nuclear, why shouldn’t Turkey do the same? In fact, maybe the Turks can finally realize their old ambition and conquer Europe. Who would stand in their way?
The future is going to be more interesting than anyone can imagine.
Theere is more than a little trueth behind your ananlysis of Turkey stratigic thing with one additional item you might be overlooking. Iran has a huge hole in its demographics.
The eighth century leaders of Iran got a whole generation of Iranian men killed in their nineteen-eighties war with Iraq. Turkey will field vastly superior economic and military might for the whole period when the sons of the war generation would be coming of age.
In addition the secular Turks and the Prime Minister’s zelots never broke with each other. While the Iranians purged the well educated men of the Shah’s Government. Add the advantages from NATO membership and no country in the middle east comes close to the Turks at a time when countries may be looking for allies and the memories of the Ottoman empire are fading.
Turkey once welcomed Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, but this was a pragmatic move to enhance Turkey’s commercial power. That was the only rosy (and temporary) part of the overall dismal picture. What we’re looking at now is analogous to Iran’s retrogression over the last few decades.
Anti-semitism is the last refuge of a failed state, which probably helps explain how respectable it is in Europe again. When the Russians were bombing Berlin into oblivion, Hitler still named the Jews his number one enemy.
When the Turks welcomed the Jews of Spain, they got a lot for it. Toledo steel became the steel of their scimitars, and they got new cannon foundries. It helped their war effort against Europe.
True, but the fact that metropolitan states and culturally rich demographics have advantages over others; doesn’t necessarily mean that it all boils down to “pragmatism”. Until its last eras; Ottoman Empire is vividly defined with being “humanistic” and “tolerant” and “a gateway to those in need”. That’s the most characteristic aspect of that particular Turkish Empire, even from its very early times.
We will see who is on the right, very soon indeed. The EU not only condemned the state of Israel for the attacks on the ship now they are preparing for opening more chapters of negotiation with Turkey on the issue of her admission to the EU. Not a single racist attack against the Jewish citizens of Turkey has been recorded since the attack. Turkey’s judicial system is bound by the rules of the European Court of Human rights to which any Turkish citizen can apply when local justice fails. More than this the checks and balances regarding religious freedom and the separation of religion and state affairs are guarded by the constitution, unlike the USA and Israel. I would like to see what would happen if you were to ask the schools in these countries for your child to be exempt from religious classes. Turkey is a permanent member of the NATO with the second largest army force after the USA and has soldiers fighting in Afghanistan against the Taliban! Turkey had been at the forefront against Soviet Russia during the cold war with whom it is now the biggest economic partner. Turkey is against any of its neighbours holding nuclear weapons; USA has many military bases in Turkey with the one in Adana holding 80 ready to launch nuclear missiles, 40 of which are controlled by Turkey. Russia will be building a nuclear power plant in Turkey in a 50 billion dollar project. Israel has many brands in a multitude of sectors from food and beverages to the media in Turkey although no one is boycotting them. One could say the common consent among the people of Turkey is that these attacks on the ship against unarmed civilians of Turkey and other European citizens are the fault of the state of Israel and not its citizens or Jews as such.
The EU condemns Israel every passing minute for just about anything. And while we are on the EU, everyone knows that there is no chance whatsoever of Turkey ever becoming a member. This is because even though there is a strong thread of national suicide in the EU, they are not quite ready to blow their collective brains out immediately by giving Turkish Moslems the EU passports which would allow them free passage throughout Europe. Especially now that Erdogan has shown his true colors as an vassal of Iran or perhaps a competitor with Iran to see which country can be the most radically fundamentalist Islamic state. And regarding Turkey and it’s wonderful sense of justice, I would ask any Kurd about the routine massacres of Kurds carried out by the Turkish military or about the restrictions imposed on the Kurds in terms of language, education, or freedom of movement. So maybe the Turks haven’t massacred any Jews yet, there are after all only a few hundred in Turkey after all, but Turkey has massacred tens of thousands of Kurds, destroyed hundreds of Kurdish villages, denied Kurds adequate medical care and education, and and while there was a Nazi genocide of the Jews, let’s never forget the only other genocide of the past century, the Turkish genocide of the Armenian People.
