Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and likened Israel’s attacks on Gaza to the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis.
Erdogan, who has been a vocal critic of Netanyahu and the Israeli military for how they’re carrying out their retaliatory war for the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, escalated his rhetoric on Wednesday with the comparison.
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“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. “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.”
Erdogan is “the last person” who should lecture Israel on human rights, Netanyahu said in response to the Turkish leader’s remarks.
“Erdogan, who commits genocide against the Kurds, who holds a world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his rule,” he said in a statement, “is the last person who can preach morality to us.”
Unlike the U.S. and many of its allies, Turkey does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist group.
“With the savagery of bombing the civilians it forced out of their homes while they are relocating, it is literally employing state terrorism,” Erdogan said of Israel in November. “I am now saying, with my heart at ease, that Israel is a terror state.”
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Israel has continued to face widespread international condemnation for the staggering death toll, more than 20,000, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry — which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants — in less than three months of war, and for the overwhelming destruction, displacement, and deprivation of essential goods from Palestinian civilians.
The Biden administration has repeatedly stood by Israel’s right to self-defense and has pushed back against the talks of a complete ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power, but they have also urged Israel to take greater steps to prevent civilian casualties. These concerns have spanned much of the war. The U.S. is currently insisting Israel move on from its high-intensity operations in favor of more surgical and tactical operations.
