UPDATE: In the midst of writing this post, the Shabak (perhaps reading my e mail traffic!) decided to partially lift the gag order on this story. Israeli media may still not report the reason for Buyruk’s arrest, which I do below. Further, Israeli media now reports he was expelled from Israel and been put on a plane back to Turkey.
An Israeli security gag prohibits its media from reporting that a Turkish citizen, Orhan Buyruk, was arrested three weeks ago in Jerusalem. He had come on a Muslim religious pilgrimage as part of a Turkish tour group, who intended to visit the Haram al Sharif. Though Buyruk, who owned a travel-related company, had visited Israel in the past, this time he never made it out of Ben Gurion Airport. Shabak arrested him and determined him to be “an agent” according to one news report.
It is very common for Israeli security agents to demand from Arab and foreign travelers their social media passwords, which they use to examine the victim’s messages for political content. Shabak discovered Buyruk had an Iranian Facebook friend with whom he’s shared something about his visit to Israel:
[He was] accused of ‘being an agent for Iran and also giving information about Israel to an Iranian friend he had on his Facebook account.’
In a separate account offered by Prof. Louis Fishman, who speaks Turkish, he told me that Buyruk posted that he’d arrived in Israel on the day “the dog” Shimon Peres died and that he was going to Al Aqsa to offer thanks. That would certainly rile up a Shabak agent. You wouldn’t need any further reason to arrest someone and throw him in a cell than that–at least in Israel.
While there have been incidents in which Iranian intelligence agents reach out to selected foreign journalists hoping to advance Iranian interests abroad, it seems far-fetched that an Iranian spy would get any useful information from a Turkish tourist.
#Periscope‘ta CANLI: İsrail’in göz altına aldığı @orhanbuyruk ‘un ailesi ve arkadaşların İstanbul konsolosluğu önün… https://t.co/AZEKPR4aJc
— Necip Fazıl AKSOY (@NFAKSOY) October 14, 2016
Today, Turkish NGOs along with the victim’s family demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy. Israeli media reported on the protest but were forbidden from reporting about the reason for it, which I’ve done here.
The incident comes at a delicate time in Israeli-Turkish relations. They just resumed after six bitter years of squabbling over the Mavi Marmara massacre, which resulted in Israel paying a $20-million settlement to the victims; and permitting cosmetic changes to the Gaza siege. Further, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz just returned from a promising visit to Turkey during which he discussed with his Turkish counterpart a lucrative pipeline that could bring Israeli gas from the Mediterranean to Turkey and from there to Europe.
The pipeline could result in billions in revenue for the Israeli companies involved and the Turkish companies which would build the pipeline through their territory. Israel no doubt believes that drawing its Muslim neighbors into such commercial schemes will soften their resistance to Israeli policies such as the ongoing Occupation of Palestine. It sees economic incentives as trumping politics. But that mindset is precisely the one which was overthrown during the Arab Spring. Undoubtedly, there will come a time when peoples throughout the region will rebel against their overlords who sold out political principle for billions in a natural gas bonanza.
When there is money to be made on both sides, I seriously doubt either will permit the arrest of a Turkish citizen to mess up the party. I expect he will be released in the near future. If not, those protests in Turkey could turn far more nasty. I seriously doubt Bibi is prepared for that.
If social media platforms were smart they’d raise a stink about nations like Israel whose intelligence agencies use their content to harass and arrest their own citizens. This is even happening in somewhat modified form with U.S. police forces contracting with data collection firms to amass social media content which permits them to track political protests and protesters. Facebook and Twitter should stand firmly behind users who express themselves freely and legally on political topics. If they sit back and ignore this, then their platforms will rapidly lose value. So far, they’re doing a terrible job.
The moral is to delete your social media accounts if you’re Arab, Muslim, non-white, or progressive and plan on visiting Israel. If you don’t, don’t bring a laptop or any device which can access your accounts.
UPDATE: This week I published my first piece at The New Arab, the media site of Azmi Bishara. It offers the first semi official account by a former IDF intelligence officer of the Jericho missile series, which eventually produced Jericho III, Israel’s ICBM with which it can wipe out the Mideast and virtually the entire world. I hope you’ll give it a read and retweet and post to Facebook.
