A war of words has broken out between Israel and Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened his country could intervene militarily in Israel’s war on Gaza.
Turkish and Israeli officials unleashed barbs at one another on Sunday and Monday after Erdogan said in a speech on Sunday that “there is no reason” that Turkey could not act, noting military interventions made in the past in other countries.
While crude rhetoric between the two countries has been regular amid the war in Gaza, the threats and insults come as fears of a wider escalation rise once again.
Shortly after Erdogan’s speech, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X that the Turkish president was “following in the footsteps” of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by threatening to attack Israel.
“Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” he wrote in reference to the Iraqi president’s infamous 2003 capture by United States forces while hiding in a hole in the ground near a farmhouse in Tikrit. Hussein was later executed.
In retaliation, Turkey – not for the first time – compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
“Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu,” said the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, so will those who try to destroy the Palestinians,” the post continued. “Humanity will stand by the Palestinians. You will not be able to destroy the Palestinians.”
‘Humanity’s conscience’
Erdogan, who has consistently issued strong rhetoric during Israel’s 10-month war in Gaza, made the suggestion that Turkey could intervene militarily in a speech to his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party on Sunday.
“We need to be very strong so that Israel cannot do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we can do something similar to them,” he said.
Turkey, which backs the Tripoli-based government of Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, in 2020 sent soldiers to the fractured North African country to support its United Nations-backed administration.
In the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which Ankara ally Azerbaijan has fought for decades against Armenia, Turkey has denied engaging in any direct military operations.
But it has pledged support for Azerbaijan with “all means”, which has included military training and modernisation, along with the provision of advanced combat drones and other military equipment.
In a post on X on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan boasted that Erdogan “has become the voice of humanity’s conscience”.
“International Zionist circles, especially Israel, who want to suppress this righteous voice, are in great alarm,” he wrote. “History ended the same way for all genociders and their supporters.”
Turkey restricted some exports to Israel in April – six months into the war on Gaza – and said it halted trade with Israel altogether in early May.
Israel said it would scrap the country’s free trade agreement with Turkey in retaliation, with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signalling the move is reversible when Erdogan is replaced by a leader who is “sane and not a hater of Israel”.