Opinion: Synagogue Bombings an Attack on Hope and Tolerance

November 17, 2003

Source: The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,12700,1086870,00.html

On November 17, 2003 The Guardian [UK] ran an opinion piece by Fiachra Gibbons, an author currently writing a book on minorities in the Ottoman empire, in which she argued that the synagogue bombings in Turkey were an attack on tolerance itself. She writes, "The Jews of Turkey, and the survival of their precious and unique culture, are one of the few enduring examples of tolerance through the ages that humanity has left to cling to. So when six die, as they did on Saturday morning when their blood mingled with that of their Muslim neighbours blown to bits by a suicide bomber outside the Neve Shalom synagogue, the heart should miss a beat and the world weep. For we are mourning the loss of souls who had learned to span a supposedly unbridgeable gulf that is being daily widened by George Bush and our own dear, deluded leader [Tony Blair]."