Yeah celan, Turkey is a really wonderful and progressive place unless you are a Kurd or an Armenian.
So let me get this straight; for you it would be all right if a Turkish Jew or Christian was to walk around freely in Europe but not a Turkish citizen of the Muslim faith. Great now I understand the kind of discrimination you have in mind.
I was trying to give you an overall picture when I wrote about the Turkish justice system. Turkey had three military coups in 60′s, 70′s and 1980, the last one, the bloodiest was backed by the CIA as BBC quoted an American senator “Our boys did it!”. As a socialist reporter recently said in an interview AKP party is the first political party with an agenda in Turkey. They have undeniable religious roots but I can tell you one thing; they are capitalists and have been changing the laws in Turkey to enter the European Union. This is to say there is now a much more individual and business oriented state in Turkey then ever before and civil rights movements are taken much more seriously. I am not going to compare Turkey’s human rights record with Israel or USA but one can check Amnesty Internationals records. Turkey had prime ministers and heads of state that were Kurdish; could you imagine an Palestinian Prime Minister of Israel; or a Black President of the USA (oops! yes boys you did it! no matter how long it took!) Turkish military’s unchecked racist war against the Kurdish people in the South East is a heritage of the military coups, the last one of which closed all political parties, unions and civil society organizations. The PKK is a Kurdish terrorist organisation formed in the 80′s which controls the arms and drug traffic in the region and kills people and soldiers. There is a Kurdish political party in the general assembly which (I think) is the eight one; they have been closed one after another due to their alleged ties with the PKK. I can tell you that the Turkish army can no longer attack civilians as the civil societies checks and balances have been put in place for the last 10 years and the military can only hunt down terrorists. The Kurdish people have always had the freedom of movement, now they have the right to teach their language and broadcast in their language, even the Turkish state television TRT has a channel broadcasting in Kurdish. These are recent events, there are more then 20 languages spoken on a daily basis in Turkey and countless ethnicities and races. Turkey has a fragile democracy; we currently have many trials going on in Turkey including Ergenekon where old generals are put in prison and are on trial for forming contra-guerrilla’s and planning coups. We whole heartedly want to put the generals of the 1980 coup on trial too. There is now a referendum coming where the people of Turkey will vote on the proposed changes to the constitution which will change the constitution written by the generals in 1980 for a “more” (relatively) democratic one and will even open the way for those generals to be tried. The only thing that is not fragile in the Turkish state is the unchangeable part of the constitution which clearly states that the Republic of Turkey is secular and that its citizens have a right to religious freedom; unlike Israel or USA there is no mention of a religion that the state belongs to or even a mention of god. Other than the resident Armenians who are Turkish citizens there are over 50.000 Armenian citizens peacefully living and working in Turkey. The alleged Armenian genocide happened in 1915 not during the WW2 as you claim, during the times of the Ottoman Empire. After the Armenian exodus when the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Serv which divided the country between England, France, Italy, Russia and Greece; a general named Mustafa Kemal Atatürk rebelled, and the people of Turkey fought with all these countries plus the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire who held the title of Halife, the leader of Islam. Like with Iran The Republic of Turkey is now bettering her relations with all her neighbours and also with Armenia. There is a proposal for both countries to open their historical archives to set the record strait for the reality of the Armenian genocide. I am not a historian but as much as there are Armenian claims there are also Turkish claims; such as the FACT that there are mass graves of Ottoman Turks (including women and children) killed by the then Armenian malicia backed by the Russians. And there is not only the Armenian exodus there is also the “Greek” exodus in late 1920′s. There is evidence suggesting that these people were a Turkish clan called Karamanlılar (does Karamanlis ring a bell?) who chose Orthodox Christianity during the time of the Seljucks. As millions of them moved to Greece millions of Muslim Turks (?) moved to the Republic of Turkey. Turkey has been accepting refugees from many countries; when Saddam bombed the Kurdish people with chemical weapons Turkey accepted 500.000 Kurdish refugees; when there was an unrest in Bulgaria again Turkey opened her borders to hundreds of thousands of people. Let me also remind you a little known fact that after a letter by Albert Einstein to Atatürk the Prime Minister of The Republic of Turkey many Jewish scholars fleeing the WW2 came to Turkey and became lecturers at the University of İstanbul till the end of their times.
