On April 2, Israel’s public security minister Gilad Erdan described Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “an anti-Semite who continues to support Hamas” and said that a reconciliation deall with Turkey may had been a mistake.
“Looking back, maybe the accord should not have been approved,” Erdan told Army Radio adding that Israel has to stand up “”to the hostility and anti-Semitism of Erdogan. It’s odd for a country such as Turkey, that is massacring the Kurds and occupying northern Cyprus, to be accepted as a legitimate nation by the West.”
The official refered to the 2016 deal with Turkey that put an end to years of diplomatic crisis between the two countries. The crisis was caused by an Israeli naval raid on a Turkish aid ship trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. 10 Turkish activists died in the incident.
Erdan’s comments followed a statement by the Turkish president in which he described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “terrorist.”
“Israel has carried out a massacre in Gaza and Netanyahu is a terrorist. We will continue to expose Israeli terror all the time and on all platforms,” Erdogan said.
17 Palestinian have been killed and 1,450 others have been injured in clashes between protestors and the Israeli Defense Forces that started at a contact line between Gaza and Israel on March 30.
