Turkey may be constrained by necessity to make nice with Israel at the moment, but they continue to ensure that the only Jewish nation is aware that Turkey is a leader of the Master Religion. They still remember the days when Mark Twain described small boys stoning a Jew who was forbidden by law to defend himself.
[IsraelTimes] Lawyer for Acre resident says he’s heading back to Israel after being held for over a month, won’t be allowed back in ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
The man, an Acre resident who was not been named publicly, was arrested in August after airport officials in Antalya found an ornamental bell in his luggage, accusing him of attempting to smuggle an antiquity out of the country.
In his defense, the man showed a receipt for his purchase of the $100 item from a local market and said he was under the impression it was mass-produced.
As part of efforts to secure his freedom, his family also presented security camera footage of him buying the bell while vacationing with his wife and children.
Under the conditions of his release, the man was permitted to return to Israel on Thursday but barred from again entering Turkey.
"I am happy that the mission was completed and my client is on the way to Israel," his lawyer Nir Yaslovitz said in a statement quoted by the Walla news site.
Yaslovitz thanked President Isaac Herzog and the Foreign Ministry for helping lobby for the man’s release.
In 2021, an Israeli couple was detained for a week by
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...in Istanbul. The couple was released following extensive diplomatic efforts.
At the time, the release of the couple was complicated by longstanding tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem.
Relations have since warmed. Last year, Herzog met with Erdogan in Turkey, and then-prime minister Yair Lapid met with Erdogan in New York in the fall.
A planned trip of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with Erdogan in Turkey, which would have been a first since 2006, was postponed following the premier’s pacemaker implantation surgery.
The two are now set to meet next week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Israeli sources told The Times of Israel on Thursday.