To end it all I wish you do all the lobbying and get us rejected from the European Union, throw us out of NATO( as if!) so that USA can take all of its nuclear weapons out of my country and close its military bases, so that we can live happily ever after. We got a taste of democracy and we are not gonna let go; we gonna kick AKP out of office in a term or two, end all racism and terrorism , stop closing parties, lower the percentage of admission to the general assembly to one percent like in Israel and end the reign of capitalism in this country. Oh! And if you are looking for the religious leader behind AKP, please visit Pennsylvania in the USA and ask for Fettullah Gülen and ask him why he is not returning to Turkey. With over one thousand schools opened world wide and a professor’s chair at the Catholic University of Avustralia opened in his name I wonder if you know what you are up against.
He who walks on his head has the heavens as an abyss beneath him. Paul Celan
“More than this the checks and balances regarding religious freedom and the separation of religion and state affairs are guarded by the constitution, unlike the USA and Israel. I would like to see what would happen if you were to ask the schools in these countries for your child to be exempt from religious classes.”
Celan, your ignorance of the USA is appalling. (WHAT religious classes?!!!)
And about that “religious freedom” in Turkey: how easy is it for Christians to build a new church? Forget building. How easy is it just to repair an existing church? (No problem with either activity in Israel, BTW, because they really DO have religious freedom there.)
Yeah you are right I did not get my facts strait about religious education in the USA. From the religious “intelligent design” theory that is now thought in more and more schools in the USA one couldn’t deduct otherwise, sorry. From the polygamists of Utah to the incident of Waco, from the fact that 45% of Americans attend church every Sunday to the Amish who are basically religious fundamentalists and the biggest land owners in the USA who do not let their children continue school after a certain age, who needs religious education right. Don’t get me wrong I am not for or against any of these groups and it is nice to have a flourishing culture of differences and particularly without violence. Coming to the fact of building churches or repairing them in Turkey it is only with this government of AKP we are seeing some changes on that matter; historically there is no other country in the world where you can see a mosque, a church and a synagogue side by side but yes there has been an oppression of all religions in Turkey including Islam for a long time. With this government there are now regular meetings with religious leaders of every community and improvements are being made. I am saying improvements here as this is very new, and we are expecting to see the lands belonging to religious foundations returned and their rights fully restored. Their right to congregation has never been an issue but the right to restore historic buildings have been delayed in municipalities due to bogus claims of historic accuracy of restoration. And guess what mosques have suffered the same faith too. The understanding of Islam in Turkey is a different one with many sects some more tolerant than other, some hating the state some working with it. A recent visitor to Turkey for the international poetry festival, a Syrian Poet said that the passport of Turkey in the world is Mevlana Celaleddin RUMİ who calls on all religions even the infidels the non believers to “come”. The whirling dervishes who now include women in the ceremony are really an episteme in Turkish culture. Can this government live up to such a high standards, we will see. And believe me no one is waiting in line to be handed down a “right”. The orthodox church of Turkey yesterday won a case in the European Court of Human Rights to be handed back a property which once belonged to them and the government has three months to realise that. As for building new churches it is the same process of struggle and law makers got criticised in Turkey when they struck a note against Switzerland’s recent ban on building minarets; there was an elaborate article published in a big newspaper asking about the demands of Turkish Christians to build churches. I say struggle here for it is a democratic one as opposed to a struggle of violence. And if freedom of religion is going to be fully realised in Turkey than it will be realized for all. And BTW how easy is it for Palestinians to build a mosque in Israel when they have no access to building materials?
Celan:
I believe you are Turkish from your name (but am not certain). I’m getting very tired of Americans being berated about their ignorance of the world around them, when apparently it’s OK for people of other countries to have outrageously distorted notions of the U.S.
