Israel Protests Turkish TV Series About Palestine

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official rebuked Turkey's acting ambassador on Thursday over a Turkish television series that, among other things, appears to depict an Israeli soldier murdering a Palestinian child. Naor Gilon, deputy director for the Foreign Ministry's Western Europe desk, said he had told the Turkish envoy, Ceylan Ozen, that the television series was "incitement" that could set off attacks against Jews visiting Turkey. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later talked about his own concerns about the series and what it said about bilateral relations. The program's producer, Selcuk Cobanoglu, told Ynet, an Israeli news Web site, that the characters in his series did not represent Israelis. Cobanoglu acknowledged that the uniforms looked similar to Israeli uniforms. But he also said: "The Turkish and American militaries have uniforms like that as well. We love the people in Israel. We love the Israelis."