The president of the Chamber of Istanbul Taxi Businesses has accused Uber of being a targeted attack on his industry carried out by what he called “the Jewish lobby”, Turkish Jewish newspaper Şalom said .
“The global thieving Jewish lobby is carrying out commercial taxi piracy in Turkey,” Eyüp Aksu told a crowd of anti-Uber protesters outside an Istanbul courthouse.
He said the Turkish media were joining in, attacking taxi drivers with biased articles.
Despite having voted in favor of resolution condemning U.S. move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which urges states to refrain from operating missions in Jerusalem, eight European states maintain Palestinian consulates or embassies there.read more
Several European countries have been found to be in violation of a U.N. resolution they themselves supported when condemning U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
The U.N. General Assembly resolution that followed the U.S. announcement on Dec. 6 called on all countries "to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem." But the eight European countries in question – Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom – actively operate Palestinian Authority consulates or embassies in Jerusalem despite having voted in favor of the resolution.
The president of the world's largest Zionist Christian organization, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has come out against what he called the "hypocritical and inappropriate conduct of the international community toward Israel and Jerusalem."
ICEJ President Jurgen Buhler sent letters to each of those nation's leaders, in which he noted that "the international community has always called for an even-handed approach to Jerusalem, so as not to prejudge this sensitive final-status issue. Yet here are eight nations that have never been called out for violating this principle by placing their chief missions to the Palestinians in Jerusalem. It turns out the demand for neutrality has just been a hollow pretext for denying the Jewish people and state their rightful place in Jerusalem. So no nation can now complain when a country decides to open an embassy to Israel in Jerusalem.
"Many world leaders have been critical of the recent decision by U.S. President Donald Trump regarding Jerusalem, contending that it prejudges a sensitive issue which should left to final-status talks. Instead, they have urged an even-handed approach to Jerusalem. Yet [your country] has been violating this very principle for some time now due to your chief diplomatic mission to the Palestinians being located in … Jerusalem. If you truly wanted to be fair, you would either have both your diplomatic missions to Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, or neither."
Jews in Turkey are worried by a new historical fiction that shows Jews attempting to assassinate the sultan and Herzl planning for a Jewish state extending from the Euphrates to the Nile.read more
A fictional Turkish television series is causing great concern in the Jewish community there with its storylines depicting Theodor Herzl intending to establish a Jewish state extending from the Euphrates to the Nile and a Jew attempting to assassinate Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
The German-based Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB) has claimed that its central administration was not aware of anti-Semitic and anti-Christian messages posted by its members on Facebook, vowing to investigate them.
Deutsche Welle reported on the statement of DİTİB, an organization that has nearly 800,000 members and 900 associations connected to mosques of the Turkish congregation in Germany. The country hosts at least 3 million people of Turkish origin.
DİTİB Executive Director Nevzat Yaşar Aşıkoğlu issued a statement in Cologne describing the hate messages as provocative and said that such actions would have consequences.
Hessen radio announced on Sunday that DİTİB’s Facebook account spread hate speech against Jews and Christians in Turkish.
Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, was fatally shot on 19 December at an art exhibition in Ankara. The perpetrator was a Turkish special forces police officer.read more
Many Turkish Twitter users, however, blamed the assassination on the Jews, calling it a “Jewish plot” and claiming that the assassin “had a Jewish look”.
At a chic café overlooking the Bosphorus, two Turkish Jewish women are discussing their plans to emigrate when the call to Friday prayers blasts from the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque.
Unable to talk over the deafening singing that fills the café in the Bebek neighborhood of western Istanbul, the women turn to their smartphones to read the news. At least they try to.
Turkey’s government has jammed access to the internet on this November day, reportedly to prevent terrorists from communicating with each other. It spurs major traffic disruptions and overloads several cellular towers.
“This is Turkey,” said one of the women, a 42-year-old businesswoman and mother named Betty, who asks that her last name not be used for security reasons.
“If they don’t want you to communicate, you won’t,” adds her friend Suzette, who makes the same request about her surname.
Betty and Suzette are among the thousands of Turkish Jews seeking foreign passports this year amid growing religiosity in a society where civil rights activists and some ethnic minorities are feeling the weight of the increasingly authoritarian policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamist president who has used anti-Israel rhetoric.
“Of course we’re thinking about emigrating,” said Betty while scanning the top floor of the café — a quiet place that she proposes for an interview because she does not want to be overheard speaking about Jews to a journalist. “Everyone in the Jewish community is because it is hard to imagine a future for ourselves here. Many Muslims are, too.”
