Jews have become the main object of hate speech in Turkey, followed by Armenians, Christians, and Greeks, according to a periodic report on hate speech in Turkish media, released by the country’s Hrant Dink Foundation.

The study was conducted by scanning 16 newspapers by hand and searching for key words in 1,000 national and local newspapers published between September and December 2012.

Relations between Israel and Turkey became increasingly hostile following the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident in 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the vessel in an attempt to prevent IHH terror activists from running Israel’s blockade of Gaza and endangering the country’s national security. The incident resulted in the death of nine Turks, including one American citizen after the commandos acted in self-defense when the terrorists knifed, shot and kidnapped several Israeli soldiers.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan elicited Jewish and international condemnations after he charged that Zionism is “a crime against humanity,” lumping it together with racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

“We witness very frequently the alienation of the ‘other’ in various countries instead of efforts to understand the culture and beliefs of the ‘other,’” Erdogan said at the opening session of the fifth UN Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna.

“Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity,” he alleged.