Israeli-Turkish Relations Nosedive Again Following Erdogan’s Threat to ‘Send Netanyahu to Allah’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressing a pro-Hamas rally in Istanbul. Photo: Reuters/Dilara Senkaya
Turkey’s foreign ministry issued a furious condemnation of Israel on Friday as it responded to a dressing-down of Ankara’s ambassador in Tel Aviv by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
Katz had summoned the Turkish envoy, Şakir Özkan Torunlar, to lodge a protest against an election rally speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday in which he threatened to “send [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable and curse him.”
Erdogan’s latest salvo against Netanyahu was one more example of his increasingly inflammatory denunciations of Israel since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7. Erdogan has yet to condemn the slaughter, during which more than 1,200 people were murdered and over 200 taken hostage amid atrocities that included mass rape, while constantly aiming barbs at Israel — among them the statement that Netanyahu is “worse than Hitler.” He has also lauded Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters,” declaring earlier this month that “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.”
In a post on X/Twitter following his meeting with Torunlar, Katz pulled no punches. Referring to “Erdogan’s serious attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his threats to send PM Netanyahu to Allah,” Katz declared: “You who support the burning of babies, murderers, rapists and the mutilation of corpses by Hamas criminals, [are] the last one who can speak about God. There is no God who will listen to those who support the atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by your barbaric Hamas friends.”
Katz then exhorted: “Be quiet and shame on you!”
In its reply to Katz, the Turkish foreign ministry rejected the criticism entirely, suggesting in the opening sentence of its statement that Israel has been built upon “occupied” Palestinian land since its creation.
“Since the first day they occupied Palestinian lands, the Israeli authorities have made a great effort to keep the serious crimes they committed against the Palestinians secret, and have tried to create an armor of immunity for themselves,” the statement claimed. “They have targeted our President, who screams the truth.”
The statement went to accuse Israel of committing “genocide” in its current war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, claiming that the “entire world public opinion is eagerly awaiting the day when Israeli officials who committed crimes will be brought to justice.”
Erdogan’s attack on Netanyahu came in the same week that he threatened to intensify Turkish military operations against Kurdish fighters across the border in Iraq, pledging to create a “security corridor” that would “give new nightmares to those who think that they will bring Turkey to its knees with a ‘Terroristan’ along its southern borders.”
One Kurdish opposition politician highlighted Erdogan’s equation of the Kurdish people — who number 25 million and have been consistently denied the right of national self-determination — with “terrorism” with alarm.
“Erdogan’s policy during the election campaign is as follows: he conducts his campaign using the word and concept ‘terroristan’ for Kurds and the region where the Kurdish people live,” Tulay Hatimogullari, co-chair of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, observed in a speech earlier this week to mark the Kurdish New Year.
“The geography where the Kurdish people live, the geography where peoples live, is not ‘terroristan,’ it is Kurdistan,” she added.
The post Israeli-Turkish Relations Nosedive Again Following Erdogan’s Threat to ‘Send Netanyahu to Allah’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.