On Israeli question, reason meets anger
Signs like these are everywhere
There has been a lot of talk among the people with whom we have been meeting about an interview the Wall Street Journal conducted with Fethullah Gülen last week on the topic of the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla.
The section of the interview that caught everyone’s attention:
Mr. Gülen said organizers’ failure to seek accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid “is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters…”
He said that when a charity organization linked with his movement wanted to help Gazans, he insisted they get Israel’s permission. He added that assigning blame in the matter is best left to the United Nations.
None of that sounds remarkable or controversial until you consider the super-heated atmosphere the incident has created here. Everywhere we’ve seen banners and posters decrying Israel as a “terrorist state.” Some urge a severing of all ties between Turkey and Israel.
To many people still incensed about the deaths of nine Turks during the raid, Gülen’s comments probably sound not like a voice of reason and moderation (which is how they strike me) but a sell-out, or even an apologist making excuses for the inexcusable.
Then, in the Today’s Zaman newspaper Wednesday, I found this excerpt from a column, presumably also in the Turkish language edition, by a woman named Asli Aydintaşbaş Milliyet:
Why did Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen feel the need to speak about the Gaza flotilla issue? How should this message from Pennsylvania, which came at a time when Turkey was unable to overcome the shock of the attack on the Mavi Marmara, be understood?
It seems to me that Gülen has noticed the psychological atmosphere that has been taking Turkey away from its mission as a “bridge between the East and the West” towards the corridors of the Arab world. An atmosphere that has been taking Turkey away from its identity as a “Western Muslim country” heading for the EU to a position as the protector of Hamas and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And he wanted to say “stop” to that. The Gülen movement has the power of transcending Turkish borders with its schools and NGOs across the world. The movement, just like Turkey, gets its power from its ability to be a bridge between the East and the West and to make use of this with a dynamic workforce. The move of the spiritual leader of a movement with such a global aim at a point when he thinks Turkey’s interests are at stake is very understandable.
This column seems to echo some of the points made in the New York Times article I mentioned in my previous post, points which were to some extent scoffed at by Turkish internationalists with whom we met.
After 10 days in Turkey, I’m not going to make any pronouncements about what is going on here. What seems clear, though, is that there’s a certain amount of rabble-rousing occurring, to which the public is receptive. For someone as influential as Gülen to take a position contrary to that of the government at a time like this seems highly principled to me. It’s not going to win him many friends on the “Turkish street,” I don’t think.
Based on a random sample of one, the anger toward Israel, and, I’m afraid, toward Jews, reaches even into the upper classes and members of the Gülen movement. Last night, we had dinner at the gated home of a woman named Meryem, They live in a wealthy, wooded neighborhood.
Her husband earned his Master’s Degree from the University of Colorado, and the couple and their eldest daughter lived in Boulder for two years in the mid-1990s. Meryem speaks excellent English. Her husband is now the CEO of one of Turkey’s largest companies. He works 16-hour days, so we saw him only during the last half-hour of our visit.
Outwardly at least, Meryem is the most devout Muslim we have met, using the word “inshallah” (the Arabic word meaning as God wills) in almost every sentence and talking constantly about how much she loves God and all his creations.
She was a lovely, solicitous hostess who made us all feel welcome. Then the topic of the flotilla raid came up. She expressed the typical anger about it, then asked (I was not taking notes so this is not exact) why do the Jews hate Turkey? She went on to say that the Jews are in charge of Turkey’s military, and so work against the nation’s own best interests. She wondered what was the problem with Jews, and went on in that vein for a bit.
Poor Alpteken looked as uncomfortable as I felt, and interjected, politely, that what she was saying about Jews and the military sounded absurd. She backtracked a little, saying that of course she loved her Jewish “brothers and sisters” and that it was important to separate people from their governments, and that she had close Jewish friends. But she held firm to her central point.
I’m no “Israel right or wrong” kind of Jew. I’m not even much of a Jew, if practicing the faith is your measure. But I found her comments offensive, and they soured the evening for me. I pondered it for a bit and made the decision not to declare that I was Jewish and that I was offended by her remarks. Maybe that was a mistake. But I saw no reason to relieve my feelings at the expense of my companions, and to ruin the evening for everyone else — which it almost certainly would have done.
Nezha later told me she thought Meryem really meant “Zionists” when she used the word Jews. Even if that’s true, which I don’t happen to believe, I fail to see how it’s any better.
