Turkish Jews worried after politician links diaspora to protests

A Turkish deputy prime minister linked the "Jewish diaspora" to recent anti-government unrest and the country's Jewish community expressed fears on Tuesday the comments could make them targets of popular anger.

Turkey was rocked by violent protests last month when a small effort to save Gezi Park in central Istanbul from redevelopment mushroomed into a mass demonstration by tens of thousands of people opposed to what they see as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian rule.

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Erdogan, in power for ten years, and other cabinet officials have spoken of conspiracies involving "foreign circles", including an "interest-rate lobby" and international media organizations engineering the protests to undermine Turkey's growing economy and political clout.

Erdogan in a pro-regime rally (Photo: AFP)

Standing protest (Photo: AFP)

Pro-Erdogan rally after Taksim clearing (Photo: EPA)

"There are those inside and outside the country who are envious about Turkey growing too much," Besir Atalay, one of four deputy prime ministers, told reporters on Monday in comments broadcast on the

Cihan news agency website.

"They are all uniting. On the one side you have the Jewish diaspora. You have seen the foreign media's attitude over the Gezi Park events, how quickly they bought into it and how quickly and widely they started broadcasting before any assessment was made," he said.

The Turkish Jewish Community, which represents most of Turkey's estimated 23,000 Jewish faithful, said Atalay's remarks could lead to reprisals against its members in a mostly Muslim country of 76 million.

"We are trying to obtain information about the meaning, the scope and details of Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay's statement about the 'Jewish Diaspora being behind Gezi protests,'" the Turkish Jewish Community and chief rabbinate said in a joint statement on the community's website.

Protestors trying to return to Taksim (Photo: AFP)

Police forces against protestors (Photo: EPA)

Tear gas in Taksim Square (Photo: AFP)

Tents in Gezi Park (Photo: AFP)

"(Because) Turkish Jewish citizens, as well as other Jewish people living all around the globe, may be affected and pointed (out) as a target of such a generalization, we wish to express our concerns and share our apprehension and worry of the consequences that such perceptions can cause."

Turkey's Jews, most of whom trace their roots here to the 15th Century when their ancestors found refuge in the Ottoman Empire from the Spanish Inquisition, have in recent years faced pressure as relations between Israel and Turkey soured.

Ties between the erstwhile military allies hit a low in May 2010 when Israeli commandoes killed nine Turkish activists in storming the Mavi Marmara, a ship in a Turkish-led convoy seeking to break a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this year, Erdogan called Zionism "a crime against humanity", prompting objections from US Secretary of State John Kerry. President Barack Obama subsequently orchestrated an Israeli apology for the Mavi Marmara raid.

While at least one other member of Erdogan's ruling party has suggested Jewish involvement in the Gezi protest, the remarks by Atalay, appeared to be the first such public accusation by a senior member of the ruling AK Party, which traces its roots to a banned Islamist movement.

On the microblogging site Twitter, the AK Party mayor of the Turkish capital Ankara, Melih Gokcek, said on June 16 the Gezi protests were a "a game of the Jewish lobby" and cited a Turkish newspaper report that a Washingon-based think tank linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying group had predicted the protests earlier in the year.

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