Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused Israel of showing “Hitler-like fascism” against the Palestinians.
Speaking at a mass rally in eastern Turkey to promote his candidacy in presidential elections, Erdogan said he was happy to give back an award that was bestowed upon him by an American Jewish Group in 2004.
The American Jewish Congress wants the decoration to be returned after Erdogan compared Israel to the German Third Reich.
“If you support this cruelty, this genocide, this Hitler-like fascism and child murderer regime, take your award back,” Erdogan said at the election rally in the eastern province of Van.
“What is the difference between Israeli actions and those of the Nazis and Hitler?” he asked.
“How can you explain what the Israeli state has been doing in Gaza, Palestine, if not genocide?” he said.
“This is racism. This is fascism. This is keeping Hitler’s spirit alive,” he added.
Erdogan, who is a champion of Palestinian rights, has heightened his criticism of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
The premier dismissed accusations of anti-Semitism from pro-Israel groups, adding that the record of Turkey and himself on protecting Jews was irreproachable.
“Who stood up for Jews at a time when they were expelled from their home countries? It was our ancestors, it was the Ottomans,” he said, referring to the sanctuary given to Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th century.
“Aren’t you embarrassed? How immoral you are…. It is us who protects the Jews on our soil and lets them live safely.”
“When Muslim children are being killed, the West deems it legal, but when we speak out against the terrorist state of Israel we are called anti-Semite. What kind of an injustice is that?” he asked.
There is little chance of Turkey and Israel normalizing their relations, following the storming by Israel of a Turkish ship carrying “aid” to Gaza in 2010 that left 10 activists dead.
Erdogan said: “The children of Gaza could not celebrate Eid and were killed in a cowardly fashion by the Israeli state in schools, homes, mosques and anywhere they took shelter.
“The outcries of innocent Palestinian children — which resounded throughout the skies and made angels cry — killed by Israel will not remain unanswered.”
“The dead victims included 315 children, 166 women and 58 elderly people,” he said.
(Source: Middle East Eye / AP)
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5 Responses
innocent children?? all those killed terrorists were also innocent children a few years ago. Adolph hitler was also an innocent child once. had he been killed then, turkey would be giving the same feedback. Those delicate and ‘innocent’ children, born to ‘innocent’ families, who by large majority voted in hamas, have fathers, uncles and cousins, devoting their lives, to kill truly innocent families.
The Armenian Genocide, the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres
Hey they Ergodan, lets take a step back to look at the recent history of the glorious Turkish nation. The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, and the Armenian Massacres was the Turkish Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects from their historic homeland within the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. On 24 April 1915, the day Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labor, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. Of course the loss of some hundreds of innocent Palestinian lives is to be regretted but how do you have the brazen nerve to talk about Israeli aggression against an organization as determined to wipe out the Israelis as your ancestors were to wipe out the Armenians? Erdogan, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Israel must give arms to Syria and keep this Hitler double very busy. They should do it now before he gets NATO against us. He’s a bigger worry than Syria!
He should look in a mirror before comparing anyone to Hitler.
Forget Armenians,look at what he did to the Kurds?Just a few years ago he massacred many.