Israel released this guy after sixteen days, but Iran still refuses to release the Nahamis. Why?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-rejects-us-demand-for-release-of-dual-nationals/ar-AAj7ZhJ?li=BBnb7Kz
@ Lotta: Oh please! First, can’t you read? Their family name is Namazi, not Nahami. Second, your comment is off topic. If you post off topic again you may find your comment privileges restricted. Third, Buyruk was released because there are billions in gas revenue at stake & Bibi wasn’t about to jeopardize that over a stupid Facebook post. Fourth, so what if he called Shimon Peres a dog. I assure you that American citizens are calling the presidential candidates here far worse every day. They don’t get arrested for it. Fifth, the Iranian situation is far different than the Israeli one. In Iran, there is a schism between hardliners & moderates and the Namazis are caught in the middle as sacrificial victims.
I wrote a 6,000 word essay profiling the Daily Beast editor who helped put the Namazis in jail. I assure you I know far more than you about their predicament. I’m about to publish a new piece on their sentencing.
Don’t comment on things you don’t understand. It’s embarrassing.
It’s indeed a sad commentary that a proud nation like Iran can sacrifice innocent lives for no discernible reason.
What else are they capable of, I wonder?
That said, it’s no surprise that Israel is extremely sensitive to possible Iranian infiltration. She already has a battle hardened, first rate Iranian proxy army on her northern borders with Lebanon and Syria.
I did read your piece on the Daily Beast editor, but it failed to convince me of the editors culpability.
@ Whole Lotta Carlotta: It’s a sad commentary that a bunch of rotten apples like the Israeli government sacrifice innocent lives for no discernible reason. I don’t need to imagine what else it’s capable of. It demonstrates that with murderous intensity virtually every day.
It’s no surprise that Israel makes up threats out of whole cloth, including someone posting a FB message. They also have a 22 yr old female poet in administrative detention for a yr for nothing more than posting a poem to FB. I guess she’s been battle hardened by that first rate Iranian proxy army. Words are like bullets, right?
You see, this is what ratchets up opposition to Israel. When it goes nuts seeing threats in every tweet, the rest of the world escalates its own resistance to Israel. It’s a game of chicken to see who blinks first–or last. Israel doesn’t have an infinite amount of time.
So it was a total coincidence that Iranian police forbade Namazi from leaving Iran right after the first e-mails from Kowsar were sent to Namazi; and that they arrested him right after the Daily Beast article was published? If you believe this is all a coincidence I have a bridge to sell you and some beachfront property in Florida.
I’ve decided that you are a dim-witted troll. That means you’re boring me. Keep on your toes. Your flight is about to land at Ben Gurion…(in joke)
@Richard
Wasn’t her poem a paean to martyrdom, where she proclaimed her desire to become a shahida?
Didn’t she post her poem right in the middle of the latest intifada, when young men and women were attacking Jews with knives. Didn’t several 19 and 20 year old women pick up knives and attack or attempt to attack soldiers?
You make her sound like she’s some kind of Joyce Kilmer.
I think her arrest may have averted needless bloodshed.
@ Whole Lotta Carlotta: Why don’t you do some research and find out exactly what her poem said? Get us the original Arabic and a credible translation (NOT by MEMRI). Then we can talk. Till then, you’re just whistlin’ in the Zio-wind.
Actually, I ‘ve done the work for you since I knew you couldn’t be bothered.. Here is the poem:
It’s actually a beautiful poem. As for inciting violence, those who invite violence are the Israeli police state which imprisons poets for writing poems as powerful as this.
You are full of crap. A poet doesn’t provoke bloodshed. How many people did Mahmoud Darwish kill? Or Chaim Nachman Bialik? Or Solzhenitsyn? And you justify imprisoning writers to prevent them from creating art & literature?! I find you not just stupid, but downright offensive.
My finger is on the button as far as you’re concerned. I’m going to hold off banning you as long as I possibly can. But my patience only lasts so long. Buy that ticket for that flight to Ben Gurion. You’ll be on your way from here soon I’m afraid.
@Richard
Don’t be so fast on the trigger.
We seem to be talking about two completely different young women.
I was referring to Asmaa Hamdam.
https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/10/16/shabak-places-israeli-palestinian-woman-under-administrative-detention-for-text-message/
“They also have a 22 yr old female poet in administrative detention for a yr for nothing more than posting a poem to FB.”
You apparently are talking about Dareen Tarour.
