Reaction Against Israel Growing

Political parties, professional chambers, Non-Governmental Organizations are out at streets protesting Israel's attacks on Palestine and Lebanon with demands ranging from a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders to Ankara's unilateral termination of agreements with the USA and Israel.

Ozgur University Chair Fikret Baskaya, Human Rights Association (IHD) chairman Yusuf Alatas, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV) Chairman Yavuz Onen, Association for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER) chairman Ayhan Bilgen and Ismail Besikci and Aydin Cubukcu of the Contemporary Jurists Association (CHD) issued a joint communiqué on Tuesday calling on Israel to immediately end its attacks and for the Turkish government to support the Palestinian people.

"Israel should end its colonialist expansion" said the statement. "It should withdraw to its 1967 borders. The Palestinian ministers and cabinet members should be released. The self-determination right of the Palestinian people should be granted. Everyone should do whatever is in their means to lead to a lasting peace in the region".

BEKSAV protests with film screening

The Foundation of Science Education Aesthetic Culture Art Research (BEKSAV) is organizing its own protest of the Israeli attacks by holding a public film screening event on the night of July 21 in front of Israeli consulate.

BEKSAV, which has called on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to urgently withdraw from the tripartite US-Israel-Turkey strategic agreement will be screening a film on the Palestinian intifada or uprising.

EMEP rallies against US-Israel

The Labour Party (EMEP) Istanbul Provincial Organization, meanwhile, is holding a public rally at Istanbul's Kadikoy Square on the Anatolian side of the city on Sunday, July 23. The meeting is to be held under the banner "End USA-Israel Tyranny, Don't let Palestine Cry".

EMEP Istanbul Provincial Chairman Memet Kilincaslan is appealing to supporters in the city to attend the event which, he says, "is to say no to the tyranny carried out as result of the USA's Expanded Middle East Project to seize all energy resources with petroleum at top of the list and to subjugate the people".

IKP and SDP react

The Workers Brotherhood Party (IKP) has issued a statement and called on AKP and main opposition Republic Peoples Party (CHP) deputies who are members of the friendship with Israel and USA group in Parliament to resign from that group and join the Palestine Friendship Group.

Saying that "the Turkey-Israel-USA pact is behind Israel", Turkey's Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) deputy chair Gulseren Pusatlioglu has made an appeal to the government on behalf of her party for Turkey to unilaterally terminate all military agreements with Israel.

Pusatlioglu claimed that President Ahmet Necdet Sezer's visit to Palestine and his failure to meet with any official from the Palestinian government showed the state openly "supported the arrest of Palestinian ministers by Israel and its subsequent attempt at genocide". Her party, she added, protested Turkish state officials including the President.

TMMOB: We can't watch on

"We can't watch on as observers" said Turkish Engineers and Architects Chambers Union (TMMOB) Executive Board chairman Mehmet Soganci while condemning the attacks.

"TMMOB is calling all concerned people, labour and professional organizations, all political parties and structures that support labour and humanity to stand beside the aggrieved people of the Middle East and be on their side" he said.

Mass organizations march in Istanbul

Turkey's democratic mass organizations joined in the protests of Israel's attacks with a "solidarity with Palestinian people" rally held in Taksim, Istanbul, this week marching to the Dolmabahce seaside zone where 38 years ago demonstrators chased off the American 6th Fleet.

"Everywhere is Palestine, we are all Palestinians" the demonstrators shouted under slogans against Zionism and in support of the Palestinian intifada and the Iraq resistance. (EZO/AD/II/YE)