Hypocrisy and a Strained Comparison

Submitted by Caleb (United States), Aug 25, 2010 at 13:43

Turkey did act illegally on Cyprus, settling 20,000 families from mainland Turkey on the island after expelling thousands of Greek Cypriots from their homes. But that was nearly fifty years ago. Only now does Israel acknowledge this crime? Only now that it is reaching out to Greece as a substitute ally [a terrible mistake; remember the Christian Lebanese!]. A more apt parallel to Turkey on Cyprus would be Israel on the West Bank or even (unutterable heresy!) Israel in 1948. Both created a refugee problem unsolved after decades.

There never was a Jewish community in the Gaza Strip--a few settlements were started there after the 1967 War, to be abandoned after thirty years as untenable. Turks had been living on Cyprus since it was taken by Ottoman Sultan Selim, centuries earlier. It had been a British colony in more recent times. The official line in Ankara, believed by many Turks then and now, was that the 1974 invasion was staged to protect the Turkish community from violence by the majority Greek Cypriots. There was a history of feuding between the two communities, with occasional killings, but this was nothing new. It was the foolish announcement in Athens that a new Greek government would fulfill the old dream of **enosis**, merger of Cyprus with the Hellenic Republic, that triggered military action by Turkey.

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