[1] Turkey's Hitler Fan Club update, from [2] Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's government Monday played down soaring sales of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") and said there were no racists in the large Muslim country.

Booksellers say "Mein Kampf," or "Kavgam" in Turkish, has featured among the top 10 bestsellers in the past two months, to the dismay of the country's small Jewish community and of the German embassy in Ankara.

Asked to comment on the phenomenon, government spokesman Cemil Cicek said: "We cannot allow prejudice against people for belonging to a certain race."

"We have never had such an attitude in our culture, nor in our history, and we do not have it now ... It's not possible for people to choose their races ... Turkish society's idea about this issue is clear. There is no racism in this country."...

Gee, Cemil, that's great. Have you ever thought about applying for the job of Iraqi Information Minister? Oh, and by the way, I suppose there are no trees in Turkey, either, eh?

Anti-Semitism has traditionally been weak in Turkey, a Muslim but secular country that has forged close security ties with Israel in recent years.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire offered refuge to Jews and other minorities fleeing persecution in Europe from the time of the Spanish Inquisition onwards.

That last paragraph is a textbook example of a beast that is slain in a volume called [3] The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

Political analysts say "Mein Kampf" probably reflects rising nationalism and anti-American sentiment rather than anti-Semitism or specific support for Hitler and his ideas.

Why, of course. These sweet, tolerant Turks couldn't possibly be indulging anti-Semitic, Hitlerian thoughts. After all, the Ottoman Empire was tolerant.

Many Turks are worried their country is having to make too many concessions to the European Union as it prepares for the start of long-delayed entry talks later this year.

There is also widespread anger about the U.S. occupation of neighboring Iraq.

Yeah, I can see how those things would drive people to read Mein Kampf. Why, just yesterday I was in a bookstore and I heard someone say: "I am so upset about the new earthquakes in Southeast Asia that I am going to buy a copy of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'"

The current No. 1 bestseller in Turkey, ahead of "Mein Kampf," is "Metal Storm," which depicts a U.S. invasion of the country. The Turkish hero avenges his homeland by destroying Washington with a nuclear device.

I am going to get one of my Turkish-speaking contacts to translate that one into English: it will be a sure bestseller among certain segments of the American voting public.

ADDENDUM: Andrew Bostom has just kindly sent in this illuminating background information:

• In Adolf Boehm's history of the Zionist movement, he depicts in detail the way the Young Turkish leader and Army Commander, Ahmet Cemal (Djemal), reduced the Jewish population of Ottoman Palestine by deportation and massacres, wiping out entire families of Jewish nationalist leaders. Boehm concludes: "If Palestine had not been freed by the English at the end of 1917, the Jewish Yishuv (settlement) would have been exterminated by Djemal. By the war's end, it was reduced to 55,000 souls, that is, half of the pre-war population." [Boehm, Adolf: The Zionist Movement (Die zionististsche Bewegung). Vol. 1: The Zionist Movement until the end of the World War. 2nd, enlarged ed. Tel Aviv: Hozaah Ivrith Co. Ltd., 1935, page 643 ff. Published in German.]

• The Turkish publisher Cevat Rifat Atilhan (1892-1968), who introduced the slogan "Turkey for the Turks!" was an ardent Nazi and Jew hater, and an admirer of Julius Streicher.

• The myth of the universal omnipotence of Jews is still popular in Turkey today and was publicly reiterated on August 17, 2004, in an article in the Turkish newspaper "Vakit." The author, a writer named Karakoc, praised both Hitler and Osama bin Laden for their fight against the alleged Jewish/Israeli threat.