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Turkey's Zionism comment 'dark and false'

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  • 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.

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