Study: anti-Semitism most common prejudice in Turkish media
By SAM SOKOL
01/06/2015 20:08
In the study, over half agreed that Jews are responsible for `most of
the world’s wars’ and sixty one percent said that people hate Jews due
to their behavior.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip erdogan.. (photo credit:REUTERS,JPOST STAFF)
Anti-Semitism is the most common racial or religious prejudice found
in the Turkish media, a recent study by the Hrant Dink Foundation
found.
The study, which tracked denigratory coverage of over thirty different
groups in media reports between May and August, found that Jews and
Armenians were the subject just over half of the recorded incidents in
a media landscape filled with `biased and discriminatory language
use.’
Jews led the pack, with 130 incidents, followed by Armenians (60),
Christians (25), Greeks (21), Kurds (18) and Syrian refugees (10).
The report further noted that during coverage of last summer’s
Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, some in the Turkish media did not
differentiate between Jews, Israelis and Zionists, using words like
Jew to refer to all of them indiscriminately.
One example of the conflation of Diaspora Jews and Israelis during the
war, was an article by journalist Faruk Köse in Yeni Akit, a
pro-government newspaper in Istanbul, calling on Turkish Jews to issue
a communal apology on behalf of Israel.
During the conflict, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was
harshly condemned by Jewish leaders for calling Israel a `terror
state’ and accusing Jerusalem of perpetrating a `systematic genocide’
against the Palestinians.
Also during the conflict, the head of the Insani Yardım Vakfı (IHH),
the group responsible for the 2010 Gaza flotilla, was reported to have
told Turkish television that `Turkish Jews will pay dearly’ for
Operation Protective Edge.
According to a poll released by the Anti-Defamation League in the
latter half of 2014, sixty nine percent of Turks harbor anti-Semitic
attitudes. Sixty nine percent of respondents replied affirmatively
when asked if Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries in
which they live, while seventy percent of those surveyed agreed that
Jews only care about `their own kind.’
Over half agreed that Jews are responsible for `most of the world’s
wars’ and sixty one percent said that people hate Jews due to their
behavior.
The Turkish Jewish community did not respond to an email request for
comment regarding the media survey.
Turkey’s Jews for the most part kept a low profile during the conflict
as it has a policy of silence when it comes to the press. Some Turkish
emigres have accused Ankara of pressuring communal bodies to toe the
party line.
Over the summer, a group of Turkish Jewish intellectuals unconnected
with the officials communal body did write an open letter to Erdogan
denouncing Israeli actions in Gaza but also decrying the President’s
demands that they make such a declaration because they are Jews.
`In the same way the people of Turkey cannot be held responsible for
the barbarity of what Islamic State does because a number of Turks are
among its fighters, the Jewish community of Turkey cannot be held
responsible for what the state of Israel does,’ they explained,
stating that it is impossible for a community of 20,000 to offer a
unified opinion on any matter.
After this correspondent visited an Istanbul synagogue in 2013,
subsequently publishing an article on the local community’s
preparations to celebrate Israeli independence day, the community
requested through an intermediary that the article be taken offline in
an apparent bid to avoid being linked to Israel in the media.
`The Turkish Jewish community will prefer to keep their mouths shut
because of their public safety, and they are right to do this,’ one
emigre told the Post afterward in explanation.
In the end of December, Turkish Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva spoke at a
gathering of orthodox Rabbis in Jerusalem despite the tensions between
his country and Israel.