MY SAY: APOLOGIES, TURKEY AND ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
Andrew Bostom has painstakingly laid out the history of Jew hatred in the Koran and Islamic history in his monumental book:
The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History by Andrew G. Bostom (May 30, 2008)
It sure punctures the myths about that so called golden age of comity between Muslims and Jews promoted by pseudo Orientalists who paper over the long and unrelenting harassment of Jews in every Muslim/Arab corner of the earth.
Now Israel has apologized to Turkey….is there anyone outside of Mars that is not appalled by this scam? Apologies are indeed due. Read Victor Sharpe, reprinted below:
Who Truly Deserves Justice in the ‘Free Gaza’ Flotilla Incident? by VICTOR SHARPE
And please read this: http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/we-apologize-to-the-turks-gideon-rosenblum.html
WE APOLOGIZE TO THE TURKS:
My 86 year old friend Moshe Klein was 21 years old when he was appointed by one of our defense organizations to take charge in one of the internment camps in which our people, arrested by the British, were held in Cyprus.
He reminded me of a shameful event for which the Turks were responsible which took place during the Second World War. It was so utterly shameful that no one should be allowed to forget it; it needs to be brought up again and again in relation to Holocaust Memorial Day. It is not only the Turks who need to be ashamed; the entire world should be ashamed.
On the 16th of December 1941, a rundown steam ship by the name of Struma left a Black Sea port destined for Israel (then Palestine) by way of the Dardanelles. On board were 103 children, 272 women and 393 men who had escaped the terror of Antonescu’s fascist regime in Romania. Close to the coast of Turkey the engine gave out and the ship was buffeted by the waves. The Turkish authorities dragged the ship into a port nearby. The passengers were left on board and were not offered shelter, this although there was only a single bathroom for the many hundreds on board. The Jews of Istanbul provided food to the immigrants for about two months but the food ran out. Efforts were made to repair the engine but they failed. Jews in other parts of the world tried to find a solution but they did not succeed. (The Jewish Distribution Committee offered to create a camp on land for the Struma’s passengers which it would fully fund, but the Turks refused.)
The Turkish regime instructed the Struma’s crew to take it out of the Turkish port. When this was not done, the boat was tied to a Turkish tugboat and dragged out to beyond Turkish territorial waters in the Black Sea, a distance of about 8 kilometers from the coast. There, on the night of February 23, 1942, the ship was abandoned without food or water for the hundreds of people who crowded its decks. The ship was left, tossed about in the stormy sea, completely helpless.
The next morning a powerful explosion was heard. It was said the ship had come upon a mine (the Turkish suggestion), or maybe by error was hit by the torpedo of a Russian submarine. The ship sank almost immediately. Of the hundreds of people on the ship only two survived, an immigrant by the name of David Stoliar and one of the ship’s officers. The two managed to climb onto a floating wooden beam. The sea was very cold and in the morning David discovered the officer was no longer able to hold on and died. David was pulled on to a fishing boat which came by. David Stoliar thus became the only survivor who was left to tell the world the full story of the shameful behavior of the Turks.
This was the most serious disaster in the history of the efforts to reach Palestine “illegally” following the British White Paper of 1939 which made the Jewish National Home off-limits for Jews. In the enormous Turkish peninsula of Asia Minor, a quasi-continent, the Turks couldn’t find temporary shelter for these desperate people. The Turks chased them away to their death.
We Israelis do not need to apologize. We will not forget and we will not forgive. If one of our readers knows Turkish, he should send this tale to Erdogan so that he too can be ashamed.
Gideon Rosenblum is a retired Israeli lawyer. He describes himself as an amateur scholar focusing especially on the Herodian period.
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