The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Spokesman Ömer Çelik likened Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to Germany’s Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s top diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop over his radical and provocative remarks.
“Israeli Foreign Minister Katz is a carbon copy of Hitler’s Foreign Minister Ribbentrop,” Çelik said, adding that his rhetoric is very similar to that of the Nazis.
Çelik said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strong stance against Israeli officials, whom he called “modern Nazis” disturbs them.
Katz has been posting provocative messages against President Erdoğan and Türkiye, oftentimes tagging members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) like Ekrem Imamoğlu, who responded by saying Türkiye does not have anything to learn from Israelis who have the blood of innocent children and civilians on their hands.
As Erdoğan escalated his rhetoric against Israel over the latter’s genocidal attacks against Palestinians, Katz also increased the number of his social media posts against Erdoğan, including an open threat where he implied Erdoğan’s fate would be the same as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. He also called for NATO to expel Türkiye from the military alliance.
Tensions between Israel and Türkiye have risen sharply since the start of the war in Gaza as Ankara has cut off commercial ties with Tel Aviv, with Erdoğan repeatedly trading barbs with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is accused of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
Besides killing more than 39,000 Palestinians since October, the Israeli military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine.
Israel is also accused of committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave, and a case is continuing at the ICJ in The Hague, in which Türkiye is also a party against Israel.
