BY ALL MEANS, KICK TURKEY OUT OF NATO FORTHWITH

Israeli foreign minister urges NATO to expel Turkey after Erdogan threatened to invade Israel

Katz accuses Ankara of joining ‘Iranian axis of evil’ after president said his country must show Israel how strong it is

 

The Times of Israel

Jul 29, 2024

 

Foreign Minister Israel Katz

 

Israel’s foreign minister urged NATO to expel Turkey on Monday after its President Tayyip Erdogan threatened that his country might enter Israel, as it had entered Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.

“In light of Turkish President Erdogan’s threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Israel Katz instructed diplomats… to urgently engage with all NATO members, calling for the condemnation of Turkey and demanding its expulsion from the regional alliance,” the ministry said.

Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, said in a speech on Sunday: “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them.”

He did not spell out what sort of intervention he was suggesting.

“Erdogan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatening to attack Israel. He should remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz said in a statement later Sunday in response.

“Turkey, which hosts the Hamas headquarters responsible for terrorist attacks against Israel, has become a member of the Iranian axis of evil, alongside Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen,” he said.

 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (R) hugs Hamas senior official Khaled Meshaal as Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, looks on during a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, April 20, 2024.

 

While they were once close regional allies, relations between Israel and Turkey have been deteriorating for more than a decade.

Bilateral trade weathered many diplomatic storms, reaching billions of dollars a year, but Turkey in May said it would halt all bilateral trade with Israel until the Israel-Hamas war ends and aid can flow unhindered into Gaza.

The war in Gaza began on October 7, with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 331.