President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel exchanged sharp phrases on Wednesday after Mr. Erdogan in contrast the Israeli chief to Adolf Hitler whereas discussing Israel’s warfare in Gaza.
‘‘Is what Netanyahu is doing any lower than Hitler? It’s not,’’ Mr. Erdogan mentioned in televised remarks in Ankara, Turkey, at a science awards ceremony. The Turkish chief has often criticized Israel for its conduct in Gaza.
“They had been speaking ailing of Hitler. What distinction do you will have from Hitler? They may make us miss Hitler,” Mr. Erdogan mentioned.
Mr. Netanyahu fired again, slamming Mr. Erdogan’s therapy of Turkey’s giant Kurdish minority, saying the Turkish chief “is the final one that can preach morality to us” and condemning his assist for Hamas, the group that Israel is battling in Gaza after it led assaults on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 individuals in Israel.
The Israeli navy, Mr. Netanyahu mentioned, “is combating to get rid of probably the most abhorrent and brutal terrorist group on the planet.”
The Anti-Defamation League, which has been defining and monitoring antisemitism since 1913, condemned Mr. Erdogan’s assertion.
“As soon as once more, Turkish President Erdogan makes use of false Nazi analogies to criticize the Israeli authorities as he did in 2014, 2018 and 2019, whereas once more failing to sentence Hamas and the Oct. 7 assault,” the group mentioned in a put up on the social media platform X. “Not solely are such analogies incendiary, however they’re deeply disrespectful to the reminiscence of the tens of millions who the Nazis murdered.”
Mr. Erdogan has lashed out at Israel previously during the war and mentioned that Hamas shouldn’t be a terrorist group, a place opposite to that held by Western international locations.
Mr. Netanyahu was not the one Israeli chief to criticize the Turkish president for his remarks on Wednesday. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s warfare cupboard, mentioned Mr. Erdogan’s statements had been “blatant distortions of actuality and a desecration of the Holocaust’s reminiscence.”
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, additionally condemned Mr. Erdogan’s invocation of the Holocaust in his remarks, saying “the Holocaust stands alone in its horror and enormity, and his phrases are deeply offensive to each Jew around the globe, and to the reminiscence of the tens of millions of Jews who perished by the hands of the Nazis.”
Turkey was as soon as Israel’s closest buddy within the Muslim world and a major buying and selling companion, however it reduce diplomatic ties with Israel after a deadly confrontation in 2010 between Israeli commandos and Turkish activists on a passenger vessel that attempted to breach Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The international locations restored full diplomatic ties in April 2022, after Mr. Herzog made a state visit to Turkey, the highest-level assembly of an Israeli chief within the nation in 14 years.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.
