by Uzay Bulut
In the 24 hours following the launch of the Mosul operation, many Turkish Twitter users posted anti-Semitic messages targeting Kurds and Masoud Barzani, president of the KRG, for having hidden agendas because of their "Jewish" origins.
On October 17, the
Iraqi army, the Kurdish peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG) and some local militias started a major military offensive to
retake the Iraqi city of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the
self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State group. ISIS has held Mosul
since 2014.
In the 24 hours
following the launch of the Mosul operation, many Turkish Twitter users
posted anti-Semitic messages targeting Kurds and Masoud Barzani,
president of the KRG, for having hidden agendas because of their
"Jewish" origins.
According to the Turkish news site Avlaremoz, which covers Jewish affairs, some of these messages include:
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"This is the Shia army swearing to take revenge for the Hadrat Hussein. Those are more dangerous for the Islamic world than the Jews. Remember that."
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"The first trick against Turkey during the Mosul operation is being played by Barzani, who is of Jewish descent. We have not yet been able to learn that the Turk has no friends other than the Turk. One must dominate!"
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"Mosul has been invaded. The gangs fed by Rafida Shia Iran have attacked. Iran is behind every kind of filth. The enemy of the ummah [Islamic nation] is Jewish Iran."
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"[Plan] A has failed. So has B. Now it is time for C. Gentlemen, Allah is protecting this nation. Mosul will not belong to the children of Jews. It will belong to the real children of Anatolia."
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"The USA will give Mosul, which will be cleansed of ISIS, to Barzani, the peshmerga commander of Jewish descent."
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"Everyone -- young and old -- has armed himself. And they are waiting for the Crusaders/Jews and the donkey Shias in the streets."
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"The Italian brigade deployed at the Mosul dam will blow up the dam. Mosul will be completely clean and Jewish Barzani will take hold of it."
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"'What is that name 'Nineveh Protection Units Mosul'? The term "Nineveh" is evocative of Judaism. What does the capital of Assyria have to do with Islam?"
The U.S. military intervention of Iraq in 2003 also fueled anti-Semitism in Turkey.
"With this war,"
writes the scholar Dilek Guven, "an endless number of conspiracy
theories started circulating within the Turkish media and among
intellectuals. The main actors were the Mossad and the Zionist State of
Israel, both terms having an extremely negative connotation when used
in Turkish. Among the most popular theories were those that claimed
that Israel was supporting the new government of the Kurdish region,
and that Barzani was a Jew."
For example, the major
Turkish newspaper Hurriyet ran a story in 2003 titled "It has been
discovered that Barzani's family is Jewish." "It has also been learned
that the Barzani family, who does not want Turkish soldiers in northern
Iraq in a possible war, is Kurdish Jews, and that the family has
produced many rabbis," said Hurriyet in another article.
The Barzanis are
commonly accused by Turkish and other Muslim anti-Semites of having
Jewish roots. In fact, some members of the large Barzani lineage do
have Jewish origins. Asenath Barzani, for example, who lived in Mosul
from 1590 to 1670, was the daughter of Rabbi Samuel Barzani of
Kurdistan and is considered by some scholars to be the first female
rabbi.
According to the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency: "Rifat Bali, a Jewish historian in Istanbul, said
the Barzani story is part of a larger theory circulating for the past
few years that has particularly strong popular support among Turkey's
conservative nationalist and Islamist circles.
"'Islamists here always
say that Israel has a Kurdish card it wants to play -- that it has
good relations with the Kurds, and it wants to create a Jewish state
from the Nile to the Euphrates, and that includes the Kurdish area,'
Bali said. 'It's fueled, first of all, by the obsession that Jews are
behind everything, and that they use a crypto-Jew as a cover,' Bali
said. 'There is also a Turkish fear that the world is looking in from
the outside and trying to divide Turkey up.'
"Indeed, a book titled
'Israel's Kurdish Card,' which describes the possibility of Israel
expanding its borders through an alliance with the Kurds, has been sold
in Turkey for the last few years."
It is actually the
Turkish government that wants to expand its current national borders.
The new maps of Turkey appearing on Turkish TV are reclaiming the
Ottoman Empire, grabbing land in Greece, Iraq and Armenia. Erdogan
recently said: "Turkey cannot disregard its kinsmen in Western Thrace,
Cyprus, Crimea, and anywhere else."
As Lloyd George stated
in 1923, "Of all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man's
nature, there is not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. ... If the Jews
are rich [these fanatical anti-Semites] are victims of theft. If they
are poor, they are victims of ridicule. If they take sides in a war, it
is because they wish to take advantage from the spilling of non-Jewish
blood. If they espouse peace, it is because they are scared by their
natures or traitors. If the Jew dwells in a foreign land, he is
persecuted and expelled. If he wishes to return to his own land, he is
prevented from doing so."
However, it is Jews,
the indigenous people of Israel, who are accused by anti-Semites of
"occupying the land" and "exterminating Palestinian Arabs" -- two false
accusations. But why are Jews "accused" of supporting the Kurds, a
historically oppressed and stateless people? Why should any solidarity
between Kurds and Jews be considered an offence?
But these fair
questions would be meaningless to Turkish anti-Semites. To them, being
Jewish is already evil. Being Kurdish is bad, too. And being both
Kurdish and Jewish is completely unacceptable. According to their
"logic," if combined, those two identities -- Jews and Kurds -- could
only cause trouble, mischief and evil.
It is ironic that Turks
have chosen Jews and Kurds -- two historically persecuted peoples --
as the main scapegoats for the crises and failures in the Middle East,
when it is actually the Turkish state itself that has caused so much
suffering of and injustice against these two peoples, as well as many
other communities in the region.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist based in Washington, D.C.
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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