Muslim Turkish Attitudes towards Jews, Zionism and Israel

Author(s): Jacob M. Landau

Source: Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Bd. 28, Nr. 1/4 (1988), pp. 291-300
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Die Welt des Islams XXVIII
(1988)
MUSLIM TURKISH ATTITUDES TOWARDS
JEWS,
ZIONISM AND ISRAEL
BY
JACOB
M. LANDAU
Jerusalem
Introduction
In this brief
paper,
I discuss neither the
history
nor the essence
of fundamentalist Islam in
Turkey.
Rather,
I
prefer
to
consider,
in
a
preliminary
manner,
one
aspect
of that Islamic fundamentalism
whose overall
significance
has increased so
strikingly
in the
Republic
of
Turkey.
From the
perspective
of a student of
political
science,
one cannot avoid
being impressed by
the successful
adap-
tability
of Islamic movements to
changing political
conditions in
Turkey.
Driven
underground by
the Kemalists' commitment to the
secularization of state and
society
in the
Republic's
first
generation,
spokesmen
for Islam have
emerged
as an
important political
force
in its second
generation.
Their
entry
into the
political
arena
culminated
during
the 1970s with their
joining
and
exploiting
the
secularists'
rules-of-the-game-chiefly by establishing
the National
Salvation
Party. Using political
elections and
parliamentary
maneuvering
to its own
advantage,
it became the
country's
third
largest political
force and
participated
in Cabinet Coalitions from
1974 to 1977.
Although
this
party
was disbanded
by
the
military
in-
tervention of
September
1980,
its
supporters
are now
finding
new
ways
to maintain their influence in Turkish
politics.
Of
particular
interest is the "villain
image"
which Islamic circles
have ascribed to their
opponents.
This issue has
apparently
re-
ceived insufficient attention in
investigations
of fundamentalist
Islamic
ideology
in
Turkey
and
perhaps
in certain other states as
well. This omission is
strange,
as the "villains"
may frequently
be
more
interesting
than their accusers. In other
words,
I will consider
JACOB
M. LANDAU
briefly
what the credo of those Islamic leaders involved in Turkish
politics
is
against,
rather
thanfor.
In our
particular
Turkish
case,
I
believe that these
exponents
of Islam have a
special problem.
While
in such states as Saudi Arabia or
Iran,
for
example,
there are no
limitations on
fulminating against
secularism and its
evils,
in
Turkish law this could lead to-and has in
practice
led to-
prosecution
and severe
penalties
for
introducing religious prop-
aganda
into
politics. Evidently,
this
propaganda
has attacked
violently
the
ideologies
and
way
of life of both Western democracies
and Communist states.
However,
it has found
only
limited
appeal
among
the uneducated
masses,
towards whom much of this
prop-
aganda
was directed. For these
masses,
foreign ideologies
are not
always easy
to
evaluate,
although
the
foreign way
of life
may
often
seem attractive to them.
Consequently,
a sizable share of the
propaganda
of Islamic
leaders involved in Turkish
politics
has been directed towards a
more
complete
villain
image,
in which local elements were com-
bined with the above
foreign
ones. The villains included
freemasons,
Christian missionaries and
Jews-all
of whom have in-
ternational connections which this
propaganda
deems noxious to
both Islamic and Turkish interests. In the
Jewish
case examined in
this
paper,
such
propaganda
was
hampered by
the relative
scarcity
of antisemitism in both Government
policy
and
popular opinion
in
the
Republic
of
Turkey.
However,
by bolstering
their
anti-Jewish
propaganda
with
frequent quotations
from the Koran and
Hadlth,
and
by incorporating
into it anti-Zionist and anti-Israel
invective,
the Turkish Islamists have turned it into a cardinal
part
of their
ideology
and have been
fostering
a villain
image
which
appeared
to
increase their
popular support.
Several
examples illustrating
this
trend will be considered below.
Muslim Politics in
Turkey
Insofar as can be
ascertained,
Muslim circles were
generally
cautious in their
public pronouncements during
the first
generation
of the
Republic.
