It was only a matter of time before Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan would blame the 'Joos' for his domestic troubles. David Harris of The American Jewish Committee has expressed his concern:
For several weeks, Turkish citizens have demonstrated against the government, which has responded with force and arrests. Erdogan has called the demonstrators "terrorists."
In a letter to Turkey's ambassador to the United States,
AJC expressed concern about Erdogan's "delusional prejudices" regarding
Jews. The prime minister recently suggested that unrest in Turkey
could be attributed to "the interest-rate lobby," a term that in the
past has been associated in the Turkish media with an alleged conspiracy
of Jewish businessmen.
Over the weekend, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak ("New Dawn") claimed that an American Jewish plot is behind the Istanbul protests. The paper asserted that several Washington, D.C.,
foreign policy experts, several of them Jewish, had developed a
so-called "Istanbul Insurrection" plan that allegedly is a blueprint for
the confrontation unfolding in Istanbul.
The article further claimed without explanation that AIPAC and the
American Enterprise Institute, misidentified as an Israeli organization,
were involved in organizing the "plan."
"Whatever
protests and opposition Prime Minister Erdogan may face domestically,
they are home grown," said Harris. "To blame such disturbances on
external forces and to resort to age-old Jewish conspiracy canards is
pure cowardice and runs the risk of incitement. Erdogan should be called
to task by responsible world leaders for such crude tactics rather than
facing up to the reality that a significant segment of the Turkish
public is challenging his authoritarian rule."
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