The Jewish debt to the Turks goes back centuries to when the Ottomans took in thousands of Jewish refugees after the Spanish and Portuguese expulsions of 1492 and 1497. Moreover, when Israel was shunned for decades by nearly every Muslim country, it was Turkey that was Israel's military ally, friend, and commercial trading partner. And even in the midst of growing Turkish hostility, it behooves the Jewish state not to forget this debt of gratitude.
I have personally visited Istanbul as a Yarmulke-wearing, tzitzis-flying Jewish Rabbi, and was warmly welcomed by Muslims everywhere. On her way back from Israel last year, my wife went through Istanbul with five of our children, including our baby, and was amazed at how many Muslim merchants gave the baby presents. My family came away smitten with Turkey.
But my call for Jewish memory and gratitude is becoming increasingly strained by the mouth of Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has made himself into a living fountain spewing anti-Israel invective. His latest attack on the Jewish state on CNN's Fareed Zakaria beggared belief. Israel, he said, "shows no mercy" and is "cruel" in its treatment of Palestinians. Not content to feed the worst anti-Semitic Shakespearean stereotypes of Jews being vindictive and heartless, he trivialized Jewish suffering at the hands of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas before offering an unbelievable blood libel claiming "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed" as a result of military action by Israel. Earlier he had accused Israel of acting like "a spoiled boy" and described the flotilla raid as "savagery."
Erdogan is claiming that Israeli actions border on genocide and that Israel indiscriminately kills Palestinians when the truth is that the Israeli military is, given the level of threat it faces, one of the most humane and restrained in the world. Even if it were true that Israel has killed anything near that number it would still have to be seen in the context of the Palestinian people declaring a non-stop war of annihilation against the Jewish state and Israel being forced to defend itself. Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for the complete obliteration and dissolution of Israel, captures the level of hatred the Palestinians have harbored against Israel. Some choice nuggets include:
"The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him... The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children, it scares everyone... Jews control the world media (and use their) wealth to stir revolutions ... There was no war that broke out anywhere without their (Jews') fingerprints on it." Hamas Imam Sheik Yunus-al-Astal talked about a verse from Koran suggesting "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next." And, "Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews." (NYTimes.com, April 1, 2008)
That Erdogan would speak as if Israel callously attacks a group which has for years launched rocket attacks against Israeli hospitals, kindergartens, and family homes is an indication of a deep-seated hostility to the Jewish state which he spares no opportunity in maligning.
But Erdogan's numbers are grotesque exaggerations designed to portray Israel as a genocidal power.
The exact number of Palestinians killed in the last two Intifadas, beginning in 1987, is difficult to glean, but the most accurate numbers as assembled in Wikipedia from the United Nations, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and assorted Human Rights groups put Palestinian casualties from the beginning of the First Intifada in 1987 until 1993 at 1,376 by Israeli security forces and 1,000 murdered by the Palestinians themselves.
The Second Intifada, from 2000 till the present, is said to have seen the death of 4,850 Palestinians who were killed by Israeli security forces and 594 Palestinians killed by Palestinians. It bears mentioning that during the Second Intifada 1,062 Israelis died at Palestinian terrorist hands.
It goes without saying that this is a far cry from Erdogan's libel of hundreds of thousands of deaths and the attempt to decontextualize the deaths of even these thousands.
Starting in the 1960's, the PLO made a global name for itself through international terror. In 1969 alone, the PLO hijacked 82 planes. In the 1972 Olympics it murdered 11 Israeli athletes in Munich. Since the Oslo Accords signed, Palestinians have killed 53 Americans and Injured 83 Americans. (Jewish Virtual Library)
But if Erdogan is truly concerned about Palestinian life, as indeed he and all of us ought to be, he would condemn the unbelievable Arab-on-Arab violence that has left far greater numbers dead. In the first Intifada, more than 1000 Palestinians were killed by the PLO for supposedly "informing" for Israel. (Christian Science Monitor, May 22, 2002)
As early as the 1930s revolts in Palestine, Arabs fought each other. During the Lebanese Civil War, two Palestinian movements battled one another, leaving thousands of Palestinians dead. (Federal Research Division, Middle East Contemporary Survey, Volume 11, Google Books)
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, in Gaza, Hamas has killed and tortured thousands of other Palestinians who oppose their rule. By 2007, more than 600 Palestinians died during the struggle between Hamas and Fatah. (Ynetnews.com, June 6, 2007)
Between 1986 and 1989, the Al-Anfal Genocidal campaign in Iraq against the Kurdish People and others have Saddam Hussein's army killing 200,000 of his own civilians in that period. (The Middle East: A History, 2004) And the NY Times has reported that Saddam Hussein has "murdered as many as a million of his people." (Oct. 7, 2007) The vast majority of these people were, of course, Arabs.
