“Erdogan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatening to attack Israel. He should just remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote late in the evening on the X platform.
In 2003, US troops invaded Iraq. The military operation led to the overthrow of the then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Three years later, Hussein was executed for massacres of Kurds and Shiites.
Erdogan had threatened Israel with military intervention. “Just as we went into Nagorno-Karabakh, just as we went into Libya, we will do the same to them,” Erdogan said at an event organized by his ruling AKP party in Rize on the Black Sea, referring to Israel.
He was referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where Erdogan supported the conflicting party Azerbaijan with drones, among other things. In the civil war-torn country of Libya, Ankara supports the internationally recognized government with military equipment and personnel.
In his speech, Erdogan praised the progress made in Turkey’s defense industry and continued: “We have to be very strong so that Israel cannot do these ridiculous things in Palestine,” Erdogan said.
Relationships have deteriorated dramatically
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated drastically. Erdogan described the Islamist Hamas as a “liberation organization” and compared Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. In mid-July, Erdogan declared that his country would no longer agree to cooperation between NATO and its partner Israel until a lasting peace was established in the Palestinian territories.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement on Monday night of being responsible for genocide – and again drew a comparison: “The end of the genocidal Netanyahu will be like the end of the genocidal Hitler. Just as the genocidal Nazis were brought to justice, those who try to destroy the Palestinians will also be brought to justice.”
This article was updated at 11:02 am.