“I will say it clearly: Israel is a terrorist state,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his party in the Turkish parliament two days before his visit to Germany.
“We curse the Israeli government, but we do not forget those who openly support these massacres and those who do everything possible to legitimize them,” he added, referring to the United States and other Western countries that support Israel support. “They are trying to exonerate the murderers,” denounced the Turkish president. “We are facing genocide.”
The German Chancellor on Tuesday described as “absurd” the Turkish president’s recent accusations of “fascism” against Israel, which has been at war with Hamas since October 7.
On Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Mr. Erdogan’s comments. “Erdogan calls Israel a terrorist state, but in reality he supports the terrorist state Hamas. He himself bombed Turkish villages, even within Turkish borders. We will not accept any comments from him,” the Israeli leader said.
“His own fascism”
On Friday, Mr. Erdogan launched a diatribe against Israel, which he said has “tried for 75 years to build a state on land stolen from the Palestinian people” and whose legitimacy is “questioned because of its own fascism.”
The Turkish head of state delivered a speech during a commemoration of the 75th death anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey.
These statements caused great uproar, particularly in Germany, where Israel’s existence is viewed as a “reason of state” given Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust.
Passionate Muslim and defender of the Palestinian cause
After this visit to Berlin, the first since 2020, Erdogan will travel to Egypt in the coming weeks and then receive the Iranian president.
An ardent Muslim and supporter of the Palestinian cause, the Turkish president took up the cause of Hamas as the number of Palestinian casualties in the Gaza Strip increased due to Israeli retaliation after the Islamist movement’s deadly attack on October 7 that left 1,200 people dead Israel mostly civilians.
According to the Hamas government, at least 11,500 Palestinians, again mostly civilians, have been killed in bomb attacks since the start of the war.