Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s dictatorial leader, has seized upon the unrest in Gaza to once again posture and lay claim to the leadership of the Islamic world. “History will not forgive you [U.S.], we will see this reality; history will never forgive Israel, we will see this too,” Erdogan said. He withdrew his ambassadors from Israel and the U.S. In a tweet titled “Reminder to Netanyahu,” Erdogan then denied Hamas was a terror group, and argued Hamas was a “resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power.” He then called Israel an Apartheid state and seemed to suggest not only the post-1967 occupation of the West Bank was illegitimate but, by questioning Israel’s existence in the period before the Six Day War, the entire Jewish state.

Erdogan’s polemics should not surprise. He has long had a problem not only with Israel but also more broadly with Jews. When Turkey’s economy sours or Erdogan wants to rally his base ahead of elections, he often turns toward provoking crises with the Jewish state.