No, Israeli rescuers didn't "steal" a megillah from Turkey

Arabic media and social media are reporting that Israeli rescuers in Turkey "stole" an antique Scroll of Esther. From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

 The theft of a historical manuscript by the Israeli rescue team dispatched to Turkey to help those affected by the earthquake sparked an ethical scandal after pictures and videos showed the team members displaying the stolen manuscript.

The Turkish "Haber7" website said it turned out that the Israeli search and rescue team secretly took the Book of Esther from Turkey’s earthquake-damaged Antakya Synagogue in Hatay province before the theft was discovered and the manuscript returned to Turkey.

That is not at all what happened, and Wafa knows it - because it refers to the YNet story that describes what happened:

As Israeli rescue teams were rummaging through the rubble in the Turkish city of Antakya after last week's devastating earthquake in hopes of finding survivors trapped underneath, a local elderly Jewish man approached them holding something unique in his hands — two centuries-old Book of Esther scrolls that were kept in the local synagogue before the shock.

The teary-eyed man approached Major Haim Otmazgin, commander of the ZAKA search-and-rescue force, with an unusual request.

"The last head of our community has now tragically passed and with our proximity to Syria, I'd hate to see the scrolls fall in the wrong hands. Please guard them and make sure our community is remembered," he said.

Moved by the elder's request, Maj. Otmazgin accepted the duty of keeping the artifacts safe.

"In my capacity as a ZAKA volunteer of several decades, this is one of the most moving moments of my life," he said. "I'm truly honored to save such a significant historical document and to make sure the heritage of Antakya's Jewish community remains intact, even after the quake reduced it to nearly nothing.

After the leader of the Antakya community Şaul Cenudioğlu  was killed in the devastating earthquake, one of the few remaining members begged the Israelis to save the Megillah.

Assuming that the scroll belonged to the synagogue itself, and that the man was the legal guardian, this would not violate any antiquities laws I am aware of.  They generally apply to artifacts discovered by researchers, not items that belong to an existing institution. Museums sell important artwork all the time. 

However, the larger Jewish community in Istanbul requested the scrolls be returned and held there with the intent to rebuild the Antakya community. The community was not being declared gone. So the Israelis immediately did so. This was all reported in Turkish media:

The head of an Israeli rescue team has handed over the historical Book of Esther, which the team carefully removed from the earthquake-hit Antakya Synagogue and carried to their country, to the Jewish Chief Rabbinate in Istanbul.

Israeli media reported that the historical scrolls of the Book of Esther in Antakya Synagogue, which was damaged in the earthquakes, were taken to Israel by the Israeli search and rescue team ZAKA.

It was stated that the historical scrolls were delivered to Haim Otmazgin, the head of ZAKA, to be transported to a safe place.

The Turkish Jewish Community announced that Israel handed over the scrolls.

“The scroll of Esther was delivered from Israel and is kept in our Chief Rabbinate. It will return to its home after the renovation of our Antakya Synagogue,” it said.

“Our works belonging to all kinds of beliefs and cultures that have existed for centuries within the borders of our country will continue to be carefully protected in these lands,” the Culture and Tourism Ministry stated.

“We will restore our Antakya Synagogue, along with all other damaged registered works, and reopen it to the worship of our citizens,” the ministry said.

There was no intent to steal anything,- only to preserve, but it properly belongs to the Jewish community in Turkey which requested it and received it.

As usual, modern antisemites purposefully twist the facts and lie to make Israel and Israeli Jews appear evil no matter what they do. And there is a word for that.

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Every country is proud to help earthquake victims. Only Israel is vilified.

Romanian media are reporting that a team from Romania rescued a family from under the rubble in Turkey.

Chinese media are proud that a Chinese team rescued a pregnant woman.

The UK government issued a press release about the large team they sent to Turkey.

Algerian officials are proud of their rescue team. 

So are Palestinians.

UAE media are similarly reporting on their own teams who have rescued people in Syria.

It is natural to be proud that your own people are helping others. Even local media in Los Angeles are showing pride that rescue dogs being sent by the US were trained in Ventura County.

Yet when Israel sends a massive number of experienced experts to set up a field hospital, and shows pride in helping save ten people so far, some people bristle.

Palestinian media have had multiple articles that say that Israel's rescue efforts are only for PR purposes, and they are not interested in saving any Muslim lives. 

"Rabbi" David Mivasair calls it "cynical propaganda." Someone named Dan Easterman gleefully tweeted and defended, "Every time there is an earthquake or humanitarian disaster, Israel immediately tries to exploit the tragedy to gain political capital and improve it’s [sic] international image. The cynicism makes me sick." 

This has been a theme for previous rescue missions, where "critics" even accused Israel of using the rescuers as cover for doing crimes in the disaster zone. 

It is yet another case where Israel acts like every other country on Earth - and people single it out as being immoral.

Yes, this is the definition of antisemitism. 

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Palestinians trying to hijack the earthquake

The Palestinian Information Center seems upset that the world is paying so much attention to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria and not to them.

So they wrote an article that not only accuses Israel of "aid-washing" but also claims that the damage in Gaza wars was just as bad, if not worse, than the horrific scenes we are seeing in the quake zones.

The painful scenes of the earthquake victims under the rubble, their loud cries asking for help and rescue, and the pictures of the injured children stuck under the rubble, brought back to mind the images of the successive wars on the Gaza Strip, where the occupation planes destroy homes and residential towers on the heads of their owners.

