Antisemitism in Turkey
[5] Historically, the Jewish population of the Ottoman Empire reached its apex at the end of the 19th century, when Jews numbered around 500,000 individuals, of which approximately half lived on the territory of the modern Republic of Turkey.
In 1553, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent taking up the opinion of his personal doctor and adviser, Moses Hamon, reconfirmed the orders of Mehmed II, which prohibit local courts from adjudicating the cases pertaining to alleged Jewish ritual murder.
In 1579, Sultan Murad III reportedly heard that Jewish women wore silk clothes decorated with precious stones, and ordered the destruction of all Jews in the Empire.
[12] There were a number of known cases of blood libel in the 19th century on the territory of the Ottoman Empire: Aleppo (1810), Beirut (1824), Antioch (1826), Hama (1829), Tripoli (1834), Jerusalem (1838), Rhodes and Damascus (1840), Marmora (1843), Smyrna (1864).
Blood libel in Rhodes occurred in February 1840, when the Greek Orthodox community, with the active participation of the consuls of several European states accused the Jews of kidnapping and murdering a Christian boy for ritual purposes.
[18] In the same year, the Damascus affair took place, in which Jews were accused of the ritual murder of father Thomas, a Franciscan friar from the Island of Sardinia and his Greek servant, Ibrahim Amarah.
[12] The decree read: "We cannot permit the Jewish nation... to be vexed and tormented upon accusations, which have not the least foundation in truth..." In 1866, with the resumption of cases of blood libel, the Sultan Abdulaziz issued a firman, according to which the Jews were declared to be under his protection.
Orthodox clergy limited such accusations thereafter,[16] but another known case of blood libel happened in 1875 in Aleppo, but the alleged victim of the murder – the Armenian boy – was soon found alive and well.
In the second half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire initiated the Tanzimat reforms aimed at aligning the rights among its subjects regardless of ethnic origin and religion.
With the appearance of Zionism in late 19th century, the attitude of Ottoman authorities towards Jews began losing its traditional tolerance, thus marking the first signs of modern Turkish antisemitism.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Arab population protested against the increasing Jewish presence in Palestine, resulting in a ban in 1892 to all land sales to foreigners.
In the same period the government forced the Jewish community to abandon the cultural autonomy granted to ethnic minorities, thereby violating the treaty of Lausanne,[12] although this was the general policy of Mustafa Kemal's regime, which also affected Armenians and Kurds, among others.
[27] Under this law, the Interior Minister had the right to relocate national minorities to other parts of the country depending on the level of their "adaptation to Turkish culture".
[12] In the wake of the Turkish government's condemnation of the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict which strained relations between the two countries,[35][36] a 2009 report issued by the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Erdoğan "indirectly incites and encourages" antisemitism.
[37] Prominent antisemitic thinkers of the 1930s and 1940s included Burhan Belge, Cevat Rıfat Atilhan, Nihal Atsız, Sadri Ertem, and Muhittin Bergen [tr].
[6][41][42][43][44][45][46] For instance, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front (İslami Büyük Doğu Akıncıları Cephesi), a radical Islamist terrorist organization established in 1984, advocates the expulsion of any Jewish and Christian presence in Turkish political life.
According to the researchers, the leaders, including the former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan have presented antisemitic claims in the critique of the state of Israel.
[48] However, in 2003 when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party, became the Prime Minister of Turkey, it marked the beginning of an Islamisation of the Turkish society.
[49][50] Several sources claim that the conflict following the Gaza flotilla incident on 31 May 2010 was deliberately instigated by Turkish politicians in order to aggravate the relations with Israel for the sake of domestic and foreign policy gains.
[citation needed] Turkish-Jewish scholar, Rıfat Bali [tr], assessing the Turkish left-wing, says that for them Zionism – is an aggressive ideology that promotes antisemitism.
[6] At the end of March 2005 the attention of Western media was drawn towards Turkey to the fact that Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was running at 4th place on the Turkish best-seller lists for the first two months of 2005.
The researchers at Tel Aviv University noted that many young and educated Turks under the influence of this propaganda were forming a negative attitude towards Jews and Israel, although they have never came across with them.
[71][72][73] The latter charge is based on the fact that the film has a scene where a Jewish doctor, an employee in the U.S. Army, trades bodies of prisoners of the Abu Ghraib detention centre.
[74][77][78] The Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Israel, Danny Ayalon, in a conversation with the Turkish ambassador expressed his opinion that "the scene, similar to the one shown in the series, make life of Jews in Turkey unsafe.
"[86] Anti-Jewish incidents after January 2009:[67] The banners at the press conference of the anti-Israeli Federation Association of Culture Osman Gazi in Eskisehir read: "Dogs allowed, for Jews and Armenians the entrance is closed".
"[88] Some billboards in Istanbul had the following text: "You can not be the son of Moses" and "Not in your book", with quotations from the Torah condemning the killing and with pictures of bloody children's footwear.
[93] On 6 September 1986, a terrorist from the Palestinian organization of Abu Nidal machine gunned visitors at Neve Shalom Synagogue during Sabbath prayers.
[106] A particularly hostile attitude towards Israel and Jews was reported during Israeli military operation Cast Lead, the Turkish police had to take measures to protect Jewish institutions in Turkey.
[67] Many liberal journalists in the newspaper Hürriyet, Milliyet and Vatan published weighted statements, noting that criticism of Israeli policies should not go into hostility towards the Jews.
[85][109] On 27 January 2010 at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that Turkey would continue its policy aimed against antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and discrimination.
