President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a discredit to Turkey and a destabilizing force in the Middle East.
Unable to restrain himself, he regularly descends into rants unworthy of his office. And being an Islamist and an ardent champion of the Palestinian cause, he reserves his most outrageous vitriol for his nemesis, Israel.
Erdogan has been hurling verbal abuse at Israel since the first cross-border Gaza war in 2008-2009 and particularly since the 2010 Mavi Marvara incident, during which Israeli commandos killed ten Turks aboard a Turkish vessel brazenly attempting to break Israel’s justifiable naval siege of the Gaza Strip.
But ever since Hamas hordes invaded Israel on October 7, killing roughly 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 Israelis and foreign nationals, Erdogan has stepped up his attacks on Israel.
In the latest example of his wild and unpredictable rhetoric, he left the highly disturbing and dangerous impression that Turkey, in defence of Palestinian rights, might well attack and invade Israel.
Speaking to acolytes recently, he suggested that Turkish forces, having provided military support to Azerbaijan in Nagorn0-Karabakh and to Libya during its civil war, could well help the Palestinians. “Just as we entered Nagorno, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them,” he said in an obvious reference to Israel. “There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”
The very suggestion that Turkey, the only Muslim member state of NATO, would even contemplate such a drastic, inconceivable and stupid course of action boggles the imagination and potentially destabilizes a region that is already reeling under the weight of the Israel-Hamas war and facing a potential regional war pitting Israel against Hezbollah, other Iranian proxies and, perhaps, Iran itself.
Incredibly enough, this was not the first time that Erdogan raised the far-fetched possibility that Turkey and Israel might be at war.
On May 15, nearly two weeks after Turkey stopped all exports and imports to and from Israel, he claimed in a silly comment that Israel planned to “set its sights” on Turkey if it defeated Hamas in the current war in Gaza.
“Do not think that Israel will stop in Gaza,” he declared in the Turkish parliament. “Unless it’s stopped … this rogue and terrorist state will set its sights on Anatolia sooner or later.” He was, of course, alluding to a region of Turkey comprising more than half of its land mass.
During the course of that inflammatory speech, Erdogan reiterated his support of Hamas, which has been labelled as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and other Western countries. “We will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its own land and which defends Anatolia,” he said, in an unmistakable sign of his esteem for that vicious Islamic fundamentalist outfit.
Erdogan supports Hamas despite its murderous methods and its vehement opposition to a two-state solution, which Turkey vocally endorses and promotes. Yet these yawning discrepancies are absolutely of no concern to Erdogan, who has described Hamas as a “liberation group” and who clearly places a much higher value on Turkey’s relationship with Hamas than with its connection to Israel. In Erdogan’s world, ideological considerations are of more importance than practical necessities.
Under Erdogan’s misguided direction, Turkey has downgraded its ties with Israel no less than three times since the Mavi Marmara affair. Turkey withdrew its ambassador in Tel Aviv in 2010, 2018 and 2023, all in an ostentatious show of support for Hamas and the Palestinians. This past April, when Erdogan met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Ankara, he urged Palestinians to close ranks and unite against Israel.
Turkey normalized its ties with Israel in 2022, inspiring hope that Erdogan might finally treat Israel as a friendly nation rather than as a pariah or enemy. But since October 7, he has returned to his usual antics. He recalled Turkey’s ambassador in Israel. He severed commercial ties with Israel in violation of free trade agreements dating back to the 1990s. And he likened Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and Israel to the Nazis.
Yesterday, Erdogan’s obedient lapdog, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, claimed on X that Erdogan has become “the voice of humanity’s conscience.” As he put it, “Those who seek to silence this just voice, especially international Zionist circles, including Israel, are in a state of great panic.” And in a loathsome and clumsy attempt to conflate Nazi Germany with Israel, Fidan wrote, “History has ended the same way for all genocidal perpetrators and their supporters.”
This is an erroneous and preposterous analogy that only an ignoramus would make. But should we be surprised? The resounding answer is no. Turkey, under the sway of Erdogan, has degenerated into a belligerent nation hostile to Israel and an embarrassment to the NATO alliance.
Yesterday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz urged NATO to condemn and expel Turkey, a proposition that should be mulled at NATO headquarters.
Despite Erdogan’s insults and threats, Israel should exert every effort to maintain cordial relations with Turkey, an important country geopolitically and economically. But this pragmatic objective will likely remain out of reach as long as he and his political party rule Turkey.