Israeli Foreign Minister Urges NATO to Expel Turkey After Erdogan Threatens Israel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Vladimir Smirnov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File) (Vladimir Smirnov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel, on Sunday threatened that Turkey might invade the Jewish state.

By The Algemeiner

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Monday urged NATO to expel Turkey after its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made an explicit threat to invade Israel.

“In light of Turkish President Erdogan’s threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Israel Katz instructed diplomats … to urgently engage with all NATO members, calling for the condemnation of Turkey and demanding its expulsion from the regional alliance,” the foreign ministry said, according to Reuters.

“Turkey, which hosts the Hamas headquarters responsible for terrorist attacks against Israel, has become a member of the Iranian axis of evil, alongside Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen,” Katz said in the statement, listing Middle Eastern terrorist groups backed by Iran.

Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel, on Sunday threatened that Turkey might invade the Jewish state in support of the Palestinians.

“We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine,” Erdogan told a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in his hometown of Rize, referring to Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

“Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them,” Erdogan continued. “There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”

The Turkish president appeared to be referring to some of his country’s past military interventions.

In 2020, Turkey sent military personnel to support the UN-recognized Government of National Accord of Libya amid its civil war.

As for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Turkey has denied any direct military involvement to help the former. Last year, however, Ankara said it was using “all means,” including military training, to support its Azerbaijani allies.

Turkey has the NATO alliance’s second largest military.

Beyond the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s statement, Katz responded with a veiled threat to Erdogan on X/Twitter.

“Erdogan follows in the footsteps of [longtime Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote.

Hussein was captured, convicted of crimes against humanity, and executed by fellow Iraqis following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far been silent on Erdogan’s latest attacks, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has not.

“President Erdogan is ranting and raving again. He is a danger to the Middle East,” Lapid posted on social media. “The world, and especially NATO members, must strongly condemn his outrageous threats against Israel and force him to end his support for Hamas. We won’t accept threats from a wannabe dictator.”

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan praised Erdogan for his remarks on social media.

“Our president has become the voice of humanity’s conscience,” Fidan tweeted. “International Zionist circles, especially Israel, who want to suppress this righteous voice, are in great alarm. History ended the same way for all genociders and their supporters.”

Hours after Erdogan’s threat, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry compared Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

“Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu,” the foreign ministry posted on X/Twitter. “Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, those who tried to destroy the Palestinians will also be held accountable. Humanity will stand with the Palestinians. You will not destroy the Palestinians.”

Drawing comparisons of Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is antisemitic, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by over 1,000 global entities including dozens of governments.

The Turkish government’s comments were the latest in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting Israel.

In May, for example, the Turkish trade ministry said it had ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel. The announcement came after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across the southern region of the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Turkey has also announced its intention to join South Africa’s so-far-unsuccessful case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive military operations in Gaza.

That came after Erdogan in March threatened to “send Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Hitler.

Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”

Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terrorist group’s budget.

Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.

However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 250 others as hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.