Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday appeared to threaten to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians, and to put an end to the nearly 10-month-old war Israel is fighting against Hamas in Gaza.
Turkey must be “very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to the Palestinians,” the Turkish leader said of the war. “Just as we entered [Nagorno-]Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”
The remarks, delivered at a party meeting in Rize, were the latest in a series of inflammatory statements he has issued about Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the months following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught, and subsequent war in Gaza.
In 2020, Turkey, under Erdoğan’s direction, provided military support to Azerbaijan during a 44-day conflict sparked by a land dispute with Armenia and the breakaway territory of Artsakh, or the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turkish military did not intervene directly, and instead provided assistance, which included the deployment of Syrian mercenaries and a supply of drones.
Also in 2020, Turkey passed a one-year mandate to deploy troops to Libya in support of the United Nations-recognized Libyan government, as it fought a civil war.
As a member of NATO, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and other close allies of Israel, Erdogan would almost certainly face heavy opposition if he attempted to take military action over the war in Gaza.
He has been at odds with his Western allies in recent months, after accusing them several times of backing a supposed Israeli plan to intentionally “spread war” throughout the Middle East.
In response to Erdogan’s latest threat, Foreign Minister Israel Katz compared him to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose regime was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2003. He was later executed by an Iraqi court, after being captured and tried.
“Erdogan is going down the path of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. He should just remember what happened there and how that ended,” wrote Katz on X.
In recent months, Erdogan has gone as far as to suggest that Jerusalem would “set its sights” on Ankara once it has completed its stated goal of destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and freeing the hostages abducted by the Gazan terror group on October 7.
In a speech delivered in the Turkish parliament back in May, Erdogan told his party not to think “that Israel will stop in Gaza.”
Erdogan and Netanyahu have a long history of public attacks on each other, which have ebbed and flowed alongside Israel and Turkey’s on-again, off-again alliance.
The attacks had halted as Jerusalem and Ankara ties warmed, but the détente seemingly fell apart as the war in Gaza continued.
In May, Erdogan announced that Turkey would halt all trade with Israel.
