[El Gato]

I suspect not one American in a thousand would know that the name of that country is: Turkey.

Israel also is providing Turkey with upgrades to many of its weapons systems, most notably the F-4 Phantom and F-16s, but other systems also. Israel and Turkey have long standing good relations. Turkey's good relations with Jews go all the way back to when the Spanish kicked most Jews out of Spain, 1492 or thereabouts. Some of the earliest migrations of Jews back to Palistine came via Turkey and/or when Turkey controlled the area.

[PayrollOffice]

I've met lots of Turks, and none of them have been religious fanatics.

[Don Carlos]

Turkey's good relations with Jews go all the way back to when the Spanish kicked most Jews out of Spain, 1492 or thereabouts

My wife (who is Spanish) and I met some Spanish-speaking Turks in 1973 when we were stationed at Incirlik. Dont know if they were Jews or Islamic, the latter I thought, but it was a bizarre time. Speaking to Turks who spoke 15th century Spanish, handed down through the generations! Wild!

[anapikoros]

Turkey was dragged into the 20th Century by Kemal Ataturk.

Ataturk was openly anti-religous and professed to be an atheist. There is serious scholarship about him being a decendent of Crypto-Jews hence the reason for him not being a practicing Muslim.

What an irony - Turkey was saved from being stuck in the middle-ages by a Jew.