Update: violent demonstration outside Israeli embassy in Istanbul (Algemeiner)
Jews in Turkey are feeling threatened as never before as a Turkish daily affiliated with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls on the country's Jewish community to apologize for the Palestinian casualties of the Israeli operation in Gaza. Meanwhile, calls on social media to boycott Israel intensify. Ynet news reports (with thanks: Akusia)
"You came here after being banished from Spain," Yeni Akit correspondent Faruk Köse wrote Wednesday in an open letter to Hakham Bashi, the chief rabbi of Turkey's Jewish community. "You have lived comfortably among us for 500 years and gotten rich at our expense. Is this your gratitude – killing Muslims? Erdogan, demand that the community leader apologize!"
In the right-wing newspaper's editorial, Ali Karahasanoğlu wrote: "After the barrage of missiles which hit the capital city of Tel Aviv, Israel has been pushed into a corner and is crying out for a ceasefire, which at the moment only serves Israel and the United States.
"The IDF is using forbidden weapons, intentionally killing children and murdering Muslims for the sake of murdering Muslims. Hamas is unprepared to accept dictations from Israel and the US, and will only lay down its weapon after its understandings are accepted.
"While all this is happening, the journal of the Jewish community in Turkey, 'Shalom,' is referring to the murder of children in Gaza as 'taking care of terrorists.'"
(...) "I have never felt as threatened as I have in the past year," says Linet, a textile importer. "The government is inflaming the hatred and anti-Semitism and we are simply living in fear.
"Many of those who have not left yet – and the vast majority of Jews immigrated to Europe and Israel a long time ago – are weighing their options," she adds.
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"'You came here after being banished from Spain,' Yeni Akit correspondent Faruk Köse wrote Wednesday in an open letter to Hakham Bashi, the chief rabbi of Turkey's Jewish community. 'You have lived comfortably among us for 500 years and gotten rich at our expense. Is this your gratitude – killing Muslims?'"
ReplyDeleteFaruk Kose forgets that 500 years ago what is today Turkey had a Greek-speaking majority that had been conquered, today they say "occupied," by the Turks. Indeed, Jews were in what is now Turkey before the Turks, as far back as the Second Temple period, if not before.