Several hundred protesters gathered outside of the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday to oppose Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria.
The protesters, who represented most of the local political spectrum, shouted slogans against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and called on U.S. President Donald Trump to cancel the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.
The Turkish military and allied Syrian rebel factions launched “Operation Peace Spring” on Oct. 9. According to Erdoğan, the operation’s aim is “to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border and to bring peace to the area.”
Yaya Fink, a major in the Israel Defense Forces’ reserves, initiated the demonstration on behalf of the Kurds.
“The commandment ‘Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s life is threatened’ [Leviticus 19:16] requires us, as Israelis and Jews, not to be silent when another people is at risk of being wiped out,” said Fink.
“The abandonment of the Kurdish people is a moral and strategic wrong, and we are urging the leaders of the Western world to take urgent action to ensure the safety of the Kurds and the other minorities who live in northern Syria,” he stressed.
“We also expect the Israeli government to provide the Kurdish forces with humanitarian aid and act on the phrase, ‘Peace, peace to the far and to the near [Isaiah 57:19],’ ” he added.
The demonstrators waved Israeli and Kurdish flags, and carried placards condemning the Turkish action. After the demonstration outside the embassy, the activists set out for the branch office of the U.S. embassy to continue their protest there.
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.
