A Turkish diplomat told an Israeli diplomat that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s use of harsh rhetoric against Israel due to its ongoing war on Gaza was due to political considerations in the local elections and that Turkey actually wants to improve relations with the country, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing the Israeli Maariv newspaper.
A Turkish deputy ambassador to Israel whose name was not revealed told Jacob Blitstein, the director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, that “Erdogan’s harsh rhetoric against Israel stems from Erdogan’s political considerations in the local elections in Turkey.”
Turkey held local elections on Sunday which ended with the worst defeat suffered by Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) since its establishment in 2001. The AKP not only lost the vote in some of its previous strongholds but also suffered a decline in its vote across the country, which led to its place as the second party in the election.
The exchange reported by Maariv took place last week when the deputy ambassador of Turkey was summoned by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz due to the outrage caused by Erdoğan’s remarks about Netanyahu.
Erdoğan, who long marketed himself in the Muslim world as the champion of Palestinian rights and a strong critic of Israel, has repeatedly accused Israel of being a “terrorist state” and committing “genocide” in Gaza due to Israel’s ongoing attacks on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
In his latest remarks that angered the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Erdoğan said, “[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his administration, with their crimes against humanity in Gaza, are writing their names next to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, like today’s Nazis.”
“We entrust the person known as Netanyahu to our Lord by the glorious name of Qahhar [The Vanquisher, The Subduer, one of the names of God in Islam]. May our Lord destroy and annihilate him.”
Despite his anti-Israel rhetoric, Erdoğan has faced accusations of hypocrisy due to the ongoing trade between Israel and Turkey that has shown no signs of winding down at the height of Israel’s war on Gaza and to some extent is conducted by people close to Erdoğan and his family.
The deputy ambassador also said that, after the elections, Turkey wants to start improving relations with Israel, including by bringing back the Israeli ambassador who was recalled to Israel at the beginning of the war, as well as returning Turkey’s ambassador to Israel.
Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel in early November and broke off contacts with Netanyahu in protest of the bloodshed in Gaza.
Israel had earlier withdrawn all diplomats from Turkey and other regional countries as a security precaution.
Israel began pounding Gaza in the aftermath of an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on October 7, which left some 1,200 people dead in Israel. The death toll in Gaza, in the meantime, has reached near 33,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The tensions between Israel and Hamas came at a time when Turkey had been repairing relations with Israel with the mutual reappointment of ambassadors after a decade of all but frozen ties.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Katz mocked Erdoğan after his party’s defeat in the local elections, posting on X: “Defeat for Erdogan’s candidates in the local elections in Turkey. Congratulations to the winners Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul, and Mansur Yavas in Ankara, and a clear message to Erdogan – the incitement against Israel is no longer working.”