Newsletters
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), branded the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an "antisemitic dictator" who supports Hamas. In a tweet on June 10, Netanyahu argued that Erdogan was the last person who could lecture Israel on morality.
Conveniently for Netanyahu, he leaves out that it was Erdogan who freed the Israeli prisoners after he failed to do so.
As we have witnessed in many elections, the Israeli premier enjoys galvanizing his shrinking support base by publicly bashing the Turkish president. From that perspective, his recent statements are nothing new.
However, I strongly suspect that Netanyahu remembers how the Turkish president, with the support of regional allies, facilitated the release of Israeli prisoners by Hamas.
If it weren't for Erdogan, these prisoners would still be in the hands of Hamas, and consequently, Netanyahu would go into the elections without delivering on his primary war goal.
But I doubt Netanyahu will ever publicly acknowledge that his strategy in the Gaza Strip failed miserably. He couldn’t rescue the prisoners; he couldn’t eliminate Hamas, and Palestinians remain in the Gaza Strip.
He will continue to label the release of the prisoners as his sole victory and conveniently leave out Erdogan's rule.
While it can be understood why Netanyahu doesn’t like talking about the Turkish president's decisive role, his rhetoric of accusing him of being an antisemitic dictator is ungrateful to say the least.
If Erdogan is antisemitic, why has Netanyahu agreed to a deal brokered by Erdogan himself? Where was the Israeli criticism of the Turkish president regarding Türkiye’s relationship with Hamas when he convinced Hamas to release the prisoners?
Israel cannot have it both ways.
In his statements, Netanyahu also accuses Erdogan of committing a genocide against Kurds.
The accusation of committing genocide against Kurds against a president whose deputy, foreign minister, and economy minister are Kurdish doesn’t deserve a proper answer.
Putting aside the blatant irony of Netanyahu, who has an arrest warrant for committing genocide, making this accusation, his talking points are outdated.
He urgently needs better advisers who are up-to-date. We are no longer at the height of military escalation when Türkiye launched Operation Peace Spring against the PKK’s Syrian branch in 2019.
Türkiye is at a historic juncture where the Kurdish PKK terrorist organization has agreed to dissolve itself, its Syrian branch is integrating into the Syrian state, and Turkish domestic politics is slowly but steadily progressing toward ending the highly problematic PKK chapter in Turkish-Kurdish relations.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
2 min read
1 min read