In the
newly
founded secular
state,
Islam was
disestablished and deinstitutionalized. In
Turkey's
urban
areas,
at
least,
erstwhile leaders of Islam were
virtually
forced to the
292
MUSLIM TURKISH ATTITUDES
periphery
of
political,
social,
cultural and economic life. In rural
areas,
particularly
those far removed from urban
centers, however,
Islam continued to flourish in an inverse ratio to the
penetration
of
modernization and
secularization; nevertheless,
these
regions
were
initially
backwaters and
largely
remained so. In several areas of
Turkey, exponents
of Islam went
underground;
some,
such as Der-
vish Orders and the
Nurists,1
mounted an anti-secularist cam-
paign, advocating
the return to Islam and its re-establishment in
Turkish
education,
politics
and all other
aspects
of
daily
life.
During
that
generation,
Islam in
Turkey
was
evidently fighting
for its
very
survival as a force to be reckoned
with;
hence its concern
with
Jewish
and similar matters
(the
main
subject
of our
paper)
would have been
highly
irrelevant. The situation
changed
in this
respect,
as in
others,
with the transition of Government-within a
remodeled,
multiparty system-to
the Democrat
Party
in
1950,2
more so with the relative liberalization
following
the
military
in-
tervention ten
years
later3 and even more so with the
re-entry
of
organized
Islam into
politics yet
another decade later. To
distinguish
them from the
masses,
we shall refer in this
paper
to
those Muslims involved in
politics
as 'Islamists'.
In
retrospect,
it
appears
that electoral arithmetic
compelled
all
Governments in the
multi-party
era to
adopt
a favorable
policy
towards Islam. The Democrat
Party
administration of the 1950s
showed itself to be
particularly adept
at this
approach. Although
the
basically
secularist character of the
regime
was
preserved,
several
concessions to the Islamists were
made,4
among
them tacit
permis-
sion to
publish religious
literature and
periodicals. Furthermore,
the
military
intervention of 1960-61 led to
perceptible
liberalization
in
censorship
on books and the
press.
One result was a marked in-
crease in the
publication
of Islamic literature and
periodicals largely
1
Cf. C.-U.
Spuler, "Nurculuk,"
Bonner Orientalistische
Studien,
vol.
27, 1973,
pp.
100-182.
2
Kemal H.
Karpat, Turkey's
Politics: The Transition to a
Multi-Party System,
Princeton
University
Press,
1959.
3
On which
see,
inter
alia,
Ali Fuad
Basgil,
La revolution militaire de 1960 en Tur-
quie, Geneva,
1963. W. F.
Weiker,
The Turkish Revolution 1960-61:
Aspects
of
Military Politics, Washington,
D.C.,
The
Brookings Institution,
1963.
4
Bernard
Lewis,
"Islamic Revival in
Turkey,"
International
Affairs (London),
vol.
28,
fasc.
1,
Jan.
1952, pp.
38-48.
293
JACOB
M. LANDAU
apologetic
in character. Both
daily newspapers
and
journals
rose
markedly
in circulation and
impact
and attracted considerable
mention.5 It is also
important
to note that the Islamic
press
became
increasingly politicized
or
'Islamist',
directly taking
sides,
on
religious grounds,
in
public
debates in
Turkey.
It was thus
visibly
responsible
for
preparing
the
ground
for the formation of
political
parties
with
thinly
veiled
religious platforms, namely
the
Party
for
National Order
(Milli
Nizam
Partisi)
in 1970-716 and its direct suc-
cessor,
the National Salvation
Party (Milli
Selamet
Partisi),
in
1972-80,7
which issued its own
pamphlets
and
press.
The circle was
now closed: Turkish
Islam,
forced into the
political
wilderness
by
the reforms of Mustafa Kemal and
kept
there for a while
by
his
followers,
now returned to the mainstream of
political
life in what
appeared
to be
persuasive respectability.
As an
organized political
force,
Islam's leaders and
spokesmen increasingly
directed their at-
tention to a wide
range
of issues besides
religion.
Islamic literature and
press
in
Turkey
since 1950 indeed
displays
a
progression
of animus
towardsJews
and even more so towards the
State of Israel and its
guiding ideology,
Zionism. In other
words,
anti-Jewish motifs
are
increasingly
evident in Turkish Islamist
pro-
nouncements
appearing during
the two decades
following
1950.
These views assumed an
increasingly
strident
tone,
although
it is
only
since the 1970s that
they began
to
display
a
growing
anti-
Zionist and anti-Israeli tenor on
political
and economic
grounds.
