Israeli Airline Office Attacked During Herzog’s Turkey Visit

Demonstrators shouting anti-Semitic slogans attacked an Israeli airline office Thursday as Israel’s president was visiting a historic synagogue, police said.

There were no injuries, and two demonstrators were arrested, police said. Nearly 100 demonstrators shouting “Down with Israel!” and “Jew go home!” hurled rocks and shattered the windows of the El Al airline office in mid-town Istanbul, state radio said.

El Al officials said that the airline operated from the airport and that the mid-town office had been closed for some time.

During the attack, President Chaim Herzog was making a speech at Istanbul’s oldest synagogue, the Neve Shalom, which is in a different part of the city.

The synagogue, whose name means Oasis of Peace, was the site of a 1986 attack by two gunmen that claimed 22 Jewish lives.

Several groups claimed responsibility for that attack. But although Abu Nidal terrorists were widely suspected, no one was ever arrested.

“If contemporary anti-Semitic violence has touched you . . . very different aspects of Jewish history are gloriously interwoven in your existence,” Herzog told about 300 members of Turkey’s Jewish community at the synagogue.

The 1986 assault was a rare act of hostility toward Jews in Turkey, who have enjoyed five centuries of peaceful coexistence here since their ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492.

Herzog flew in Wednesday night to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Jews’ arrival in this country after the expulsion.

Herzog, wearing a white skullcap, said his visit is an important sequel to a ceremony of reconciliation he had performed with Spain’s King Juan Carlos I earlier this year.

No Israeli president had previously visited this Muslim but secular country, which has tried to balance its relations with the Jewish state and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Turkey, a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, upgraded the Israeli and PLO diplomatic missions to full embassy status last year. About 100,000 Turkish Jews live in Israel.

Istanbul has 16 synagogues serving 20,000 Jews. About 5,000 Jews live elsewhere in Turkey.