ANKARA, JERUSALEM ATTEMPT TO REPAIR DAMAGED RELATIONS.
By Haviv Rettig Gur

The Jerusalem Post
February 4, 2009 Wednesday

Jerusalem still considers Turkish prime minister persona non grata
after outbursts regarding Gaza offensive

Turkey and Israel seemed to signal a rapprochement Tuesday after a
month of souring relations over Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

"We are now looking towards the future," Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister
Cemil Cicek said on Tuesday. "Turkey is not targeting Israel and the
Israeli people."

"The relations between the two countries are important to us and we
want to protect them," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said
in response to Cicek’s comments.

Those relations seemed to be on a downward spiral in the wake of
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s accusation that
Israel had committed "inhuman actions which would bring it to
self-destruction" during the 22-day January action against Hamas
infrastructure in Gaza.

"Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of
innocents," Erdogan promised in one of a series of angry excoriations
of Israel during the fighting.

He told Turkey’s parliament on January 13 that "media outlets supported
by Jews" were failing to reveal that Israel was intentionally targeting
schools, mosques and hospitals in Gaza.

Senior Israeli officials said this past week they were surprised by the
unusually strident response from a close ally in a battle against an
organization committed to Israel’s destruction. They told The Jerusalem
Post in recent days that Israel was reconsidering Turkey’s role as
a mediator in the region and the close Israeli-Turkish defense ties.

Now senior officials in both countries seem to be working to patch
things up.

"We give special importance to our bilateral ties with Israel and we
want to preserve ties with that country," Cicek said.

"We will still have close economic and military relations with Turkey,
even with Erdogan’s Justice and Development party," a senior Israeli
diplomatic official told the Post on Tuesday. "But there won’t be any
communication with Erdogan himself. He went too far, and we simply
can’t trust him again. He hasn’t even bothered to apologize."

The Turkish prime minister’s rhetorical attacks on Israel were
accompanied by mass demonstrations against Israel and a spate of
anti-Semitic incidents against Jewish property in the country that
raised safety concerns for the five-century-old community.

There are 23,000 Jews in the predominantly Muslim country of more
than 70 million.

On Monday, a leading American Jewish group told the Post that US
Jews might consider supporting Armenian efforts to win recognition
of century-old Turkish massacres as genocide.

Perhaps in response to this threat, Erdogan himself said Sunday that
Turkey had no history of anti-Semitism, calling the hatred of Jews a
"crime against humanity."

Then, on Tuesday, he insisted that criticism of Israel’s offensive
in Gaza should not be regarded as anti- Semitism, and seemed eager
to reassure Turkey’s Jewish citizens that they are safe.

"There has been no anti-Semitism in the history of this country,"
Erdogan told ruling party lawmakers. "As a minority, they’re our
citizens. Both their security and the right to observe their faith
are under our guarantee."

In a statement, the Jewish community welcomed statements by Erdogan
and other Turkish officials that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated,
and noted a decrease since the January 18 Gaza cease-fire of what it
called "anti-Semitic manifestations" during protests against Israel.

"Numerous sensible and impartial journalists and intellectuals have
accentuated that this is not a war of religions," said Musevi Cemaati,
which means Jewish Community in Turkish.

But the group, which has links to Turkey’s rabbis, said "at present
there are unfortunately several TV programs with messages embedded
with harshly anti-Semitic rhetoric."

The group appeared to be referring to some current affairs programs and
other news shows in which comments deemed to be anti-Jewish were made.

It said it was in contact with Cabinet ministers and members of
parliament, and was cooperating closely with police as it worked to
ensure "community premises and members are protected."

Haberturk television reported that Mustafa Cagirici, the chief Islamic
cleric in Istanbul, instructed clerics to avoid statements in weekly
sermons on Friday that would disturb the Jewish community.

In November 2003, Islamic terrorists linked to al- Qaida detonated
bombs outside two synagogues in Istanbul, killing and injuring
dozens. Since then, police have often been posted at Jewish centers.

Jewish community leaders say there have been several hundred
anti-Semitic writings in Turkish media, and that prosecutors have
failed to take legal action. Turkey bans acts that incite racial or
religious hatred.

Turkey acted as a mediator last year in peace efforts between Israel
and Syria, and Erdogan said his country could still play such a role
despite his criticism of Israel.

"Telling the truth is not an obstacle to being a mediator between
two countries," Erdogan said.

Nobody wants to see Turkish-Israeli relations torn asunder, said
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, referring to the
apparent cooling of tempers between the two countries.

"But we can’t be silent in the face of the incitement in recent
weeks. We can’t become willing partners of scapegoating us," he said.

Attacking Israel is a "cheap shot," he added.

"It’s important to see a healing in relations, but it has to start
with the prime minister [Erdogan] and be reflected internally and
externally in Turkey," he noted.