Turkey’s Jewish minority takes the heat amid Israeli-Palestinian violence
A frenzy of anti-Israeli coverage in Turkish media has accompanied anti-Semitic attacks on the country's small Jewish community.
Turkey’s tiny Jewish community is once again in the crosshairs of the ongoing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, with its community newspaper the target of a fresh wave of anti-Semitic attacks.
Individuals who identified themselves as disciples of Necip Fazıl Kisakurek, a Turkish nationalist poet and anti-Semite revered by Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hacked the website of Salom, the sole newspaper serving Turkey’s dwindling Jewish minority. They posted, “Our actions will continue until Palestine is free and independent.” They also posted a verse from one of Kisakurek’s poems evoking Palestinians responding to Israeli missiles with stones. The perpetrators have yet to be caught. Turkey’s Jews are on edge.
Sympathy for the Palestinians runs strong in Turkey and cuts across ideological lines with outrage aired by pro-government and opposition circles alike over the mounting civilian toll of Israel’s continued assaults on Gaza. But hostility toward Israel has been determinedly cranked up under nearly two decades of Justice and Development Party rule, resulting in the current hiatus in political relations.
The overall death toll in Gaza now stands at 200, including 59 children and 35 women, with 1,305 injured, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, the BBC reported Monday. Turning a deaf ear to international calls for a cease-fire, Israeli fighter jets continued to pound Gaza today. The Israeli military said it struck 35 “terror targets” during a 20-minute-long attack and hit the homes of nine “high-ranking” Hamas commanders.
