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Turkish Finance Minister Questions Israel’s Rights as Jewish State Over Twitter
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by Joshua Levitt
Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek. Photo: Twitter.
Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek on Sunday questioned Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish state via Twitter, where the politician has nearly a million followers.
The Israel Hayom headline on Twitter was: “PM: #Israel is the nation state of the #Jewish people only.”
Simsek replied to that: “Apartheid – Isn’t it an int’l crime?”
While many responded to his tweet in Turkish, one English speaker wrote on Monday: “#Turkish Finance Min is giving democracy lesson to #Israel the only democratic country in #MiddleEast”
In the human rights community, Turkey has come under tremendous criticism for a government purge that sent hundreds of dissidents to jail. In August, Turkey jailed 275 opposition leaders, including army and police officers, journalists, writers and lawyers, for allegedly plotting a military coup to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On Sunday, Netanyahu laid out a unilateral response to the end of U.S.-brokered peace talks with the Palestinian Authority by proclaiming a new legislative initiative that would emphasize Israel being the nation-state of the Jewish people.
“The State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People,” but that “is not sufficiently expressed in our basic laws, and this is what the draft basic law is meant to provide,” Netanyahu said.
He said, “It will define the national right of the Jewish People over the State of Israel, without infringing on the individual rights of any Israeli citizen in the State of Israel. It will reinforce the status of the Law of Return as a basic law. It will anchor in a basic law the status of the national symbols – flag, anthem, language and other aspects of our national experience.”
“These aspects are under a constant and increasing assault from abroad and at home,” Netanyahu said. “But the foundation of the existence of the State of Israel stems from its being the national home of the Jewish People and from the Jewish People’s deep links to the Land of Israel.”
