In a display of dhimmitude, Jews in Turkey have denied that president Erdogan has made antisemitic statements, despite his using 'Jews' and 'Israelis' interchangeably. Times of Israel reports:
JTA — The main organization representing Turkish Jews has criticized the US State Department for accusing Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using antisemitic rhetoric.
The Jewish Confederation of Turkey said Wednesday that it was “unfair and reprehensible to imply that President Erdogan is antisemitic” in a tweet.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement that “the United States strongly condemns President Erdogan’s recent antisemitic comments regarding the Jewish people and finds them reprehensible.”
Turkish Jews are saying that Erdogan is not anti-semitic. Well, during the 28 years I worked for the US government at the Pentagon, Turkish Jews would constantly come and plead Turkey's case, especially after Turkey did awful times regarding Israel. We were infuriated. Several times, I told them that we all thought their coming and pleading Turkey's case, especially the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel actions of Turkey's ruling class, shamed these very Jews who were coming in the name of the leadership of the country where they lived.
ReplyDeleteA few times, they looked down and said, "what else can we do? The Turkish government expects us to come to America and say nice things about them. "
My response: Maybe it's not my place to say this, but maybe it is time for you to leave Turkey, make aliyah, or go elsewhere. Every one of these leaders - bar none - responded that all of their children either lived elsewhere or planning to leave once they finished high school.
I guess this says it all.
We must feel sorry for those Jewsof Turkey. They live under enormous pressure.
And let's not forget the bombing or was it bombings in Istanbul in about 2004 as I recall. Erdogan was only in power for a few years at that time. A synagogue was bombed in that city killing a couple dozen Jews.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, the new Turkey of Ataturk was not all that different from the Ottoman one. During WW2 Turkey was neutral but somewhat pro-German. In 1955 tens of thousands of ethnic Greeks were expelled from Istanbul while both Greece and Turkey were members of NATO. Needless to say, the Western powers made no fuss about this ethnic cleansing, nor did NATO have anything to say about it as far as I know.