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Most Turks Don't Know What Really Happened on the Mavi Marmara

(Standpoint-UK) Claire Berlinski - In May, the Mavi Marmara - a ship full of civilians but not full of humanitarian aid - sailed from Turkey to join the Free Gaza flotilla. I've lived in Istanbul for five years and I've spoken to hundreds of Turks about these events. The Turkish people have no idea what happened because the most basic facts surrounding these events have not been reported in Turkey and almost no one in Turkey understands any language but Turkish. Turks think of themselves as charitable and compassionate, as indeed they are. They genuinely believe, because this is what has been reported here, that the Palestinians are starving. They believe that the ship was on a humanitarian mission. They do not know that there were no humanitarian supplies on the Mavi Marmara. The men and women to whom we spoke were astonished when we told them that Israeli officials had invited the ship to disembark at Ashdod and deliver the aid overland. What is also astonishing is not that we see so much hostility towards Israelis among Turks, but that we see so little of it. Given the level of anti-Semitic propaganda to which they are exposed, this can only be attributed to their basic decency.
2010-11-12 08:40:00
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