Two important Jew have lost their lives lately: Shimon Peres, the ninth President of Israel, and Ishak Alaton, a Jewish businessman from Turkey.read more
Upon receiving the news of the deaths of these two men, many Turks rushed to Twitter proudly and openly to show off their hatred of Jews, according to the Turkish news site, Avlaremoz, which covers Jewish affairs.
On September 21, an attempted stabbing took place at the Israeli Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, when a Muslim man armed with a knife tried to attack before being shot in the leg by a local police officer. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, none of the Israelis at the embassy were involved or hurt in the incident.
Turkish police at the scene told Reuters the assailant shouted “Allahu Akbar” outside before he was shot.
The Turkish news site, Avlaremoz, which covers Jewish-related affairs, reported that many Turks rushed to Twitter to proudly and openly show off their Jew-hatred.
Here are some examples of what users wrote:
“We want to hear gunshots not outside, but inside of the Israeli Embassy.”
“Has anyone been croaked? This is what we want to learn.”
“[It will] Get even worse, the Israeli embassy.”
“A prostitute was asked: ‘Do you have children?’ The prostitute responded: ‘All of the population of Israel is my children.’”
“Suicide bombers always target innocent people. Just enter that Israeli embassy and explode it! What the hell is a knife?”
“They call the man who says ‘I did this to stop the bloodshed in the Middle East’ an ‘attacker’. He is the hero of the day. I think he is rational.”
A man wielding a knife has been shot after attempting to attack the Israeli embassy in Turkey.read more
The suspect was shot in the leg and detained after trying to carry out a stabbing attack on Wednesday.
Authorities are believed to be investigating links to Islamist terrorism after police told Reuters the man was shouting "Allahu Akbar", meaning "God is Great" in Arabic, during the incident.
(...)
Police have launched a terror investigation into the attack, which comes after calls by Isis and al-Qaeda for supporters to launch "lone wolf" attacks in countries perceived as enemies.
The arrested man was locally identified as a 38-year-old construction worker from Karaman province, who was said to be mentally ill.
Between the dates of 17th of July–15th of August; the number of mainstream newspapers who directly linked the “Coup Attempt” to Jews and/or Israel is 76. Numbers are stated below.
(...)
Demonisation of Jews and Israel is a constant concept used in the Turkish written media. And on social media… I don’t even want to go there…
Latest news is suggesting that Fetullah Gülen’s mother’s name is Jewish and the “Üst Akıl” – so called “Supreme mentality” which consists of Jewish and Zionist and Masonic teachings are behind everything.
The synagogue’s fate tells the story of Turkey’s dwindling Jewish community, which is dealing with rising displays of anti-Semitism and profound fears for its future.read more
“We’re not afraid of Islamic State and Kurdish terror – that’s directed against all Turks,” says another community member, who also wished to remain anonymous. “The problem is with our neighbors and the neighbors’ children we grew up with. Today, they are fed with wild incitement and treat us and our children with hatred and anti-Semitism. Our problem is at school, nightclubs, the supermarket.”
The synagogue is located in the heart of the city’s old Galata neighborhood, where Jews settled on first reaching Istanbul. Many of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 settled in the Ottoman Empire and until World War I the Jewish-Turkish community numbered some 150,000.
After the Great War it lost half of its population to Israel, Europe and the United States, and has been in constant decline ever since. By the time Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party rose to power in 2005, the community numbered 19,500. It fell to 17,000 over the following decade and has fallen by a further 1,000 in the past year.
The people I spoke to in Istanbul hold the Turkish leadership responsible, for ignoring the rampant incitement against Jews in Turkey and enabling it, even if President Erdogan himself didn’t make any public anti-Semitic statements.
(...)
The reconciliation agreement signed last week between Israel and Turkey has failed to lessen his fears. “The agreement is not between myself and my neighbor, or between my child and a gang of youngsters who attack him in a nightclub or at school,” he says.
“It was always unacceptable to look like a Jew in Turkey, but we looked the other way because we made a good living,” he says. “A Jew in Turkey never wears a kippa – except for the chief rabbi, because the job obliges him to. In the past, we did it out of the understanding that we live in a Muslim state and there’s no need to create an uncomfortable situation. Today, it’s from the fear of being attacked.