Consider several concrete
examples:
In the 1930s and
1940s,
on-
ly
the Pan-Turk
periodicals,
often influenced
by
Nazi race
theories,8
expressed
anti-Semitic
opinions.
Such
propaganda
became more and more
apparent
in Turkish
publications
under
Islamist influence since the 1950s and
progressively
so in subse-
quent years.
One instance from the
early
1960s concerns the
writings
of Salih Ozcan and
Ziya Uygur;
both were close to Islamist
circles of the
day
which were
beginning
to take
advantage
of the
5
Details in
Jacob
M.
Landau,
Radical Politics in Modern
Turkey, Leiden, Brill,
1974, pp.
180 ff.
6
Id., ibid.,
pp.
188-192.
7
Id.,
"The National Salvation
Party
in
Turkey,"
Asian and
African
Studies
(Jerusalem),
vol.
2,
no.
1, 1976,
pp.
1-57.
8
Id.,
Pan-Turkism in
Turkey:
A
Study
of Irredentism, London,
C.
Hurst,
1981.
294
MUSLIM TURKISH ATTITUDES
newly-proclaimed
liberalization
policies limiting censorship
on
publications.
In
1961,
the former authored
Siyonizmin
gayeleri9 (The
Aims of
Zionism).
Intended to warn the entire world of the
'Jewish
danger',
this is
mostly
a collection of so-called documents-
compiled
from the
Bible,
Talmud and the
press-about
'what
Zionism
really
is';
the
alleged suffering
of Muslims in Israel is
highlighted.
In
1963,
the latter wrote Tevrat'a
gore Siyonizm'in
ana
prensipleri
ve
protokollar'0 (The
Basic
Principles
and Protocols of
Zionism
According
to the
Bible),
which he
enlarged
somewhat in
a second
book,
published
five
years
later and entitled Tarih
boyunca
inkildplar-ihtildller
ve Tevrat'a
gore
Siyonizmin
ana
prensipleri, gayeleri,
protokollar" (Revolts
and Revolutions
Throughout History,
and the
Basic
Principles,
Aims and Protocols of Zionism
According
to the
Bible).
Both volumes
present
the
Jews
as the source of all trouble
in the world-and
particularly
in
Turkey-throughout
the
ages;
they
end with a Turkish translation of the
spurious
'Protocols of the
Elders of Zion'.
Turkey
had several centers of
Islamic-inspired propaganda,
of
which the most esteemed one was most
probably
the
Faculty
of
Theology,
the
Ilahiyat
Fakiiltesi,
at Ankara
University,
set
up
in
the late 1940s. Its
professors
and lecturers
attempted
to
provide
a
scholarly
aura to their research on Islam and its dissemination to
both the academic world and the
general public.
Two have
pub-
lished several works
relating
to
Jews.
Both had studied the
rudiments of modern Hebrew at a
Jerusalem ulpan,
on an Israeli
government grant,
in
1962,
returning
to teach at their
Faculty
on
the
assumption
that
they
had become
experts
in Hebrew-a
language
not
commonly
known in Turkish academic circles.
The
younger
of the
two,
Yasar
Kutluay,
later became a
dofent
at
the
Faculty,
and died
young through
accidental
drowning.
His first
book, published
in
1965,
was entitled Islam ve Yahudi
mezhepleri12
(The
Islamic and
Jewish Religions,
or the Islamic and
Jewish
Doc-
trines).
This was a somewhat
pedestrian
treatment of the
subject,
aiming
to demonstrate the
superiority
of Islam and the 'fact' that
9
Ankara,
Hilal
Yaylnlarl,
1961.
10
Istanbul, Bilgi Yaylnevi,
1963.
" Istanbul, Ugdal Nesriyat,
1968.
12
Ankara,
A. U.
Ilahiyat
Fakiiltesi
Yaylnlarl,
1965.
295
JACOB
M. LANDAU
Islam has borrowed from
Judaism
much less than is
commonly
thought.
His second
work,
published
two
years
later,
was entitled
Siyonizm
ve
Tirkiye13
(Zionism and
Turkey).
