‘Islam Curses Anti-Semitism’ Says Turkish Activist

A Turkish peace activist says “Islam curses anti-Semitism” and that the "true home" of the Jewish People is in the Holy Land, in a blog post on the website of a Jewish magazine, and posted on the author’s Facebook page.

Aylin Kocaman, a host on A9TV’s ‘Building Bridges’ satellite television show in Turkey, made the statement in an article she wrote on how Islam views genocide of the Jews during World War II.

“From a Muslim perspective” of how Islam views the Holocaust, Kocaman stated bluntly, “Islam curses the Holocaust.

There is no racial discrimination or superiority in Islam, as there is not in any other religion.”

A guest blogger for Moment Magazine, she went on to quote a passage from the Koran (49:13) in which the creation of mankind, “from a male and female....into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know each other,” states that the most honored person is he who is most righteous.

Kocaman went on to write about the Turkish diplomat Behic Erkin, who saved 20,000 Jews from Nazi persecution in 1939 by giving them Turkish identity documents and teaching them to say – in the Turkish language – “I am Turkish, my relatives live in Turkey.” Erkin later saved more Jews from concentration camps as well, she added.

“Jews need to know this: there are still people like them in Turkey,” Kocaman wrote. “Turkish people will always continue to love and protect Jews, despite political crises I am certain are only temporary. Because Turkish people think democratically and are devoted to Islam. And they know perfectly well that Islam curses anti-Semitism.”

She also noted that the Koran calls for Jews to live in the Land of Israel – placing her in direct conflict with numerous, loud Muslim clerics from Egypt, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

“Islam curses the idea of sending Jews – or other people – into exile,” she wrote. “Of course Jews can live anywhere they wish, just like all other communities. But their true home is in the Holy Land (Koran, 5:21, 17:104, 10:93, 2:58).

"The mindset that seeks to exile the Jews from the Holy Land, like Hitler exiled them by saying, 'There is no room for you in Germany,' conflicts with the Koran. If that mindset says it is acting in the name of Islam, then that is a crime, and a defamation of Islam.”