Bilal Erdoğan, a son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said Israel is afraid of Turkey because Turkey is governed by administrators who are graduates of religious high schools, known as imam-hatips, Turkish media outlets reported on Monday.
Bilal Erdoğan was speaking at a sports event in the central Turkish province of Kayseri which he attended as chairman of the World Ethnosport Confederation.
“Does Israel increase its pressure on our sisters and brothers in Palestine every day? Yes, it does because it sees Muslims as divided. Today, Israel is afraid of Turkey because there are imam-hatip [graduate] nationals at the helm,” said Bilal Erdoğan.
He said imam-hatip graduates are the people who should understand best what it means to be the ummah.
It is common for President Erdoğan and his close circle to verbally attack Israel in public; however, Erdoğan’s own sons are known to continue commercial activities in Israel even during the most tumultuous of times in the relations between the two countries.