Turks on Twitter blame Jews for Turkey’s unending crises
Turks on Twitter blame Jews for Turkey’s unending crises

Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, was fatally shot on 19 December at an art exhibition in Ankara. The perpetrator was a Turkish special forces police officer.

Many Turkish Twitter users, however, blamed the assassination on the Jews, calling it a “Jewish plot” and claiming that the assassin “had a Jewish look”.

According to the Turkish website Avlaremoz, which covers Jewish-related issues, some of the Twits included:

  • The real enemy of all the Muslims and all of the oppressed in the world is Zionism and the cursed Israel. Behind the assassination is the Jewish lobby and the USA.
  • The assassin is a lowlife agent of the Jewish lobby.
  • The Jew does not want Turkish-Russian rapprochement. By inciting Islamophobia, their pawn in Turkey is also involved in the game. Whoever will benefit from this should be the perpetrator. (Dograel – a distorted form referring to the word Israel.)
  • This looks like Jewish work. Simple and effective.
  • The assassin has the typical Jewish look. I don’t know if it’s just me but he is a real Jew.

Another user implied that as Jews are not happy with Turkey’s invasion of Syria, code-named by Turkey as “Operation Euphrates Shield”, and the construction of the “Turkish Stream”, a planned natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Turkey as well as Turkey’s possible membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), or the “Shanghai Five”, whose leaders include China and Russia.

  • “Assassination of the Russian ambassador aims at affecting three things in one act,” he wrote. “Russian-backed Operation Euphrates Shield, the Turkish Stream, and the Shanghai Five.”

As Israeli politician Naftali Bennett puts it, “Even when a British Muslim kills a British Christian there will always be someone who blames the Jews and Israel.”
Two days before the Russian diplomat's assassination, on 17 December, a suspected car bombing in the Turkish city of Kayseri killed 13 Turkish soldiers aboard a bus and wounded at least 55 others.

Following the deadly attack, dozens of angry Turkish protesters stormed the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Kayseri in response to the bombing. Some of the demonstrators climbed to the top of the building, set off a fire and furled down a flag of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party. Holding all Kurds responsible for the deaths of the soldiers, many Turks across Turkey raided the offices of the HDP, damaged or even destroyed the property inside.

But they particularly had one other group to blame: The Jews.

In an attempt to spew their Jew-hatred, many Turkish anti-Semites rushed to Twitter – as they often do following all crisis situations in Turkey – and accused the perpetrators of being Jewish.  According to Avlaremoz, some Twits included:

  • If you were not treacherous, if you were not kafir, if you did not have Jewish roots, you would not attack unarmed soldiers. Victory will be ours, hell will be yours.
  • As you have cowardly asses, you were not able to confront our soldiers and you carried out a treacherous bomb explosion, you Jewish bastards. You will not make it. Revenge will be ours, remember that.
  • Hey you, cowardly Jew, whose humanity is only as much as his money. As you and your dogs burn in hell, those who you have made martyrs will be in heaven.
  • Obviously, we will not have peace unless there are explosions in Iran, England and in the Jewish lands.
  • Cowardly, undignified ones with no honor. You do not have the courage to stand up to a single soldier of ours. Satans. Armenian, Jewish sperms. You will all be croaked.
  • We do not want death penalty for them. We want torture for them. Let them all pay for what they have done, Jewish dogs.
  • Vile, ignoble, Armenian, Jewish, dogs of Hitler. They attacked our soldiers again dastardly. May Allah curse you. The pigs of the EU, USA and Israel.
  • You will not make it, ignoble servants of Jews. This system will change and this country and this nation will get rid of you. Get out and take your owners with you.
  • You Godless ones, those without a holy book, you Armenian, Jewish, Persian, kafir underbred ones. Cursed sperms of rats. Enough is enough.

One even claimed that the attackers are descendents of Amr ibn Hisham, also known as Abu Jahl, one of the Meccan pagan Qurayshi leaders known for his critical opposition towards Islam’s founder, Muhammad.

  • “Even if Abu Jahls and Pharaohs, who are your ancestors, your Mason fathers, your Jewish brothers, your Jonny uncles, and your Hans uncles get united, you will not make it.”

When Turkish soldiers are killed in Turkey, many Turks blame it on the Jews, a group irrelevant in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. But even when the murderer of a foreign diplomat is a Turkish police officer, these Turks are still too shameless to accuse Jews of the murder committed by a criminal, who is their own: A Muslim Turk.

“Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat,” according to the website “simpletoremember”, which discusses Jewish-related issues.  “The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler's ranting and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, ‘It's the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society’."

As the Israeli politician Naftali Bennett puts it, “Even when a British Muslim kills a British Christian there will always be someone who blames the Jews and Israel.”

The scapegoating that targets Jews is not only stupid and irrational at worst, threatening the security of all Jews, but it is also unproductive and intellectually lazy, preventing Muslims and all others from facing their own problems and failures and coming up with effective solutions to tackle them. But as many Muslims have been incapable of doing so, their crises and failures are getting even more serious and intense , so is their hatred for Jews.