You have taken marginal groups in America and magnified them into major forces. Also, from your criticism of “intelligent design” and odd notion about the influence of religious groups in the U.S., you appear to be a secular Turk. If you are secular, then perhaps you are a fool. I know that Turkey still has a very large secular segment to its population, and I believe many of them are alarmed at the apparent creeping Islamization of Turkey. You, apparently, are not. Maybe you should be.
so I am a fool now! So half of your country going to church(not that there is anything wrong with it) or religious fundamentalists owning most of your land is a magnification of marginal groups! What can you tell me about these “marginal” groups in your country, and how about the sect that George Bush belongs to? (very marginal and rare!) So it is ok to believe we were and everything in the world was created 6000 years ago!Can you not read the comments I have written? There is not just a little part of Turkey that is secular it an unchangeable part of the constitution and although there are many who hate Erdoğan I am no hater. And before you tell me what to do in my country, you should maybe go and check the recently passed immigration laws of Arizona. (as far as I can deduct from your name)Creeping islamization is no different than creeping Christianity or Jewish religion the only weapon against such a thing is freedom of speech, education and non-marginilization and toleration. Particularly showing the toleration they don’t want to show to you will keep them in place.
Or one could say that Celan ignores or pushes aside ominous trends in Turkish behavior, not to mention the fact that Turkish terrorists were aboard the “peace” boat.
And then one might ask if there were terrorists on board where were their guns and bombs? Israel found nothing but relief supplies for Gaza! And remember this ship was attacked on international waters. And why do you think Israel launched an investigation? And what are those “ominous trends in Turkish behaviour”? This kind of language which tries to define a race or nation of people in terms of categories belongs to fascism.
Not sure about guns and bombs but those injured soldiers surely didn’t hurt themselves , now did they?
As to the Israel’s right to stop ships in international waters, have you ever heard of San Remo manual on armed conflicts? Specifically blockade chapter?
Injured soldiers! How about dead civilians? People died there, one by one; yes they defended themselves with sticks and stones and captured soldiers of Israel and found lists on them! Lists with pictures of people to be killed and the rest to be spared! How about that! And 9 Turkish people were killed! The European citizens were treated relatively better as they were not deemed targets; please check their accounts. And about international humanitarian law, please try and recognize that the blockade of Gaza is not internationally recognized. There were people from many nations on that boat. There is no nation on the Mediterranean Sea apart from Israel that supports this blockade. And I think it is a definitive fact and one you should make SURE that there were no weapons on that ship, just people and supplies. There is tear gas and plastic bullets if you are that desperate to ambush a ship that has been portrayed in the media for so long with clear objectives of reaching relief supplies to Gaza and attracted international CIVILIAN support. The dumbest Mossad agent could have told you that.
celan,
What happened to all the Christians that lives in what is today the Islamic Republic of Turkey? I mean, before the Islamic invasion and occupation of these lands, the vast vast majority of the population was non-Muslim. What happened to all these people? Why is it that today are there practically no non-Muslims in Turkey?
celan,
What happened to all the Christians that lives in what is today the Islamic Republic of Turkey? I mean, before the Islamic invasion and occupation of these lands, the vast vast majority of the population was non-Muslim. What happened to all these people? Why is it that today there are practically no non-Muslims in Turkey?
celan, your ability to spout anti Israeli propaganda is almost as effective as Erdogan’s and is the main reason why the EU will never ever allow Turkey into the EU. You may not realize the damage your government’s radical Islamic and bitter anti Israel posturing and demagoguery is doing to Turkey in the international community. Obviously Erdogan doesn’t even care that most of the Mediterreanean now views Turkey as an unstable and inherently threatening nation with it’s barely concealed support of the two biggest pariah and terror supporting states in the region, Iran and Syria. All your anti Israel campaign does is further convince reasonable and informed people that this particular Turkish government must be kept as far away from any international influence as is possible. I will also mention that the secular Turks are horrified at the damage Erdogan is doing to Turkey’s reputation as a solid and dependable business partner and to their businesses in general. Take my word for it, the Ottoman Empire is not coming back, no matter how much Erdogan would like it.
