ANKARA, Turkey--At the last count, and how tragic it is to count in this way, two synagogues, a British bank and the British Consulate General have been bombed in Istanbul, with much loss of life--Turkish-Muslim, Turkish-Jewish and British. And tragic it is, too, that some commentary has implied that somehow the Turks are to blame, for being anti-Semitic or anti-Western deep down. In short, that they are to blame for their misfortunes. This kind of calumny should have a familiar ring to American ears after 9/11. Such views can accrue against the balance of truth and dig roots in world opinion. So let us set the record straight.

What is behind the bombing of synagogues in Istanbul? It is not as if there is any overt anti-Semitism in Turkey, nor was there any in the former Ottoman Empire. Empires could not afford to be anti-Semitic; their Jews were too useful. The Turks, an imperial people, took in hundreds of thousands of Jews at quite an early date-- 1520--when they were being expelled from Spain. The then sultan said: Has the king of Spain gone out of his mind? The Turks gave these Jews refuge (they still, in the oldest generation, speak Ladino, which bears the same relationship to Spanish as Yiddish to German) and did very well out of them, just as England did. To this day, while there is often a sort of ritual Muslim muttering against Israel, there is no serious anti-Semitism applied to businesses or people, and the Jews of Turkish origin, living in Israel, are quite good allies of Turkey. For instance, when the Armenian diaspora (quite counterproductively, in my opinion) tries to blame today's Turks for massacres back in 1915, the Israeli Turks come to Turkey's defense, saying, entirely accurately, that what happened then was the outcome of a civil war. The alliance of Israel and Turkey makes a great deal of sense on the Near Eastern ground, and there simply is no evidence of anti-Semitism on the street. The area of Istanbul--Galata--in which I bought an apartment (once Jewish-owned) was very heavily Jewish, and there are two famous synagogues nearby, one of them the target of the bombers. The shopkeepers round about are migrants, mainly from the Black Sea coast. Signs of overt anti-Semitism? None. The elderly Jews are simply part of the landscape. The only problem is that the main brothel of Istanbul--to which I can see, from my balcony, sheepish young men plodding--is too close to one of the synagogues. There are regular complaints, but the owner, a formidable Armenian woman, defies them, saying she pays more taxes than anyone else in the country...