Its title notwithstan-
ding,
the bulk of this
volume,
no less than 264 out of its 296
pages,
consists of a translation into Turkish of selections from Herzl's
Tagebucher-not
all of which relate to the Ottoman
Empire.
The rest
is a
superficial
enumeration of
events,
without
any attempt
at
analysis.
Thus,
one is told that the 'Palestine War' started follow-
ing
the November
29,
1947 decision of the United Nations'
General
Assembly
to establish a
Jewish
state-without
any
mention
of the fact that the
Jews accepted
this decision and the Arabs did
not. The book also states that the Arab armies
'inexplicably
retreated in
1948,
after
approaching
Tel-Aviv',
conveniently
forgetting
that these armies were beaten back
by
Israel. Never-
theless,
Kutluay's
works,
although demonstrating
some
bias,
are
not
pervaded by
animus towards
Judaism
or Israel.
This is not true of
Kutluay's
senior
colleague,
Hikmet
Tanyu,
who lived to become a
professor
at the
Faculty
of
Theology
and
wrote a two-volume work entitled Tarih
boyunca
Yahudiler ve
Tiirkler'4
(Jews
and Turks
Throughout History).
The size of this
huge
book
(its
first 1976-1977 edition
comprises
1348
pages;
a
second,
enlarg-
ed edition came out in
1979)
is
perhaps
its
only
merit,
if
any.
The
entire work serves as a constant reminder of the correctness of Alex-
ander
Pope's
dictum that 'a little
knowledge
is a
dangerous thing'.
This does not
apply merely
to
Tanyu's familiarity
with
Hebrew,
avowedly
a difficult
language;
a
rudimentary knowledge
of current
conversational Hebrew
is, alas,
hardly adequate
for
reading
modern
literary
Hebrew, afortiori
biblical and other classical texts.
Unfortunately
for the end
product,
however, Tanyu's knowledge
of
Jewish
material,
as well as his
understanding
thereof,
is also fre-
quently incomplete
and erroneous.
It would be tedious to list all the author's
errors,
starting
in the
first
chapter
with the statement that
Judah
was
Jacob's
eldest son
(sic!)
and
ending
with the assertion that the total number of
Jews
in
today's
world is
twenty
million ... More relevant to our discus-
sion are
Tanyu's oft-repeated
theses: The whole course of
Jewish
history
centers on
Jewish
efforts to rule the world
and,
in the
pro-
cess,
regain sovereignty
over
Palestine;
the
Jewish 'plot'
was
296
MUSLIM TURKISH ATTITUDES
directed at
undermining
other
religions, especially
Islam,
and at
unsettling political
entities,
which stood in the
way
of their
grand
design,
such as the Ottoman
Empire.
Within this
general theory,
the author
'explains'
the activities of Karl
Marx, Freud,
Darwin
(sic!)
and
others,
as well as
Jewish 'cooperation'
with
Freemasonry,
Bahaism and International
Communism,
all
allegedly
orchestrated
by
a
Jewish leadership.
Since
Jewish
names
appeared among
members of Communist
groups
in
Turkey
and
abroad,
masonic
lodges
and such
organizations
as The Lions or international
business
firms,
the
'proofs'
were there. It was less
easy
to demon-
strate the links of World
Jewry
with Bahaism or
Jehova's
Witnesses,
but this did not
prevent Tanyu
from
trying
to do so.
Zionism is
presented,
of
course,
as the
contemporary
version of
the
Jewish plot,
with the State of Israel as its base-and the United
Nations' infamous decision on racism
quoted
as one instance
(Zionism
is
compared
with
Nazism)
and Israel's Palestinian
policies
as another. Needless to
say, Tanyu's sympathies
are all on
the Arab
side,
to no small extent because of common
religious
beliefs. Islamic
premises,
no less than
frankly
chauvinistic
ones,
in-
deed,
condition the author's value
judgments.
Not
co-incidentally,
his
concluding paragraph
calls for a 'Turkish Islamic
synthesis'
for
contemporary Turkey.
Some of these
arguments
have
previously appeared
in the works
of
Ozcan,
Uygur, Kutluay
and othrs.
Although hardly original
and
based on a
variety
of at least
partly
dubious
sources, Tanyu's
work
provides
a Turkish Islamist
attempt
at
systematizing anti-Jewish,
anti-Zionist and anti-Israel
arguments
and
combining
them in an
overall
theory
of an international
plot.