“A Jew can’t be a career officer in the Turkish army, no matter how many generations he’s lived in Turkey or how loyal he is to the state,” he adds. “A Jew can’t send his son to the military academy, or serve in intelligence or other sensitive posts.”
Jewish cemetery in Hatay/ Southern Turkey was vandalized, tombs destroyed by unknown assailants during the night.
Speaking at the ceremony, the secretary of the competition, Masud Shojaei-Tabatabai said, “One of the subjects we asked cartoonists to focus on was why the Western countries arrest any scholar who doubts the Holocaust while they put no limit on freedom of speech in other categories.”
“The other subject was why Palestinians should pay for the Holocaust… we are concerned about the modern Holocaust that is being sought by the Zionist regime, which is known as a child killer government,” he added.
“First you burn the Jews in ovens and then you come and accuse the Turkish people of genocide,” said Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag in a reaction to a vote by the Budestag, the German parliament, of a resolution recognizing the 1915 Armenian genocide, when the Ottoman Empire — the precursor state to Turkey — murdered over 1 million Armenian Christians.
Bekir Bozdag
“Look back first at your own history… in our history, there is nothing that we can be ashamed of,” the minister said. Besides Germany, 20 countries in the world, including France and Russia, currently recognize the Armenian genocide.
The small Jewish community in Edirne, in northwest Turkey, has waited patiently since 1976 for a wedding in its local synagogue – and when it finally occurred yesterday, the response it drew from other Turks was less than celebratory.
The wedding was set to be such a significant and joyous event that it was decided to broadcast it via Periscope and Twitter – a particularly popular social medium in Turkey. However, it drew the attention of anti-Semites in the country, and the bride, groom and Jewish community in general were told, "Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job" and the like.
(...)
Then began the upswing. In 2013, the synagogue was renovated, and last year it was opened to the public. Its first wedding, yesterday, drew many members of the budding Jewish community, and the joy was great. Community leader Yitzchak Ibrahimzadeh even decided that it should be shared with the public at large, via Twitter. The happiness turned to consternation, however, as the responses began tweeting in: "Kill the Jews!" "Get out of occupied Palestine!" etc.
Ibrahimzadeh did not lose heart. "Many anti-Semites expressed their hatred on the Periscope broadcast," he tweeted back. "Together, hand in hand, we will overcome them." He proudly included pictures of a synagogue, church, mosque and Turkish flag, symbolizing his hope that unity would win the day.
The Defense Ministry on Tuesday recognized the 14 Israeli victims of last month’s terror attack in Istanbul as official “victims of hostilities,” qualifying them and their families for special state benefits.read more
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On March 19, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest, killing four people and injuring dozens more. Three Israeli tourists were among those died in the blast, and 11 were wounded to varying degrees.
The ministry did not initially recognize the Israelis killed and injured as victims of hostilities, as it was not entirely clear if they had been specifically targeted in the attack for being Israelis or had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But upon consideration and further investigation, the ministry determined “there is a reasonable basis for the belief that the attack was directed at Israelis,” it said in a statement.
Islamic State terrorists had reportedly "advanced plans" to murder Jewish children in attacks aimed at educational and youth institutions in Turkey, according to Britain's Sky News on Monday.read more
The report cited information allegedly obtained by intelligence officials from arrested ISIS operatives regarding "an imminent" attack.
According to the Sky News report, six ISIS members arrested over the last week in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep revealed the alleged plans by the extremist group to target Jewish children at kindergartens, schools and youth centers.
The suspected Islamic State bomber who killed three Israelis in Saturday’s bombing in Istanbul followed the tour group from their hotel to the restaurant, and waited outside for them before detonating his explosives, reports said Monday.read more
The reports, published in the Turkish media, appeared to contradict earlier assessments that the bombing didn’t deliberately target the Israeli tour group. The later reports, however, were unsourced and couldn’t be independently verified.
An official from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party was reportedly fired Saturday after saying she hoped Israeli tourists injured in Saturday’s deadly suicide bombing in downtown Istanbul had died.
Irem Atkas sent her ill-wishes over Twitter shortly after a bomb was detonated in central Istanbul, killing three Israelis and wounding 11 others, according to Turkish officials.
“I wish that the wounded Israeli tourists were dead,” Irem Aktas, a board member in the women’s branch of the party in the Istanbul neighborhood of Eyup tweeted shortly after the attack. Her account was removed from social media site not long thereafter.
Aktas was reportedly dismissed from her duties immediately afterwards.
