Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared “some” Israeli leaders to Adolf Hitler in response to the passage of Israeli legislation defining the nation as a Jewish state.
“The soul of Hitler that dragged the world into a disaster has revived among some of Israel’s rulers,” Erdogan told Turkish lawmakers.
The attack was the latest denunciation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government by Erdogan, president of a NATO country who has sought to position himself as an international Muslim leader and routinely denounces Israel. Netanyahu mocked Erdogan’s charges by noting the Turkish leader’s authoritarian lurch.
“Erdogan is massacring Syrians and Kurds and has jailed tens of thousands of his citizens,” Netanyahu tweeted. “Turkey, under Erdogan’s rule, is becoming a dark dictatorship whereas Israel scrupulously maintains equal rights for all its citizens, both before and after introducing this law.”
Erdogan also revived his calls for an international pressure campaign against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, in the midst of clashes following the death of an Israeli soldier last week.
“I call on the Islamic world, Christian world, all democratic and liberal states, nongovernmental organizations and members of the media to move against Israel,” Erdogan said, according to the Daily Sabah.
“The real grievous thing is that the world has come to ignore the thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel and the Palestinians who have been injured. But almost everybody has taken action for a single Israeli soldier who has lost his life.”
That’s an apparent reference to an Israeli Defense Forces sergeant who was killed by a sniper in Gaza; the Israeli military retaliated by striking 60 Hamas targets.
“The IDF’s targets included weapon manufacturing sites, an entrance to a tunnel network, a factory used to produce materials for underground infrastructure, a UAV warehouse, military operations rooms, training facilities, and observation posts,” according to the IDF.
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