Unbased and ridiculous as
this
theory
is to
any unbiased,
objective researcher,
it has served as
a
working hypothesis,
to be
exploited by organized, political
Islamists in
Turkey
of the 1970s. We consider the
pronouncements
of
spokesmen
and
organs
connected with the
Party
for National
Order and
especially
with its
successor,
the National Salvation
Party.
13
Konya,
Selenk
Yaylnlar,
1967.
14
Istanbul, Yagmur
Yayinevi,
1976-1977.
297
JACOB
M. LANDAU
Most
significant
are the views
expressed by
Necmettin Er-
bakan,15
founder and chairman of this Islamic
party
in both its
manifestations. As a
unanimously accepted leader,
Erbakan was
both the
party's principal ideologue
and the chief
exponent
of its
aims and tactics. Within the framework of laws
governing
the
Republic
of
Turkey,
which
prohibit
the introduction of
religion
in-
to
politics,
Erbakan and his assistants could not attack secularism
frontally
nor recommend the establishment of a theocratic
regime
in its stead. Hence Erbakan had to limit himself to
praising
the vir-
tues of Islam and
enjoining
its tenets on all Turks.
However,
since
he held that Islam was a
complete way
of life and that there was no
source of truth outside
Islam,16
Erbakan
presented
at least some of
his
political opinions
via the views he
expressed
on the national
economy
of
Turkey.
Soon after he first entered the National
Assembly (Turkey's
lower House of
Parliament),
Erbakan
delivered a
lengthy speech
(on
May
15,
1970)
about
Turkey
and the
Common
Market,
published
a
year
later under the same title.17
There he
presents
his
vigorous opposition
to the Government's
moves to
integrate Turkey
into the
European
Common
Market,
which he
rejected
as a Catholic
organization, supported by
Zionist
Jews
and
freemasons,
no less. The
alternative,
which Erbakan con-
tinued to
propound
with
growing
insistence,
was an Economic
Market of Muslim states.'8
Since
January
1974,
when Erbakan became
Deputy
Prime
Minister
shortly
after his
party
had
captured
48 seats out of the total
450 in the
general
elections,
he advocated a
political
and economic
rapprochement
with the Muslim states.
Serving
in the same
capacity-in
various Cabinets-for three-and-a-half
years,
he
visited Saudi Arabia and other Islamic
countries, inaugurating
a
high-level
annual Islamic
Congress
of
representatives
of these coun-
tries. These moves were
accompanied by increasing
verbal violence
15
On whom see Necdet
Onur,
Erbakan
dosyasi (Erbakan's file),
Istanbul,
n.d.
(1974
?).
T.
Qorumlu, Biiyuk
Tirkiye'ye
dogru.
Erbakan
olayz (The
Case of Erbakan:
Towards a Great
Turkey),
Istanbul,
1974.
16 N.
Erbakan,
Miisbet ilim ve Islam
(Positive
Science and
Islam), Konya,
1970.
17
Id., Tiirkiye
ve Ortak Pazar
(Turkey
and the Common
Market),
Izmir,
1971.
18
Cf.
Jacob
M.
Landau, "Politics,
Economics and
Religion: Turkey
and the
European
Common
Market,"
Oriente Moderno
(Rome),
vol.
60,
nos.
1-6,
January-
June
1980, pp.
163-171.
(=
Studi in Memoria di Paola
Minganti).
298
MUSLIM TURKISH ATTITUDES
against Jews,
Zionism and the State of Israel. Erbakan's attacks
served as
preuve
de bonne
foi
versus Muslim leaders
elsewhere,
but
may
well have added to his
popularity,
whether in Government or
Opposition, among
the rank-and-file of his own
party,
too. His
public
utterances
against
Israel as a foe of
Islam,
along
with his
behind-the-scenes
pressures,
are
generally
considered
partly
responsible
for the official Turkish
cooling
towards Israel
(along
with the wish of
Turkey's political leadership
for closer economic
cooperation
with the Arab
States).
Erbakan and his followers made no secret of these views and
moves,
many
of which were
widely reported
in the Turkish
press.
