Andrew Bostom at The American Thinker skewers the craven refusal of American Jewish groups to acknowledge the resurgence of the jihad ideology and antisemitism in Turkey:
The 16th century dhimmi Jewish leadership's deliberate misrepresentation of the actual plight of Ottoman Jewry was described by Hacker with obvious contempt. Tragically, and in our modern era, inexcusably, this pathological behavior persists five centuries later among contemporary Jewish leadership elites, who appear incapable of identifying, let alone adequately defending against, the resurgence of jihadist Islam in Turkey. Gifted writer Diana West's evocative language depicts the ultimate outcome if this self-destructive dhimmitude is not reversed: "in denial there is defeat."But a liberating victory can still be achieved if the leadership of the Turkish Jewish community, Israel, and American Jewish advocacy groups simply muster the intellectual courage to overcome their own craven denial. Collectively galvanized, they could confront Erdogan's AKP government over the ugly living legacy of anti-dhimmi and Antisemitic discrimination against Turkey's Jews, and demand immediate efforts at amelioration of their plight: marginalization and legal punishment of Turkish politicians and public intellectuals whose discourse incites Jew-hatred, and potentially, anti-Jewish violence; the implementation of concrete reforms, ensuring in practice equal rights, opportunities, and public safety for Jews. And if all these measures were not implemented rapidly, with tangible evidence of success, Turkey's Jews would be allowed unfettered, mass emigration without any economic penalties.
Such bold, forthright action -- joint "anti-dhimmitude" -- would put an end to the ongoing phenomenon of a vestigial de facto dhimmi Jewish community of Turkey (via its dhimmi leadership) holding Israel, and American Jews hostage to the whims of an oppressive Turkish government, in the throes of a transformative fundamentalist Islamic revival.
Read it all.
"Turkish Antisemitism and Jewish Dhimmitude"
-- title of the article above
I wonder if the word "antisemitism" quite fits the bill here. Since there are "antisemitisms" (plural), and since the version in Islam is not quite the same, does not have the same origins, as the version observable in the Western world (indeed, there is the absurd attempt by some to pretend that anti-Jewish sentiments in the Muslim world are an import from the West, and without Western antisemitism, so it is hinted or said, there would not be such anti-Jewish sentiments), why not avoid the term here?
For anti-Jewish feeling is, in Islam, one example of the anti-Infidel feeling that Islam inculcates. It is true that the animus toward Jews has, in some ways, a special intensity (given the stories about Jews supposedly being responsible for "poisoning" Muhamamed) but it is also true that the powerlessness of the Jews under Islamic rule made them less of a perceived threat than the Christians, and while the Jews were scattered to the winds when they lost their political sovereignty (surely the key event in Jewish history that explains subsequent travails -- as the new book by Ruth Wisse argues) at the Muslim conquest, they could not be a threat to Islam, while Western Christendom remained not only, as are all Infidels, a permanent enemy -- but the most immediate, the longest-lasting, and the most powerful, as Muslims saw -- and see -- it.
I would silently retitle the piece, for clarity, as:
"Turkish Muslims, Jewish Dhimmitude" or "Islam and Dhimmitude in Turkey: The Case of the Jews" or some such.
Nothing like semantics to table a crisis.
With the anti-Jewish (which I would include those of descent of a group of believers of Yahweh - pre-Constantine - to be safe) form of anti-semitism, rising in Europe and the seepage of sharia into formerly secular Turkey, I, a mere pedestrian in this traffic, feel, as a beneficiary of the Western Tradition, quite threatened.
Peculiar for an Irish American Roman Catholic who embraces all my traditions (including the faults of history) and that means the "Faith of Our Fathers" - You know; Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, ..OH, and my favorite..Job.
Colloquially,"We're in deep shit, Dude."
(subject to however one wishes to parse it)
Bostom's article is well-written and a compelling critique of developments in Turkey. However, what I find rather shocking is his failure to make even the shortest of references to the fact that the rising Islamist and nationalist fervor in Turkey has seen other minority ethnic/religious communities in that country targeted as well - most notably, its tiny Christian community.
The Islamist threat ultimately extends to all those groups and persons who refuse to live under sharia or adopt a dhimmi attitude. To constrain one's critique of developments in Turkey to the fate of only one specific community (along the lines of "is it good for the Jews?") while ignoring the very real and, also, related suffering of other communities in the same country is highly unfortunate -- not to say insulting.
The murders of Father Santoro, Necati Aydın, Uğur Yüksel, Tilmann Geske and Hrant Dink deserve to be mentioned - and not callously overlooked - in any discussion of the current status of minority ethnic/religious groups in Turkey!
Never was a country better named than "Turkey".
In return for scraps from the Muslim table the Jews have been carrying water for the Muslims for too long. Particularly galling is the constant paens that are sung to the mythical Andulusia and
the bloodthirsty Ottoman empire as opposed to the medieval and Renaissance Europeans who are usually portrayed as crazed Crusaders, Inquisitors or cretins. One has to ask : if the Jews had it so good in Muslim lands what explains the number of Jews and their great achievements in Europe before the Nazis. While it is understandable that many Jews may not have much sympathy with the Europeans after the Holocaust, lies and distortions will not help anyone in the long run.
The Jews take it up the tokus for as long as they can, then bolt for Israel or the USA.
They won't make a stand. They don't have the numbers and solidarity with Christians remains an uneasy concept.
The Jews take it up the tokus for as long as they can, then bolt for Israel or the USA.
They won't make a stand. They don't have the numbers and solidarity with Christians remains an uneasy concept.
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 4, 2007 2:24 PM
Well there was a war that lasted about 1 week.