Umut Ataseven, 29, worked as a visa/passport officer for Turkish Airlines at Istanbul Airport and as a freelance contributor for a Turkish newspaper, yet has now been fired from his job and prosecuted after posing for a photo with an Israeli flag in Tel Aviv.
By Rachel Avraham
A Jewish citizen of Turkey has been arrested after visiting Israel last month, the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported. Umut Ataseven, 29, worked as a visa/passport officer for Turkish Airlines at Istanbul Airport and as a freelance contributor for a Turkish newspaper, Arutz Sheva reported. According to the report, he visited Israel as a tourist from April 6-12.
JNS reported that the fiasco began when Ataseven shared a photo of himself with the Israeli flag in a WhatsApp group. According to the report, a screenshot of the photo was subsequently posted on Twitter with fallacious allegations that he was a dual citizen who was taking part in a “genocide” against the Palestinians in Gaza as an Israeli soldier. This led to him getting fired from Turkish Airlines upon his return to Turkey and to him getting arrested four hours later. He was subsequently released on the condition that he report to the police twice per week and not leave Turkey, pending a trial.
Nevzat Çiçek, the editor of Independent Türkçe, a Turkish affiliate of the British newspaper The Independent, where Ataseven was a freelance contributor, wrote on social media that his articles had to do with Jewish history and antiquity, and none were about the war against Hamas in Gaza, JNS reported. According to the report, Ataseven, who has received death threats, maintains his innocence and plans legal action to fight against the case.
Since the October 7th massacre, antisemitism has become rampant in Turkey. According to the Anti-Defamation League, 71% of the Turkish population harbored antisemitic views in 2015. However, since the Gaza war broke out, it can be argued that the situation has become more dire. Just a few days after the war broke out, a yellow taxi driver in Istanbul explicitly announced that he will not allow any Israeli passengers in his car by putting a placard on his back window. Then, Rağmen Sahaf, a secondhand bookstore located near Istanbul University, put a sign outside its door proclaiming “Jews are not allowed.”
Less than a month after the October 7th massacre, Izmir’s Etz Hayim Synagogue fell victim to antisemitic vandalism. At a pro-Palestine rally in Istanbul, a poster with the following slogan was displayed: “‘Death to Jews, let a new hunt against the Jews in Turkey begin, Jewish blood is halal for us, everything is for Palestine.”
The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies emphasized while these could be interpreted as separate incidents, it is impossible to ignore the role that the Turkish leadership plays in inciting antisemitism. Despite lacking evidence, public officials in Turkey have blamed Jews for a price rise in natural gas and the devaluation of the Turkish Lira, the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies reported. Furthermore, Mein Kampf is a best-seller in Turkey and while the German scholarly edition contains footnotes putting the book into historical context, the Turkish edition was translated as is and has no such footnotes.
The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies claims that the leadership in Turkey can be blamed for the popularity of Mein Kampf within the country: “Süleyman Sezen, the member of the district council of Atakum, Samsun and who is a member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) commemorated Adolf Hitler with God’s mercy and grace; and added that the world will only reach peace and serenity once it will be cleaned out of Jews. More interestingly Cemil Deveci, the mayor of the district, a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) who was chairing the meeting did not stop or condemn him but rather said that these are humane sentiments. This, of course, was not the only Hitler reference during the war. Recently Erdoğan himself addressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “Hitler” or “Führer” – leading to the banalization of the Holocaust.”
In a BBC documentary titled “Heart and Soul: Antisemitism in Turkey,” Nissim, a local Turkish Jew, related that many Turkish Jews are hiding their identifies from their surroundings due to the fear of antisemitism: “Since the 7th of the October, we are always facing people who view us as Netanyahu’s spokesman. In a way, we have to be careful.”
Photo from Aya Sofya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#/media/File:Aya_Sophia_(7144824757).jpg
