In an unprecedented escalation of the already frayed ties between Jerusalem and Ankara, Turkish authorities on Monday briefly detained some 40 Israeli passengers arriving at Istanbul airport, separating them from other passengers, leading them to a private interrogation room, and confiscating their passports.
Airport authorities interrogated the Israeli travelers for an hour-and-a-half and then released them. Other Israelis who were returning to Israel from Australia, South Africa and China, via Istanbul, also claimed to be mistreated at that airport.
The incidents occurred on the same day that the Turkish Foreign Ministry instructed top-level Israeli embassy officials in Ankara that they had until Wednesday to leave the country.
The official reason for the detention of the Israeli passengers was not immediately clear, but the Turkish Anatolia News Agency reported that dozens of Turkish passengers had been mistreated at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Sunday night.
Several of the Israeli passengers, mainly businesspeople on board the Turkish Airlines flight that left Israel early Monday morning, said they were humiliated by the Turkish authorities at Istanbul airport. The passengers said Turkish policemen had escorted them from the arrivals section to a private interrogation room, confiscated their passports, and conducted thorough body searches.
Hayuta Leibowitz, an Israeli businesswoman who was on the flight, told Israel Radio that the experience marked a "point of no return" for her after years of working in Istanbul. "I felt humiliated. The experience was very scary and humiliating. I felt like it was Entebbe, where Jewish and Israeli travelers were separated from the rest of the passengers on the Air France flight. The Turkish policemen were very nasty to us, and the baggage handlers threw our luggage onto the floor. The baggage handlers were commoners, obviously influenced by the Turkish media," Leibowitz said.
Orit, another Israeli passenger at the airport, told Israel Radio that she was ordered into a dark room by two female security guards, told to strip, and was subjected to a full body search, including in her private parts. She was spoken to only in Turkish, even when she responded and asked questions in English. "I was left only in my underwear, without a bra. I understand now what it must have felt like in the Holocaust, when people were just carrying out orders without asking questions," Orit said. She added that about 20 Israelis were brought into the interrogation room "and placed in a corner."
Orit said that the Israeli men in the group said that a Turkish policeman had apologized to the group, saying that he was given orders to detain the Israelis.
In Israel, the Foreign Ministry said in response to the reports that the incident was being investigated, and that the Turkish Foreign Ministry told Israel that no order had been given to detain and question the Israeli passengers, and that the government was not even aware of the incident. Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said that an incident of this nature has never previously been known to occur to Israeli travelers in Turkey.
The Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv said it was looking into the incident. The embassy added that 40 Turkish tourists had been mistreated and humiliated by Israeli airport security officials on Sunday night. The Israeli Interior Ministry rejected the accusation, saying that no Turks have been denied entry into Ben-Gurion airport or detained for questioning in the past few years, spokeswoman Sabene Hadad said.
Unconfirmed Turkish media reports Monday said that a group of 50 Turkish tourists who had landed in Israel Sunday night were detained at Ben-Gurion airport and interrogated. Several Turkish media outlets said this incident is what led to the "Turkish retaliation" at Istanbul airport.
One passenger told the Turkish newspaper Haber Kapital that he and his friend were separated from one another at the Israeli airport and were forced to wait a long time before they were released. He said authorities asked him questions about his family and repeatedly searched his luggage. The Turkish passenger also said he was forced to enter a room and was asked by Israeli security officers to strip down to his underwear. When he refused to remove his pants, the officers told him we would not be able to fly home. The passenger said only Turks were made to enter the private rooms, and Muslim women were also asked to strip.
Two other Turkish passengers, apparently of Jewish descent, were also verbally abused by security officers, according to Haber Kapital. Another passenger said everything down to his socks was searched. The passenger said he was told that he may be hiding explosives in his underwear.
The airport incidents come after Turkish-Israeli tensions reached a peak last week when Turkey downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel to the lowest possible level, calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and canceling all military agreements with Israel.
The announcement came on the heels of the U.N. report into the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident.
The report backed Israel's legal right to impose a naval blockade on Gaza, but said Israeli commandos used "excessive and unacceptable force" when they commandeered the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the Gaza-bound flotilla, in international waters. The report slammed Turkey for not doing enough to ward off the deadly confrontation at sea. Turkey has rejected the report's conclusions and is sticking to its demand that Israel apologize for the incident, which left nine of its citizens dead, and compensate the victims' families.
Israeli tourists no longer visit Turkey
As a by-product of the faltering relations between Israel and Turkey, Israeli tourists have all but avoided Turkey in recent months. While business-related visits have continued, leisure-related tours have slacked off.
Yehuda Zafrani, deputy chief executive officer of Ofir Tours, is optimistic about Israeli tourists returning to Turkey for the upcoming Jewish holiday season. "We are not talking about returning to the levels of 2008, when more than half a million Israelis visited Turkey each year," Zafrani said. "We are talking now only about 150,000."