“…rife with allusions to Zionists/Jews (deliberately conflated)…”
These days, “Zionist” is nothing less than a code word for “Jew.” Every statement with the word “Zionist” should always be read as “Jew.” No one should be so naive or foolish as to believe otherwise. Through history, there have been many such code words.
“The alleged Armenian genocide happened in 1915 not during the WW2 as you claim, during the times of the Ottoman Empire.”
Celan (#5), your otherwise well-written post is marred by the sentence above, specifically the word “alleged.” The Armenian genocide is a proven fact of history, well-documented in numerous photographs, reports, first-person histories by eyewitnesses, press accounts by independent observers, and much more. Bear in mind also that photograhic evidence in that time was very difficult to fabricate convincingly, unlike in today’s era of digital image manipulation. Those photos of Armenian heads in piles are real – just as the victims were real – and not something a propgandist dreamed up. Does your dispute center on the use of the term “genocide”? If so, it is well to recall that calling the mass slaughter of Armenians by some other name does not change the fact that it occurred. Of course, you are quite right that it happened under the decaying Ottoman Empire. Never-the-less, Turkey – like modern-day Japan with its atrocites in China and elsewhere in WWII – refuses to acknowledge its crime properly or completely. This is especially baffling in Turkey’s case, given that the Armenian genocide is now nearly 100 years in the past.
Celan wrote, “Injured soldiers! How about dead civilians? People died there, one by one; yes they defended themselves with sticks and stones and captured soldiers of Israel and found lists on them! Lists with pictures of people to be killed and the rest to be spared! How about that! And 9 Turkish people were killed!”
Celan, what is your agenda in defending the idiotic and ill-conceieved operation by Erdogan and his jihadist cronies? It is irrelevent what international organizations such as the E.U. or the U.N. or anyone else thinks about the “blockade” of Gaza. The U.N. has long ago proven itself the appeaser and enabler of evil by allowing Islamist nations to chair commissions on human rights, and the like. At least, the E.U. and U.N. are neutral in view and often blatantly anti-Semitic. This, after all, is the continent which – for the most part – stood by and wrung its hands as the Nazis carried out the Holocaust. The only nation whose views on the blockade are relevent is Israel, which is threatened by arms being smuggled into gaza by sea. Are the Israelis supposed to just sit by passively while Iran, and now Turkey, give arms to the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist groups? The Israelis have in the last decade been subject to attacks by thousands of rockets fired into their nation. They come into territories adjacent to Israel via tunnels, and the sea – hence the cordon against shipping.
It is regrettable that Turks were killed in the incident, but if these provocateurs and would-be jihadists were so innocent, why does film footage of the vessel clearly show Israeli commandos being attacked by a mob armed with knives, pipes, and other improvised weapons? Did you know that the IDF troopers were armed with only paint-ball guns, instead of SMGs or assault rifles? They had side-arms, which were used only as a last resort, when it was clear the lives of IDF personnel were threatened. The IDF botched the operation; the ship should have been taken into tow or subdued with a far-larger boarding operation capable of using tear gas and other non-lethal measures. However, that fact in no way mitigates Turkish culpability in this affair, which would not have occurred save for the irresponsibilty of your prime minister, whose blatant interference in the affairs of another nation is inexcusible. The majority of the persons onboard the Mavi Maramara were, as the article above relates, IHH personnel, in other words jihadists. This operation was conceived and executed as a ruse de guerre, a psychogical and propaganda mission designed to provoke IDF forces into using violence against allegedly non-violent crew. They were successful, only their intentions were far from humanitarian and they were all-too-happy to engage in violence against a lawful boarding party. In closing, if Turks are so concerned with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, has the Erdogan govt. offered to receive refugees and/or immigrants from that place? I suspect not; Erdogan;s concern is not humanitarian, but blatantly geo-political. He wants only to re-establish Turkey as a regional power, perhaps contesting Iran for that role.
