Turkey again compares Netanyahu to Hitler, saying ‘genocidal’ leaders meet their end
Comments come after Erdogan appeared to threaten an invasion of Israel, prompting Foreign Minister Katz to liken him to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein: ‘Remember how that ended’
The Times of Israel
Jul 29, 2024
Erdogan (L) is much more like Hitler than Netanyahu
Hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to threaten to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians, Ankara’s Foreign Ministry compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in a Monday statement.
“Just as the end of the genocidal Hitler came, so too will be the end of the genocidal Netanyahu,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said, according to the state Anadolu news agency.
“Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, those who seek to destroy the Palestinians will also be held accountable,” read the statement. “Humanity will stand with the Palestinians. You will not be able to destroy the Palestinians.”
The comments were the latest in a series of comments over the years in which Ankara compared Israel to the Nazis and Netanyahu to Hitler.
Separately, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan wrote on X that “our president has become the voice of humanity’s conscience.”
“Those who seek to silence this just voice, especially international Zionist circles including Israel, are in a state of great panic,” he wrote. “History has ended the same way for all genocidal perpetrators and their supporters.”
On Sunday evening, Erdogan appeared to threaten an invasion of Israel to put an end to the nearly 10-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the terror group’s devastating October 7 attack.
Turkey must be “very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to the Palestinians,” the Turkish leader said of the war. “Just as we entered [Nagorno-]Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”
The remarks, delivered at a party meeting in Rize, were the latest in a series of inflammatory statements he has issued about Israel and Netanyahu in the months following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught, and subsequent war in Gaza.
In 2020, Turkey, under Erdogan’s direction, provided military support to Azerbaijan during a 44-day conflict sparked by a land dispute with Armenia and the breakaway territory of Artsakh, or the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turkish military did not intervene directly, and instead provided assistance, which included the deployment of Syrian mercenaries and a supply of drones.
Also in 2020, Turkey passed a one-year mandate to deploy troops to Libya in support of the United Nations-recognized Libyan government, as it fought a civil war.
As a member of NATO, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and other close allies of Israel, Erdogan would almost certainly face heavy opposition if he attempted to take military action over the war in Gaza.
He has been at odds with his Western allies in recent months, after accusing them several times of backing a supposed Israeli plan to intentionally “spread war” throughout the Middle East.
In response to Erdogan’s latest threat, Foreign Minister Israel Katz compared him to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose regime was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2003. He was later executed by an Iraqi court, after being captured and tried.
“Erdogan is going down the path of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. He should just remember what happened there and how that ended,” wrote Katz on X.
Erdogan and Netanyahu have a long history of public attacks on each other, which have ebbed and flowed alongside Israel and Turkey’s on-again, off-again alliance.
The attacks had halted as Jerusalem and Ankara ties warmed, but the détente seemingly fell apart as the war in Gaza continued.
In May, Erdogan announced that Turkey would halt all trade with Israel.
In recent months, Erdogan has gone as far as to suggest that Jerusalem would “set its sights” on Ankara once it has completed its stated goal of destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and freeing the hostages abducted by the Gazan terror group on October 7.
In a speech delivered in the Turkish parliament back in May, Erdogan told his party not to think “that Israel will stop in Gaza.”
“Unless it’s stopped… this rogue and terrorist state will set its sights on Anatolia sooner or later,” he said at the time, in a bizarre claim, and pledged that Turkey would “continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its own land.”
Since the war erupted with the October 7 terror assault in southern Israel, when Hamas killed some 1,200 people and abducted 251 others, the Turkish leader has met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul — where he encouraged Palestinians to unite against Israel, and has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and Netanyahu to Hitler.
In January, Katz hit back after Erdogan boasted of having submitted materials to help boost South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocide.
“The president of Turkey, the country that carried out the Armenian genocide and thought the world would shut up about it, is ‘proud’ today that he handed over to The Hague tribunal materials that accuse Israel of genocide,” Katz wrote on X.
“We heard you. We have not forgotten the Armenian holocaust and [Turkey’s] massacres of the Kurds. You are the real genocide perpetrators. We are defending ourselves from your barbarian friends,” he added.
Israel for decades has bucked Armenian pleas for Jerusalem to formally recognize the genocide perpetrated during the Ottoman Empire, not wanting to sour its ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan, which deny one took place.
No comments:
Post a Comment