UNION HOLDS BIZARRE PROTEST AGAINST MIZRAHI

Today’s Zaman
Feb 17 2009
Turkey

Members of the Turkish Education Personnel Union (Turk Egitim-Sen)
have staged a strange demonstration in a central Anatolian province in
order to protest a top Israeli commander whose remarks questioning
Turkey’s policies toward Kurds and Cyprus have angered both the
Turkish government and the Turkish military.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month accused Israeli
President Shimon Peres of "knowing very well how to kill" in a public
debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Israeli Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi, the commander of Israel’s ground forces,
was quoted by the Haaretz daily as saying Erdogan should have "looked
in the mirror" before slamming Peres and that Turkey was in no position
to criticize Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands since it stations
troops in northern Cyprus. He also accused Turkey of repressing its
Kurdish minority and massacring Armenians during World War I.

Members of the Kayseri branch of Turk Egitim-Sen yesterday distributed
"halva for the soul of Hitler," in a bid to protest Mizrahi’s remarks,
the Anatolia news agency reported.

In Turkey, halva, a traditional Turkish sweet, is cooked by the family
or relatives of someone who passed away and is served to guests,
and the tradition is believed to ease the soul of the beloved person
who passed away.

"I saw Hitler in my dream. He told me: ‘You know me from the eyes of
the Jews. However, today there are attacks launched by America into
Iraq and attacks launched on Turks living in Eastern Turkistan. Jews
are committing genocide in Palestine. What has been done by these
[Jews] is no less than what I did at the time’," Ali Ä°hsan Ozturk,
the head of the Kayseri branch of Turk Egitim-Sen, was quoted as
saying by Anatolia.

"Hitler hasn’t given his blessing to us. That’s why I’m distributing
halva at this square," Ozturk added, apparently suggesting that
Adolf Hitler, the architect of the Holocaust, was unfairly judged
when compared to what Israel did in last month’s offensive into the
Gaza Strip, during which over 1,300 Palestinians were killed.

Following Ozturk’s speech, he and some other union members served
halva to people in the area, Anatolia said.