It goes on to say that the destruction of Gaza was the same, and who could even imagine that Israel is really interested in saving lives? It is all just "hasbara."

Ibrahim Al-Madhoun said that the Zionist occupation is trying to whiten its black image after committing many crimes, and is taking advantage of the earthquake catastrophe and international sympathy with Turkey and Syria, and wants to appear with a fake face, by playing a humanitarian role that does not suit its criminal nature.

Al-Madhoun stressed that the image that the occupation is trying to appear as a relief and savior for the victims of the earthquake will not convince the Arab peoples and the free people of the world.

Al-Madhoun called for the need to focus on the real image of the occupation, expose its criminality, warn the world, international institutions, and countries against being deceived by the occupation, exposing its crimes, and remembering what happened and is happening, of crimes committed by the occupation on an ongoing basis.

The irony is that while the Israelis are proud of their fast response teams and their setting up an entire field hospital in Turkey, the Palestinians are spending more time on the publicity campaigns promoting their own aid than the aid itself. They created a "Palestine is With You" campaign and logo:

Notice that the center of the logo is the Dome of the Rock - meaning that even this campaign to supposedly help thousands of victims is really designed to ensure the centrality of the Palestinian cause.

I don't think there are any new logos of the Israeli efforts for helping the victims. 

As usual, the Palestinian accusations against Israel is projection of what they are doing - trying to leverage a disaster into making Palestinians look good.

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It only took a day for people to blame Jews for Turkey/Syria earthquake

Maria Dubovikova, "prominent independent analyst and media expert • researcher • RIAC expert • THE RUSSIAN • Ex Al Arabiya / Arab News Columnist" with tens of thousands of followers, has been pushing a conspiracy theory about the Turkey earthquake.

Israel knew about the quake ahead of time and only told her friends.

She removed the Twitter thread but I was able to reproduce it with her Telegram and the Google cache:

Israel was boasting that it has elaborated the system for predicting earthquakes with 80% precision. A week ago, the Western embassies were closed in Turkey, and the Westerners were advised to leave the country ASAP due to the "terrorist attack threat." 

Today, Turkey and Syria are hit with an extremely strong earthquake. 

My guess is that Israel has informed its western counterparts about the upcoming earthquakes. 

The Western supremacists are caring exclusively about their own precious lives, giving a shit about those who are considered inferior to them, those third-rate Arabs and Turks. “There is no need to inform them about the threat. Let them die! Who cares!”

How many lives would be saved, if people were aware of the upcoming threat.

If anybody — Israel, Western powers — was aware of the upcoming earthquake and didn’t urge Ankara and Damascus about it — that’s a crime.

Bearing in mind “coincidence” of the earthquake in Iran and Israeli drone attack. Then the closure of the Western embassies and a call to Westerners to leave Turkey prior to the earthquake. 

These are the dots. Connect them your own way.

This is...nuts. It has the same quality as the popular "Israelis warned NYC Jews not to go to work on 9/11" meme.

Yes, last year Israeli researchers claimed that they could predict an earthquake with 80% accuracy - but that was only within 48 hours of the event, not a week ahead.  And only antisemites would conflate all Israelis with the Israeli government. 

The warnings to embassy personnel came after the Quran burning in Sweden in late January.

Her claim that it is no coincidence that Israel's drone attack in Iran happened around the time of an earthquake is really unhinged. That would mean that the Israelis could accurately predict an earthquake days or weeks ahead of time - to within minutes.

And her Telegram channel also reproduces a map that implies that the US might have exploded nukes under Turkey to cause the quake.

When called out on this obvious antisemitism, Dubovikova said she was half Jewish and had a grandmother in the Holocaust. 

I guess she considers that a "get out of jail free" card.

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Syria insists it would NEVER accept earthquake aid from Israel. No one thinks this is strange.

From Reuters:

The pro-Assad regime Al Watan newspaper on  Monday quoted a Syrian official denying reports it relayed a request for Israeli aid in the wake of the massive earthquake that shook the region.

Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a request from Syria did arrive and that Israel was prepared to send tents and medical supplies and provide treatment for the injured.

Arabic media reports one of the denials:

The source said, "If Netanyahu had received such a request, it was certainly from his allies and friends in ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations."

The source added to the Syrian newspaper Al-Watan: "The Israeli occupation entity is the cause of woes, wars and tensions in the region, and it is the last one who has the right to talk about providing aid and assistance. It is disgraceful that Netanyahu exploits the catastrophe of the earthquake that struck Syria to mislead public opinion and cover up the expansionist and aggressive policies of the occupation." 

Aid-washing!

The highest priority of any government is to protect its citizens. If Syria is telling the truth now, it is saying quite clearly that hating Israel is a more fundamental tenet than saving people's lives.  

That's about as good a definition of antisemitism as there is. 

It is exactly the philosophy of BDS, who claim to want to boycott Israel at any cost (for anyone but themselves.) 

And just like BDS, the insistence that human lives are less important than having nothing to do with the Jewish state is couched in terms of - morality!

Isn't it strange that the rest of the world doesn't think this is strange? Syria and other Muslim nations having an obsessive hate of Israel is accepted as a law of nature. 

And, in some ways, that's also a good definition of antisemitism.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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