I am religious Jews who believes that Arabs are my brothers and are, of course, equal children of G-d in every way. The death of even a single Palestinian is a tragedy. But what choice does Israel have when the Palestinians launch wave after wave of horrific terror against innocent Israeli men, women and children. Will Erdogan next condemn the United States for the thousands of Taliban fighters it has killed in Afghanistan? Will he deplore American Predator strikes against Al Qaida in Pakistan? Since when is there a moral equivalence between the taking of a life in self defense and the taking of a life in an act of cold-blooded murder?
Just as it is proper for Jews to try and overlook Turkey's current leader and remember the age-old friendship between the two peoples, it behooves the Turks themselves to rein in their prime minister from his character assassination of the Jewish state.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of the Global Institute for Values Education, has just published "Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Yourself (Wiley) and in December will publish "Kosher Jesus." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
Follow Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiShmuley
Elah Feder: The Problem With Fighting Anti-Semitism
Your post is a propaganda piece posing as reasonable. Trying to buy time as Israel expands.
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Al-Ahram: Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah
Reacting to seemingly successful PalestiniaÂn efforts to obtain internatioÂnal backing for a prospectivÂe PalestiniaÂn state on territorieÂs occupied by Israel in 1967, some settler leaders warned that they would transform PalestiniaÂn population centres into another SrebrenicaÂ.
In 1995, Serb soldiers carried out a genocide in the Bosnian city where as many as 8000 men and boys were massacred in cold blood.
Settler leaders, who are effectivelÂy backed by the Israeli government and army, have made numerous statements of late threateninÂg to slaughter PalestiniaÂns in case the United Nations recognises Palestine as a state or grants enhanced membership status to the PalestiniaÂn Authority (PA).
The settlers are not making empty threats. Para-militÂary Jewish terroristsÂ, known as the Hilltop Youth, have embarked on a campaign of murder and terror in various parts of the West Bank, setting PalestiniaÂn olive groves on fire, torching mosques and killing innocent PalestiniaÂns.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1066/re15.htm
And the hilltop youth aren't even, for the most part, the settlers involved in the petty vandalism and property destruction that both sides commit in the west bank.
I've spent years of my life there; and you have no idea what you're talking about.
Not so, Rabbi. Dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilian population centers, as was done in Gaza 2008 and Qana (Lebanon) 2006, shooting at civilians attempting to flee, or waving white flags, even children, foreign relief-aid workers, journalists and even international peace-keeping troops demonstrates neither restraint nor humanity.
Launching an attack on a flotilla of ships, carrying humanitarian supplies, shooting and assaulting unarmed passengers and crew, in international waters, is an act of piracy and a violation of maritime law.
Turkey's record on human rights may not be a model, but the IDF's brutality, sadism is nothing short of barbaric.
There was one example of israeli soldiers shooting civilians fleeing with white flags, and those soldiers were charged by the state of israel. As for the foreigners killed by the IDF (a handful of examples in the last 10 years of war, comparable to friendly fire/accidental deaths of non-americans in iraq and afghanistan), ALL were clear accidents and killed in the midst of running battles.
Lastly, there are videos available of what occurred on the gaza flotilla. If you took the time to actually watch them, you would see that the israeli soldiers were CLEARLY acting in self defense.
Some of the Freedom Flotilla dead, including the American youth, were shot in the back of the head point blank as they lay on the floor. Executions. And Israel then said that the next time a Freedom Flotilla ship tried to break the blockade it would be worse.
Your assertion is clearly untrue. The IDF is brutal, often sadistic, toward an occupied, helpless civilian population. The need for security is just a way of rationalizing an excuse for the behaviors.
Unfortuanately "Eye for an eye" leaves the entire world blind, and the IDF's motto of "a remote drone attack on a family's home for an unguilded missle falling harmlessly in the desert" is even worse.
Since Moses came down the mountain with the phrase "Thou Shall Not Kill" carved in stone. All later justifications are simply that, man-made justifications.
