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Israel, Turkey row over Zionism deepens rift between ex-allies

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  • Israel, Turkey row over Zionism deepens rift between ex-allies

    AlArabiya.net, UAE
    February 28, 2013 Thursday


    Israel, Turkey row over Zionism deepens rift between ex-allies



    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 U.N. 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 U.N. Alliance of
    Civilizations 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. No one was
    immediately available from Turkey's foreign ministry to comment on the
    new criticism from the rabbis or from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
    Netanyahu.

    A statement from the Israeli premier's office 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," 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
    and, to Soviet leaders who used anti-Zionism as a euphemism for
    anti-Semitism," Goldschmidt said in an emailed statement.

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

    Armenians accuse Ottoman Turks of committing an orchestrated campaign
    of massacres against Christian Armenians during World War One.

    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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