Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is worse than Adolf Hitler, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan charged as he likened the IDF’s military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza to the World War II Holocaust.
"They used to speak ill of Hitler. What difference do you have from Hitler? They are going to make us miss Hitler. Is what this Netanyahu is doing any less than what Hitler did? It is not," Erdogan said during a speech he delivered in Ankara on Wednesday.
"He is richer than Hitler, he gets the support from the West. All sorts of support comes from the United States. And what did they do with all this support? They killed more than 20,000 Gazans," he said.
Netanyahu shot back, “Erdogan, who is committing genocide against the Kurds and who holds the world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his regime, is the last person who can preach morality to us.”
“The IDF, which is the most moral army in the world, is fighting to eliminate the most abhorrent and brutal terrorist organization in the world, Hamas-ISIS, which has committed crimes against humanity, and which Erdogan has praised and whose leaders he hosts,” Netanyahu stated.
Erdogan’s attack was the sharpest he has issued to date against Netanyahu, since Hamas infiltrated Israel on October 7, killing over 1,200 people and seizing some 250 hostages.
Hamas has asserted that over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in war-related violence since October 7. Israel has said that Palestinian combatants make up some 8,000 of those fatalities.
Israeli-Turkish ties have been largely tense under Erdogan’s rule due to his strong pro-Palestinian stances and at times have been downgraded. Turkey over the last years has restored its ties with Israel, symbolized by President Isaac Herzog’s visit there in March 2022.
Netanyahu had intended to visit Turkey in the fall, but that plan was scuttled due to the war which caused the diplomatic rapprochement to unravel. Both countries recalled their ambassadors at the start of the war.
Within the first week, Erdogan had accused Israel of massacring Palestinians. At the start of December, he said that Netanyahu was a war criminal, referring to him as the “butcher of Gaza.”
Herzog condemned Erdogan’s Hitler comparison
“In human history, there was no event like the terrible Holocaust,” Herzog said, explaining that the Turkish leader’s “words deeply hurt the soul of every Jew, regardless of who he is, and the memory of the millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust,” Herzog stated.
“The commandment "never again" is constantly before the eyes of the State of Israel - the State of the Jewish people - which is committed to the safety and protection of every Jew,” Herzog said.
“There is no just struggle than the war against the terrorist organization Hamas, which brutally and barbarically murdered Jews, as well as Muslims and people of different nationalities and religions,” Herzog emphasized.
Minister Benny Gantz said Erdogan’s words were “blatant distortions of reality and a desecration of the Holocaust’s memory.
“Hamas was the organization that perpetrated a despicable massacre. Removing the threat of Hamas from the citizens of Israel is an existential necessity and an unparalleled moral imperative,” Gantz stated.
Despite its criticism of Israel, Turkey has maintained commercial ties, drawing a backlash from opposition parties and Iran. Ankara says trade with Israel has fallen sharply since Oct. 7. Unlike its Western allies and some Arab nations, Turkey does not view Hamas as a terrorist organization.
The clash between Erdogan and Netanyahu came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. According to the State Department, they talked “about the timing of Sweden’s NATO accession, “the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the importance of increasing the speed and scale of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.”