‘Tarour had previously posted images of the infant Ali Dawabsheh and the teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, victims of Jewish terrorism, and had written below them, as she did beneath Abed’s photograph: “I am the next shahid” – or, martyr for the cause. Now Tatour explains that she meant that every Palestinian is liable to become the next victim. Israel decided, however, that her intent was to perpetrate a terrorist attack. She laughs at the idea. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720418 ”
As far as I know, Ms Tarour was placed under house arrest.
Kafkaesque? Yes. But also somewhat understandable from a security point of view.
@ Whole Lotta Carlotta: No, I was talking about Dareen Tatour. Asmaa Hamdan is not 22 years old as I wrote. She is 19. Asmaa never, as you claimed, called for killing anyone. She wrote a poem that could easily have stood in for one of Chaim Nachman Bialik’s wonderful poems supporting Jewish nationalism and acknowledging that Jews have had to martyr themselves.
As for Tatour. This is ludicrous. You & Shabak should take a poetry course. For a poet to feature poems of 2 Palestinian children who were murdered (yes, they too are considered shahids or martyrs) does not mean she herself wants to commit an act of terror. You can be a shahid as a victim, as the two pictures she displayed prove. In the English language a martyr is hardly ever a murderer or terrorist. It’s probably the same in Arabic. Though Deir Yassin & other can correct me if I’m wrong.
You are also wrong about Tatour’s status. She has been in administrative detention for a year. I think you owe Tatour and all of us an apology for spewing error here. As for “understandable,” not at all unless you’re a militant Jewish nationalist, which you appear to be.
Let’s also return to your pilgrimage to the Holy Land where you miraculously discovered a holy nail from Solomon’s Stables. Here is the project in which you participated, whose sponsor you curiously never revealed to us:
And you claimed that “Frankie” was an archaeologist??? Working with settlers attempting to make East Jerusalem Arab-rein? And that archaeology of this sort was a “science?” Really. I shoulda known it was a hoax, because that’s what you are. A Hasba-hoaxer.
@Richard
Here is ‘Frankie’, the archeologist, who told us that the nail we had found came from Solomon’s Stables.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/floor-tiles-found-in-holy-site-rubble-said-to-be-from-second-temple/
BTW, Richard. Solomon’s Stables were Crusader era, and I’m as thrilled to have found Knight’s Templar relics as I’d be if I’d found First Temple relics.
https://templemount.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/update-from-the-field-crusader-arrowhead/
The Sifting Project is the most interesting and fun excursion in Jerusalem for families. Try it!
@ Whole Lotta Carlotta: So this is Frankie Snyder:
The Temple Mount Sifting Project is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ethnic cleansing “NGO” Ir David dedicated to restoring the Holy Temple and destroying the Haram al Sharif. Frankie Snyder is labelled by this bogus outfit “an expert” on archaelogy but, lo & behold, even Ir David can’t assert any archaeology credentials. Instead, she has “academic background” (which means what precisely?) in mathematics & Judaic studies. Does she have a degree or not? And from whom? And even if she did, how does it grant her credentials in archaeology? Granted she may be a layperson with a passion for the subject. But if she is that, it is because of her nationalist ideology, which you share.
I think you’re a liar (or disingenous). You claim to be “as proud” of finding relics of the Christian Crusades as of the First Temple. That doesn’t even pass the smell test considering how fervent & ideologically extreme your own views are.
I have no interest in an archaeology driven by ideology–an ideology aimed to assert Judean supremacy in the Holy Land. So I think I’ll pass on your invitation.
But ‘Lotta’, you brought up your nails in the context of a Jewish claim to the ‘temple mount’ (BTW, I do not see a temple there do you?), and you believed them to validate this claim:
“BTW. I had the privilege of working for a day at the Temple Mount Sifting Project, and we found, among many other things, nails from the First Temple. That’s King Solomon’s Temple, in case you didn’t know.”
I find it hard to believe that you are “as thrilled to have found Knight’s Templar relics as I’d be if I’d found First Temple relics.”
:-), :-), :-)!
@Richard: Even if I complain about your moderation methods, or disagree with your opinions, I must admit that over time I have developed an appreciation for the tough job you have on keeping the discussion civil and on topic, especially if you want to personally respond to the comments. I imagine that without such strict moderation things would quickly degenerate into a nasty hate fest, particularly because people don’t actually know each other.
@ Yehuda: Thanks. Over the yrs I’ve found I had to keep a tight rein. Otherwise, as you said, things rapidly deteriorate.
I try to keep the discussion at a certain level so its substantive & doesn’t degenerate into too much name-calling, though it does happen from time to time.