Dreams of a "great" ally

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), May 10, 2007 at 19:30

Dear Yuval Brandstetter MD , you wrote :

> Turks have shown 80 years of resistance to Radical Islam and they are great American and Israeli allies.

Are you dreaming ?

" Quite the opposite, Turkey is often in the news for its rampant anti-Americanism and solidarity with Bashar's Syria. Polls after polls confirm that growing numbers of Turks perceive their NATO ally more as a national security threat, rather than a strategic partner. One of the flashiest symptoms of Turkish distrust towards the United States is the best-selling novel in the country, which depicts a Turkish-American war over Kirkuk in northern Iraq."

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/taspinar20051116.htm

"Turks have a very negative view of America's influence in the world. Eighty-two percent of Turks surveyed said they were opposed to U-S foreign policies. Robert Pollock, an editorial writer with the Wall Street Journal newspaper, wrote after a visit to Turkey this year that he found, quote "a poisonous atmosphere - one in which just about every politician and media outlet (secular and religious) preaches an extreme combination of America-hatred and Jew-hatred."

http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/archive/2005-03/a-2005-03-21-2-1.cfm

" The Turkophile British magazine, The Economist , in its August 5 issue, reported the upsurge of anti-Semitism in Turkey. The article quoted the finding by the Pew Global Attitudes Survey that "only 15% of Turks look kindly upon Jews," which reflects the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism, not limited to the views of a few Turkish crackpots and racists. "

" According to The Economist, an increasing number of Jews say "they no longer feel secure in Turkey, and recently, some community leaders have received death threats. Fears began growing after Turkish suicide bombers with links to al-Qaeda blew up two synagogues in Istanbul in 2003. Anti-Semitic literature, including Hitler's Mein Kampf, has recently appeared in many bookstores across Turkey."

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