Israel will not be lectured to by a leader who bombs his own people, jails journalists and helps Iran and Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a sharp rebuttal to the most recent anti-Israel tirade by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Erdogan – who is emerging as one of the main voices in the Islamic world trying to stir passions over US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – on Sunday called Israel a “terrorist state.”
According to the Hurriyet Daily News website, Erdogan, speaking at a meeting of his AKP Party in the central Anatolian province of Sivas, charged Israel with using “disproportionate” force against Palestinians protesting Trump’s declaration and declared Israel an “oppressive, occupation state.”
Netanyahu, who has made it a general practice of refraining from responding to Erdogan’s anti-Israel rhetoric, shot back this time at a press conference in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.
Asked about Erdogan’s verbal attack, Netanyahu replied, “I am not used to receiving lectures about morality from the leader who bombs Kurdish villagers in his native Turkey, who jails journalists, who helps Iran go around international sanctions, and who helps terrorists, including in Gaza, kill innocent people. That is not the man who is going to lecture us.”
His comments hit a nerve, as Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin issued a statement condemning Netanyahu’s remarks and said: “It is not possible to take seriously the allegations and accusations made by a mentality, which massacred thousands of Palestinians, turned the lands of the Palestinians into an open-air prison, in order to suppress its guilt.” READ MORE
