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Turkey's
Runaway Anti-Semitism
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Columnist
Seyfi Sahin wrote on January
31, "I believe that the gorillas and chimps living today in the
forests of North Africa are cursed Jews. They are perverted humans that
have mutated."
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The 74th anniversary of an embarrassing tragedy took place in
Turkey on February 24, 2016.
The MV Struma was a small iron-hulled ship built in 1867 as a
steam-powered schooner, but was later re-engined with an unreliable
second-hand diesel engine. In 1941, it was tasked with safely transporting
an estimated 781 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Britain's
Mandatory Palestine. Between its departure from Constanta on the Black Sea
on Dec. 12, 1941 and arrival in Istanbul on Dec. 15, the vessel's engine
failed several times. On Feb. 23, 1942 with her engine still not running
but the refugees aboard, Turkish authorities towed the Struma from Istanbul
through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea. On the morning of Feb. 24, the
Soviet submarine Shch-213 torpedoed the Struma, killing all but one of the
refugees and 10 crew aboard.
Until this year Turkey, one of the main culprits, had only once
commemorated the victims. This year, official Turkey decided, should be the
second time. A wreath and carnations were hurled at the sea in the shadow
of the horrible event that took place decades ago.
At the commemoration ceremony at Sarayburnu harbor on the Bosporus were
the head of Turkey's Jewish community, Ishak Ibrahimzadeh, Chief Rabbi Isak
Haleva and Istanbul's governor, Vasip Sahin. In his speech, Sahin said:
"We observe that the necessary lessons were not drawn from such
tragedies." He was right, at least from a Turkish point of view.
When it comes to diplomatic conflict between Turkey and Israel or
Turkish anti-Semitism, there is always an unusual optimism in the official
language chosen by Israeli officials or Jewish community leaders.
If Turkish Jews are 'safe and
secure,' why the heavy, embassy-like security at synagogues?
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For instance, Ibrahimzadeh
praised "recent steps by the Turkish state to mend history with
the Jewish community." Echoing the same optimism, chairman Stephen
Greenberg and executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, assured
that Turkey's small (less than 17,000-strong) Jewish community feels "safe
and secure" despite being placed in the middle of a political feud
between Turkey and Israel -- sparked first in 2009 by then Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's clash with former Israeli President Shimon
Peres at a World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Such optimism in official narratives is normal, especially because
Ankara and Jerusalem have been privately negotiating a deal to end their
hostilities and normalize their diplomatic relations. Non-constructive, let
alone explosive, speeches from any state or non-state actor will not help
diplomats from either side in their efforts to reconcile. All the same,
facts on the ground are a little bit different than the rosy picture.
If Turkish Jews are "safe and secure" in Turkey, why do they
feel compelled to protect their schools and synagogues with heavy security?
Why do most synagogues in Istanbul look almost like a U.S. embassy in
Baghdad or Islamabad?
On Jan. 20, 2016, a Turkish synagogue in an old Jewish neighborhood in
Istanbul was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti days after holding its
first prayer service in 65 years. Vandals painted the external walls of the
Istipol Synagogue with the script: "Terrorist Israel, there is
Allah."
"Writing anti-Israel speech on the wall [outside] of a synagogue is
an act of anti-Semitism," said
Ivo Molinas, editor-in-chief of Turkish Jewish newspaper, Şalom.
"Widespread anti-Semitism in Turkey gets in the way of celebrating the
richness of cultural diversity in this country."
Less than a month after that, a column in the radical Islamist Turkish
daily Vahdet claimed that the evolutionary theory of "the
Jew" Charles Darwin contradicts Allah's word in the Koran and that in
actual fact, monkeys evolved from perverted Jews whom Allah cursed and
punished.
Unsurprisingly, the columnist, Seyfi Sahin, is a staunch supporter of
President Erdogan's Justice and Development Party. Sahin claims to be a
physician, and argued that "Jews terrorize the world of science"
and, "as a Jew, Darwin concocted his theory of evolution in order to
turn Muslims away from their religion." He further wrote:
The aim of [Darwin's] theory is to turn
the non-Jews away from their religion, to harm their faith, and to make
them suspicious about their religion. Darwin, being a Jew, believed, lived,
and was buried according to his religion. His real targets were the Muslims
... I believe that the gorillas and chimps living today in the forests of
North Africa are cursed Jews. They are perverted humans that have mutated.
There are no reports of Sahin being investigated or prosecuted under
Turkey's anti-racism laws. Not surprising. No such case has ever been heard
of.
Islamist
columnist Yusuf Kaplan, one of Turkey's most prolific purveyors of
antisemitism, was himself accused by
colleagues of being a "Jewish stooge" last month after he
criticized government policy.
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More recently, there was the curious case of Yusuf Kaplan,** a
Turkish Islamist columnist and a darling of Erdogan and his supporters --
until he dared to criticize the government's foreign policy. Kaplan a
columnist for Yeni Safak, one of Erdogan's favorite newspapers and
one of his staunchest supporters, argued in a television appearance that
the government's foreign policy was incompatible with regional realities.
So what? Not so difficult to guess.
Leading users on social media called for Kaplan's death and accused
him of killing another pro-government journalist, of being a British
spy and of "collusion with the Jews." Many called him a
"Jewish stooge." A Jewish stooge? The man has a remarkable record
of making anti-Semitic statements, including his claim that "Jews rule
the Western universities and world media and that their paranoia can reach
barbaric, cruel and inhuman dimensions."
On the 74th anniversary of the Struma tragedy, anti-Semitism
in Turkey has reached such intensity that even anti-Semitic Islamists are
not immune to anti-Semitic smear campaigns.
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based
columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the Middle
East Forum.
** Kaplan means tiger in Turkish and is a popular name, unrelated to
the common Jewish name.
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