I am so tired of writing here when none of you are prepared to criticise your own governments, what is so important I don’t understand. In the end it is people that legitimises one and all the comments here are asking “little old me” about legitimising mine and behold none of you guys have read my comments fully! How about right to civil disobedience? (Emma Goldman anyone?) And how about “Turkish culpability” that gets people killed? “the ship should have been taken into tow or subdued with a far-larger boarding operation capable of using tear gas and other non-lethal measures.” However, this option was not used, why not? Not every person that opposes this blockade is an anti-semitist, racist; there are very different reports about the situation in Gaza, somehow every report apart from that of the Israeli state and USA suggests that there is a humanitarian crises! Wake up people! Are you going to keep on this paranoia about The UN and EU being anti-semitist and racist or are you gonna embrace the world?(And I just love the comments about the need for Turkey to get isolated through these very organizations) Because like it or not there are other organizational structures in the world! “if Turks are so concerned with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, has the Erdogan govt. offered to receive refugees and/or immigrants from that place?” Are you crazy? Not only you haven’t read my comments (an essay?) about Turkey you are also making a fool out of the people in Palestine. What would you like sir? Shall we take “all” of them for you? I bet that would make you happy! These people have a claim to their homeland, and although Turkey is renown for taking in refugees, this is a matter Israel has to resolve. The Palestinians, who are another semite race, have been living there for a long time, and want their lands back. Unlike someone just “spout(ing) anti-israeli propaganda” as a commenter here claimed I was doing, I would very much like to see a peaceful end to the plight of Palestinians that is to say a peaceful end to the problems of Israel. How can you so easily accept fundamentalist elements in your own culture and not accept it in others? Rather than thinking how Turkey is meddling in others affairs why can you not see it as an international reply to a cry for help?
Really? So it was the Turks who tried to extermeintate the Jews this century.
Right…it was the Turks who prosecuted the Inquisition that has all but eliminated Jews from Hispanic nations.
Well it’s nice to know this blog has an affirmative action policy on allowing blogging by the mentally challenged.
“Really? So it was the Turks who tried to extermeintate the Jews this century.”
==
This century has just started. But at least “DeepThought” is not mentally challenged. Btw, I’m still waiting for an answer as to why there are no non-Muslims in Turkey. What happened to the millions and millions of Christians that lived in what is today Islamic Turkey?
You may rightly ask this question with fury, only if you can answer what happened to the Turkish/Muslim population in Balkans, Russia/Crimea/Kazan, and the rest of the Middle East.
After WW1, the whole demographics changed, not just in Turkey; but in Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Syria, Iraq and all others. And not only in violent ways, but through political decisions, population exchanges and all that.
It may be rightly argued that there violent aggression was used on Armenians; but for other groups there was no systematic violence.
It is very true that there is an increased antisemitism in the Turkey, but it should also be acknowledged that the most important factor in this escalation is that Israel murdered Turkish citizens in international waters, whom posed no lethal threat, by using special forces. It is only valid know for Turks to be a little upset about this.
“Israel murdered Turkish citizens in international waters, whom posed no lethal threat,”
Yes, big, bad Israel stood innocent, unarmed Turkish citizens, on a pleasure cruise in the Mediterranean, against the wall and shot them.
Too bad that Hedelerden did not persuade the UN Palmer commission of his version. Maybe Erdogan would buy it.
Dear All,
It’s not because I’m Turkish but I’m in huge depression after seeing all these comments. After reading all of comments, I realized that we should be selfish animals who defends only his/her rights to the limits with blind eyes. If not people will start to criticising and humulating you. If any christian country would have some benefit from Palestine, than these guys would be barking for Palestine’s rights and already started to plan to send NATO force including their first aid Turkish Army! That’s why I’m very proud to be Turkish with full of heart, passion and mind. These days will pass maybe in two hundred years and you will loose this poor control but World will never forget you guys. Go and have fun with existing regime & high demagogy talent of yours for now! Although I haven’t gone to Gazze, I can imegine what’s happening over there. I recommend you to have a visit before you spread your legs, holding coffee on your hand and commenting here! Than I would love to see your comments here again. Love eachother people. We are here averagely 60 – 70 years. Try to look from both angles. I can understand you have bit fear & anger to Turkish from history but we Turkish no longer same. We just wish you to become normal human beings again! Being Barbarian doesn’t suit you much!