Muslim Turkish Attitudes Towards Zionism & Israel

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 Weltdes IslamsXXVIII (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 adaptability 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 intervention 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 received 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
292
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
has in practice led toTurkish law this could lead to-and
for
severe
and
penalties
introducing religious propprosecution
this
into
propaganda has attacked
politics. Evidently,
aganda
life
of
and
of
both Western democracies
the
way
ideologies
violently
and Communist states. However, it has found only limited appeal
among the uneducated masses, towards whom much of this propaganda 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 combined with the above foreign ones. The villains included
freemasons, Christian missionaries and Jews-all of whom have international 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
MUSLIM TURKISH ATTITUDES
293
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 Dervish Orders and the Nurists,1 mounted an anti-secularist campaign, 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
a
respect, as in others, with the transition of Government-within
remodeled, multiparty system-to the Democrat Party in 1950,2
more so with the relative liberalization following the military intervention 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 permission 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 increase in the publication of Islamic literature and periodicals largely
1 Cf. C.-U.
Spuler, "Nurculuk," Bonner OrientalistischeStudien, 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 revolutionmilitaire de 1960 en Turquie, 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," InternationalAffairs (London),
vol. 28, fasc. 1, Jan. 1952, pp. 38-48.
294
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 successor, 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 attention 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 pronouncements 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 antiZionist and anti-Israeli tenor on political and economic grounds.
Consider several concrete examples: In the 1930s and 1940s, only 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 subsequent 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.
295
newly-proclaimed liberalization policies limiting censorship on

publications. In 1961, the former authored Siyonizmingayeleri9(The
Aims of Zionism). Intended to warn the entire world of the 'Jewish
danger', this is mostly a collection of so-called documents'what
compiled from the Bible, Talmud and the press-about
Zionism really is'; the alleged suffering of Muslims in Israel is
highlighted. In 1963, the latter wrote Tevrat'agore 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'agore 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;
end
with
a
Turkish
translation
of
the
of the
'Protocols
spurious
they
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 published 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 dofentat
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 Doctrines). 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.
296
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 notwithstanding, 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 following 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. Nevertheless, 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 boyuncaYahudilerve Tiirkler'4
(Jews and Turks Throughout History). The size of this huge book
(its first 1976-1977 edition comprises 1348 pages; a second, enlarged edition came out in 1979) is perhaps its only merit, if any. The
entire work serves as a constant reminder of the correctness of Alexander 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 frequently 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 discussion are Tanyu's oft-repeated theses: The whole course of Jewish
history centers on Jewish efforts to rule the world and, in the process, regain sovereignty over Palestine; the Jewish 'plot' was
297
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 demonstrate 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, indeed, 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.
298
JACOB M. LANDAU
Most significant are the views expressed by Necmettin Erbakan,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 into 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 virtues 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 continued 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
rapprochementwith the Muslim states. Serving in the same
three-and-a-half years, he
various Cabinets-for
capacity-in
visited Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries, inaugurating a
high-level annual Islamic Congress of representatives of these countries. 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. Erbakanolayz(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 OrtakPazar (Turkey and the Common Market), Izmir, 1971.
18 Cf. Jacob M. Landau, "Politics, Economics and Religion: Turkey and the
European Common Market," OrienteModerno(Rome), vol. 60, nos. 1-6, JanuaryJune 1980, pp. 163-171. (= Studi in Memoria di Paola Minganti).
299
against Jews, Zionism and the State of Israel. Erbakan's attacks

served as preuve de bonnefoi 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), published in Istanbul since January 12, 1973. Milli Gazete has maintained a relentlessly militant Islamic stance, even after the
September 12, 1980 military intervention20 closed down the National 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 exercise 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 representatives, in Turkey or abroad, was widely-and
hostilelycommented 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 islamischrechtlichenAuskiinfte 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, Democracyand
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.
300
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 decisionmakers or the state bureaucracy. In a country which has been traditionally hospitable and tolerant (with few exceptions), the press accurately reflected an increasingly politicized society. Indeed, rightof-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 between 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 successfully shaping a villain image in which the Jews, Zionism and
Israel were essential components.

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Muslim Turkish Attitudes towards Jews, Zionism and Israel

Author(s): Jacob M. Landau

Die Weltdes IslamsXXVIII (1988)

TURKISH ATTITUDES TOWARDS JEWS,

briefly what the credo of those Islamic leaders involved in Turkish