Turks, Jews and Arabs

In the year 1454, Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati of the Ottoman city of Edirne sent a letter to his co-religionists in Europe who were suffering under the persecutions of medieval anti-Semites. “"Leave the torments you endure in Christendom,"” the Rabbi suggested, “"and seek safety and prosperity in Turkey."” This Islamic land was a haven for all, he added. “"Here every man dwells at peace under his own vine and fig tree.”"


Many Sephardic Jews listened to Sarfati's advice in 1492, when they were expelled from the all-Catholic Spain simply because they remained loyal to their faith. Ships carried many Jewish refugees to Ottoman lands, where they were personally welcomed by Sultan Bayazid II, who was one of the most pious of all Ottoman monarchs.

Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle Eastern studies in the West, once said: "the Jews were not just permitted to settle in the Ottoman lands, but were encouraged, assisted and sometimes even compelled." For them, the lands of Islam became the lands of safety.


Islamdom versus anti-Semitic Europe

The fact that medieval Islamdom was much more tolerant to Jews than Christendom had much to do with theology. The Christian doctrine, for a long time, considered Jews as “"Christ killers"” and showed a strong zeal to convert them into the faith of the Cross. Islam, on the other hand, regarded both Judaism and Christianity as somewhat flawed and outdated yet still legitimate monotheisms. That's why anti-Semitism, the paranoid hatred of Jews, was unknown in the Islamic world when it was the norm in Christian Europe.

Indeed, anti-Semitism would come into the Middle East from Europe. In Islamic lands, the first blood libel — the crazy slander that Jews use the blood of young children for the “matzo,” the unleavened Passover bread — erupted in Damascus in 1840. And it was the French consul in the city, Monsieur Ratti Menton, who made it up. After several months of craze, and some international protest, Sultan Abdülmecid issued his famous decree on the "Blood Libel Accusation" to settle the matter. "For the love we bear to our subjects,”" the Sultan said, "“We cannot permit the Jewish nation, whose innocence for the crime alleged against them is evident, to be worried and tormented."

Well, that was the scene in the 19th century, during which Islamdom was still much more Jewish-friendly than Europe. Yet the picture is completely opposite today. The Middle East is probably the most anti-Semitic part of the world, whereas Europe has done a lot to compensate for its historic sins. Lunacies such as the blood libel would appear only in some very marginal, neo-Nazi type circles in Europe. In the Arab world, though, all such classic elements of anti-Semitism show up in quite mainstream publications.


The Curse of The Conflict

The main reason for the anti-Semitization of the Middle East has been the Arab-Israeli conflict. Until the 20th century, Arabs saw Jews as just a religious community whose right to exist was guaranteed by Islamic law. In the 20th century, though, Jews became the colonizers. The reaction to Israel's policies turned into a hatred towards Jews. The Arabs who were motivated by this political fervor went back to traditional Islamic texts to mine elements that could, at least seemingly, justify their rage.

This anti-Semitic attitude found in the contemporary Arab world is one of the obstacles toward peace in the Holy Land. (Another obstacle is, of course, Israel's own fanatics, who bitterly oppose the formation of a viable Palestinian state and whose hatred toward the Arabs matches the abhorrence felt against the Jews by the anti-Semitics.) What is needed is the rise of leaders on both sides who can reject and even tone down the loathing in their societies toward the other side. Another thing that is needed are third parties that will understand both sides and will encourage a peaceful solution.

The United States, as the world's superpower, is obviously the most important of these third parties, but it has a problem: Most Palestinians, and Arabs in general, consider the American government as not an honest broker, but a supporter of Israel first and foremost. That's why; first, the US should move towards neutrality, and secondly, make other third parties involved in the process.

While the first option above does not seem very likely to happen in the near future, the second one is possible, and actually in progress. The existence of a Quartet on the Middle East, which includes, besides the US, Russia, European Union and the United Nations, corresponds precisely to that.


Get Turkey in the process

Now here is the heart of this matter — and this column: Turkey can well become an important third party in the peace effort between Israel and Palestine. It is not only an imperative country of the region, but also the heir of the Ottoman Empire which ruled the Middle East quite peacefully for four centuries. As a predominantly Muslim but non-Arab country, it has been more or less free from the rise of anti-Semitism in the Middle East. The tragedy of the Palestinians have of course effected the Turkish people, but it did not have the same impact that it had in the Arab world.

That's why Turkey has very good relations both with Palestine and Israel. That's why both the Israeli President Shimon Peres and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were warmly welcomed in the Turkish Parliament the other day. Moreover, just note the fact that 340 of the 550 members of the Turkish Parliament who applauded Peres were members of the so-called Islamist AK Party. Here, obviously, you have an Islam which is more on the tradition of Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II than on the line of radical Islamists of Egypt or Pakistan. It should be appreciated, and utilized, more.


Writer : Mustafa Akyol