Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday over his brutal campaign on Gaza, saying the Israeli leader is similar to Adolf 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 added.
Netanyahu fired back at Erdogan and accused the Turkish leader of committing genocide against the Kurds. Ankara has been at war with Kurdish insurgent groups seeking autonomy who are based in southeast Turkey, northern Syria, and northern Iraq for decades. According to Reuters, the conflict with the main insurgent group, the PKK, has killed over 40,000 people since the 1980s.
“Erdogan, who is committing genocide against the Kurds and who holds the world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his regime, is the last person who can preach morality to us,” Netanyahu said.
While criticizing Erdogan for imprisoning journalists, Netanyahu’s campaign in Gaza has been the most devastating war for journalists in recorded history. More than 60 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 7.
Netanyahu also claimed that the Israeli Defense Forces, which has killed over 8,000 children in Gaza so far, is the most “moral army in the world.” He said the IDF was fighting “to eliminate the most abhorrent and brutal terrorist organization in the world.”
Turkey and Israel were recently on the same side in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended with Azerbaijan ethnically cleansing the enclave of over 100,000 Armenians. Turkey openly supported the Azeri attack on the now-defunct Republic of Artsakh, and Israel quietly supplied weapons to Azerbaijan ahead of the assault, which took place in September.
Photo: Erdogan’s remarks come as Turkey ratchets up criticism of Israel over the Gaza attacks © Brendan McDermid / Reuters.
Source: AntiWar.