Particularly revealing
are the National Salvation
Party's organs,
especially
its
daily
Milli Gazete'9
(The
National
Newspaper), pub-
lished in Istanbul since
January
12,
1973. Milli Gazete has main-
tained a
relentlessly
militant Islamic
stance,
even after the
September
12,
1980
military
intervention20 closed down the Na-
tional Salvation
Party-along
with all other
parties-and severely
curtailed the
public activity
of all former
political figures, including
Erbakan. While Milli
Gazete,
along
with all other
papers,
had to ex-
ercise some caution
during
the three
years
of the
military regime
which followed
(when
it
slipped,
it was
suspended
for some
time),
there was no
let-up
in attacks on the
newspaper's pet
hates,
viz.:
Communists, freemasons,
Christian
missionaries,
Greeks and
Jews.
Indeed,
the almost
daily
attacks on
Jews,
Zionism and the
State of
Israel,
usually
labeled the foes of
Islam,
have
persisted
for
over a dozen
years. Thus,
every
move of Israel or its
represen-
tatives,
in
Turkey
or
abroad,
was
widely-and hostilely-
commented
upon
as harmful to
Islam,
or at least
helpful
to Islam's
enemies. When there was
nothing
new to
report,
old
stories,
whether true or
false,
were unearthed and
repeated.
19
On which the
only study
to-date seems to be Esther
Debus,
Die islamisch-
rechtlichen
Auskiinfte
der Milli Gazete im Rahmen des "Fetwa-Wesen" der Tiirkischen
Republik, Berlin,
Klaus Schwarz
Verlag,
1984
(=
Islamkundliche
Untersuchungen,
Band
95).
20
For which cf. M. Ali
Birand,
12
Eyliil
saat
04.00, Istanbul,
Karacan
Yaylnlarl,
1984. C. H.
Dodd,
The Crisis
of
Turkish
Democracy, Walkington,
The
Eothen
Press,
1983. Frank
Tachau, Turkey:
The Politics
of Authority, Democracy
and
Development, N.Y., Praeger,
1984. See also a
special
issue on
Turkey
of Les
Temps
Modernes
(Paris),
vol.
41,
nos.
456-457,
July-Aug.
1984.
299
JACOB
M. LANDAU
Conclusion
While it is difficult to sum
up processes
which
appear
to be still
in full
swing,
some tentative conclusions
may
be
attempted
nonetheless. Active
propaganda
and
political
moves
against Jews,
Zionism and Israel remain
marginal
in the
Republic
of
Turkey
and
have not been institutionalized either
among
the
top
decision-
makers or the state
bureaucracy.
In a
country
which has been tradi-
tionally hospitable
and tolerant
(with
few
exceptions),
the
press
ac-
curately
reflected an
increasingly politicized society.
Indeed,
right-
of-center,
openly
chauvinist
groups
have
consistently
attacked
foreign
elements in
Turkey-which
has made
Jews
and Zionism an
obvious
target.
Radical
left-of-centre,
Marxist
groups
have
joined
the chorus of
anti-Zionist,
anti-Israel accusations.
However,
it is
the Islamists who have been the most extreme. Nurtured
by early
Islam's animus towards
Judaism,
Islamist
exponents,
more than
others in
Turkey, integrate
their invective
against Jews,
Zionism
and Israel. Their
arguments
have been taken
up
first
by
free-lance
spokesmen;
then
by
would-be-scholars who
attempted
to bolster
their conclusions
by using spurious
source
materials;
lastly by
organized groups
with a marked Islamist
character,
which
employ
anti-Jewish,
anti-Zionist and anti-Israel
slogans
and
arguments
in
their
political speeches
and
press
as a means of
promoting
their own
brand of
propaganda.
In so
doing,
Islamist bias in
Turkey
is
increasingly
directed
against Jews,
Zionism and
Israel,
simultaneously-in general
without
attempting
to
distinguish
be-
tween the three
targets.
This combination has
proved particularly
effective,
propaganda-wise,
from the Islamists'
point
of view. It has
exploited
the
general atmosphere
in a state and
society
whose
political leadership
initiated a
cooling-off
of relations with
Israel,
in
the last few
years; conversely,
Islamist
propaganda
has
encouraged
this
cooling-off
and contributed to it in no little
degree, by
suc-
cessfully shaping
a villain
image
in which the
Jews,
Zionism and
Israel were essential
components.
300