1. Hamas (de-facto rulers of Gaza) ARE "constantly out to kill Israelis". They make no secret of it, indeed they praise such terrorists acts as "glorious & heroic". Since many Palestinian Arabs voted for Hamas, there is at least a justified suspicion that some share their views.
2. It's true that the Palestinians' means of killing Israelis are limited -- that's why the number of Israeli casualties is limited. But (as explained above) the WILL to do it is there. Hence, Israel has every right to prevent them from acquiring the means.
3. The thousands of rockets and mortar rounds (amount NOT questionable!) started to "rain" on Israel's sovereign territory long BEFORE the blockade. Before them, there were suicide bombers coming from Gaza. The blockade is the result of terrorism, NOT the other way around.
4. I do not know what the Rabbi would do. But when USA felt threatened by rockets from Cuba, it instituted a blockade against it. BEFORE any rocket was fired.
5. Every Israeli leader in the last 20 years agreed to recognize a Palestinian state, provided it made peace with Israel. No Palestinian leader has ever agreed to recognize the Jewish state. While they SAY they "recognize Israel", they also want to "return" millions of Arabs. In other words they dishonestly "recognize Israel" provided it becomes Arabs. That's like Israel "recognizing Palestine" provided they all convert to Judaism.
6. The Palestinians ALREADY control a territory 1000x larger than Monaco.
The more important issue is: who appointed Erdogan "protector of the Palestinians"?? If Erdogan believes as a matter of principle that Israel's behavior is improper (he may call it whatever invective he wishes), then his only LEGAL recourse is to act within the established international framework -- by filing a complaint with the Security Council. Erdogan has no business getting involved in a foreign conflict -- as he did when he supported an attempt to breach the blockade.
This is not the first time, however, when Erdogan gets Turkey involved ILLEGALLY in a foreign conflict. Before he decided to appoint himself as "Protector of Palestinians", he appointed himself "Protector of Azeris" -- and intervened in a territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Exactly what gives this man the right to appoint himself judge in matters completely foreign to him? It is a testimony to his Islamist convictions that for him "the Muslim party" (whether Palestinian or Azeris) is always right. For Erdogan, it's "us against them" -- and "us" is "Muslims", not "Turks".
He has just as much right to get involved as Obama -- he's a head of state.
Isn't Panetta in Israel right now? Every country has just as much right to be just as involved in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinains as any other country. I know you would like to think only the USA can participate in foreign affairs (because they support Isreal, right or wrong), but your position is laughable on its face.
I did not see Obama sending a ship to breach Turkey's blockade of Armenia. What was done in Libya, Iraq, etc. has been done under NATO/UN mandate.
Panetta is in Israel for discussions, he is not breaching any blockade either.
As I said already: if Erdogan wants to do something about international relations that do not directly involve Turkey, his only legal option is to do it through an international framework. Otherwise, it's just naked agression.
As for "the sunset of American hegemony", don't hold your breath just yet -- you might choke.
However, your glee at the (falsely perceived) "sunset" of America proves once again a point I always made: that Israel-haters are ALWAYS also America-haters.
I'll let others judge who of us is more "emotional".
Nor are all Israelis, nor all Americans, nor all Swiss. You know why? Because they are all human beings, and in any group of human beings there are going to be some that are more violent than others. That, however, is not a basis for denying the Palestinain people their human rights, and more than it would be a basis for taking away the soverignty of Israel, Norway or Indonesia.
life is a long journey of a learning process, and even enlightened scholars of jewish scholarship can learn from us gentiles...
WRONG.
If you watched Fareed Zakaria this weekend too or you would know this was a translation error.
What Erdogan said, literally translated is this: "Tens, thousands, tens of thousands ... "
It is worth noting that Turkish-Israeli ties, which flourished in the 1990s, remained strong after the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) electoral triumph in Turkey in November 2002. Additional commercial and defense agreements were signed. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists flocked to Istanbul, Antalya and Bodrum.
In a May 2005 visit to Israel, Erdogan met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and paid his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. President Shimon Peres delivered an address to the Turkish Parliament in 2007 (first time ever in Turkeys history) and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Ankara the following year.
Erdogan even received a medal from the Jewish ADL in 2004 in the USA!
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"Everyone should unconditionally accept that Israel is an indispensable element of the Middle Eastern mosaic."
Quote by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2003
The rest is just a game...