Turkey’s Zionism comment ‘dark and false’

The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
March 1, 2013 Friday 01:50 PM GMT

Turkey’s Zionism comment ‘dark and false’

JERUSALEM: Israel’s prime minister accused his Turkish counterpart on
Thursday of making a “dark and false” statement by calling Zionism a
crime against humanity – a comment likely to hit efforts to repair
ties between the two former allies.

The Turkish premier’s statement, made at a UN meeting in Vienna a day
earlier, was also condemned by the head of Europe’s main rabbinical
group who called it a “hateful attack” on Jews.

“Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become
impossible not to see Islamophobia as a crime against humanity,”
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said at the UN Alliance of
Civilisations forum, according to Turkish media reports.

Ties between Israel and mostly Muslim Turkey have been frosty since
2010, when nine Turks were killed by Israeli commandos who stormed
their ship carrying aid to Palestinians in Gaza, under a naval
blockade.

In recent weeks, there has been a run of reports in the Turkish and
Israeli press about efforts to repair relations, including a senior
diplomatic meeting earlier this month in Rome and military equipment
transfers. The reports have not been confirmed by either government.

A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he
“strongly condemns [Erdogan’s] statement about Zionism and its
comparison to Nazism”.

The Zionist movement was the main force behind the establishment of
the state of Israel.

“This is a dark and false pronouncement the likes of which we thought
had passed into history,” Mr Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

Pinchas Goldschmidt, chief rabbi of Moscow and the head of the
Conference of European Rabbis, said Erdogan’s criticism of Zionism
amounted to anti-Semitism.

“This is an ignorant and hateful attack on the Jewish people and
against a movement with peace at its core, which relegates Prime
Minster Erdogan to the level of [Iranian President] Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, to Soviet leaders who used anti-Zionism as a euphemism
for anti-Semitism,” Rabbi Goldschmidt said.

“The irony of these comments will not be lost on the families of those
slaughtered during the Armenian genocide, a crime still not recognised
by the Turkish government,” he added.

Armenians accuse Ottoman Turks of committing an orchestrated campaign
of massacres against Christian Armenians during World War I. Turkey,
which was established as a republic after the Ottoman Empire
collapsed, denies those killings were genocide and says both sides
lost lives in internecine fighting during the chaos of war.