Staff Reporter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, likening Israel’s assault on Gaza to Nazi Germany’s killing of Jews.
In remarks at an awards ceremony in capital Ankara on Wednesday, Erdogan asked what difference there was between Netanyahu and Hitler.
“They used to speak ill of Hitler. What difference do you have from Hitler? They are going to make us miss Hitler. Is what this Netanyahu is doing any less than what Hitler did? It is not,” Erdogan said.
“He is richer than Hitler, he gets the support from the West. All sorts of support comes from the United States. And what did they do with all this support? They killed more than 20,000 Gazans,” he said.
Erdogan’s criticism of Israel amid the present conflict has significantly increased. Additionally, he has declared that Hamas is not a terrorist group.
After Erdogan charged Israel with war crimes in October, Israel withdrew its diplomats from Turkey. Later on, Israel’s ambassador was also called back by Turkey.
Before Erdogan took office, Israel was a longstanding regional friend of Turkey. However, relations soured following an Israeli commando raid in 2010 on the Mavi Marmara, a ship that was headed for Gaza as part of a flotilla that was breaking up blockades, which resulted in the deaths of ten Turkish activists who had fought IDF soldiers on board.
Since then, there have been ups and downs in the two countries’ relations.
Under Hitler’s rule, Nazi Germany embarked on an effort to systematically eliminate European Jews, killing six million through death and labour camps, mass shootings, and a variety of other methods.
Despite such firm criticism, Turkey has maintained commercial ties with Israel throughout its nearly three-month assault on Gaza in a “genocidal” campaign that has killed more than 21,000 people, wounded 55,000 others and displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population.
Erdogan and Netanyahu had their first in late September in New York, where they explored potential areas of collaboration between Turkey and Israel. Simultaneously, Turkey has close relations to Hamas, the terrorist organisation responsible for the horrific October 7 attack that claimed the lives of almost 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped and held captive 240 more in Gaza.
Source: Fullview and News Agencies.