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Turkey’s Foreign Ministry Compares Netanyahu to Hitler After Erdogan Threatens to Invade Israel

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Sunday, hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made an explicit threat to invade Israel.

“Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu,” the foreign ministry posted on X/Twitter. “Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, those who tried to destroy the Palestinians will also be held accountable. Humanity will stand with the Palestinians. You will not destroy the Palestinians.”

Soykırımcı Hitler’in sonu nasıl olduysa, soykırımcı Netanyahu’nun sonu da öyle olacak.

Soykırımcı Naziler nasıl hesap verdiyse, Filistinlileri yok etmeye çalışanlar da öyle hesap verecek.

İnsanlık, Filistinlilerin yanında duracak.

Filistinlileri yok edemeyeceksiniz.

— T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı (@TC_Disisleri) July 28, 2024

Drawing comparisons of Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is antisemitic, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by over 1,000 global entities including dozens of governments.

The tweet came on the same day that Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel, threatened that Turkey might invade the Jewish state in support of the Palestinians.

“We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine,” Erdogan told a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in his hometown of Rize, referring to Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

“Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them,” Erdogan continued. “There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”

The Turkish president appeared to be referring to some of his country’s past military interventions.

In 2020, Turkey sent military personnel to support the UN-recognized Government of National Accord of Libya amid its civil war.

As for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Turkey has denied any direct military involvement to help the former. Last year, however, Ankara said it was using “all means,” including military training, to support its Azerbaijani allies.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan praised Erdogan for his remarks on social media.

“Our president has become the voice of humanity’s conscience,” Fidan tweeted. “International Zionist circles, especially Israel, who want to suppress this righteous voice, are in great alarm. History ended the same way for all genociders and their supporters.”

Cumhurbaşkanımız insanlık vicdanının sesi olmuştur.

Bu haklı sesi bastırmak isteyen, başta İsrail olmak üzere uluslararası siyonist çevreler büyük bir telaş içindeler.

Tarih bütün soykırımcılar ve destekçileri için aynı şekilde sonuçlanmıştır.

— Hakan Fidan (@HakanFidan) July 28, 2024

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded with a veiled threat to Erdogan.

“Erdogan follows in the footsteps of [longtime Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter.

ארדואן הולך בדרכו של סדאם חוסיין ומאיים לתקוף את ישראל. רק שיזכור מה קרה שם ואיך זה הסתיים.@RTErdogan pic.twitter.com/6GykLtLoh4

— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) July 28, 2024

Hussein was captured, convicted of crimes against humanity, and executed by fellow Iraqis following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

While Netanyahu has so far been silent on the Turkish government’s latest attacks, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has not.

“President Erdogan is ranting and raving again. He is a danger to the Middle East,” Lapid posted on social media. “The world, and especially NATO members, must strongly condemn his outrageous threats against Israel and force him to end his support for Hamas. We won’t accept threats from a wannabe dictator.”

Turkey is a member of NATO and has the alliance’s second largest military. Its leaders’ comments were the latest in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting Israel.

In May, for example, the Turkish trade ministry said it had ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel. The announcement came after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across the southern region of the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Turkey has also announced its intention to join South Africa’s so-far-unsuccessful case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive military operations in Gaza.

That came after Erdogan in March threatened to “send Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Hitler.

Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”

Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terrorist group’s budget.

Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.

However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 250 others as hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.

The post Turkey’s Foreign Ministry Compares Netanyahu to Hitler After Erdogan Threatens to Invade Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Estonian summer camp removes names of Nazi SS leaders from monument after Jewish group objects

The monument had the names of four Estonian leaders of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS.

The post Estonian summer camp removes names of Nazi SS leaders from monument after Jewish group objects appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Anti-Israel Hate, Iranian Influence Take Center Stage at Olympic Games

Soldiers patrol on a street in front of the Eiffel Tower ahead of the Olympics on July 21, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

The 2024 Olympic Games have come at a time of enormous global tensions. Conflicts between countries are raging, Paris is on edge, and security concerns are grave. Despite this, geopolitical tensions and conflicts should not lead to athletes being targeted for their national identity.
Unfortunately, no country’s athletes are at a greater risk than Israel’s. Since the start of Olympics season, Israeli athletes have had their lives threatened anonymously, been specifically targeted by the Iranian government, and have been under heavy armed security as anti-Israel zealots and the Iranian regime remain hellbent on disrupting Israeli participation in the games.
Israel’s critics keep repeating that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, yet Israeli athletes are uniquely vilified and threatened for their identities. Certainly, the global community does not approve of the governments of China or Iran, and yet their athletes are never in the crosshairs of abuse, terror plots, and harassment.
The Olympic Games are bittersweet for the nation of Israel. Each time the games are held, Israelis are forced to recall harrowing memories of the 1972 Munich games, in which Palestinian terrorists kidnapped, held hostage, and ultimately violently murdered 11 Israeli athletes.

This year, Israel has sent 88 athletes to Paris to participate in the Olympic Games, under heavy security and guarded by Israeli and French officers. In the opening ceremony, the alphabetical order of the countries had to be slightly adjusted to separate Israeli athletes from the Iranian delegation.

On Friday, Israeli athletes had to be escorted by armed French security to the Olympic Village, as anti-Israel protests erupted across France’s capital, some of them becoming violent, with calls for the blood of Israel’s athletes. 

When Israel faced off with Mali on Wednesday, in their first soccer match of the Olympics, the Israeli anthem was drowned out by jeers and abuse, and Israeli players were faced with constant insults hurled from fans in the bleachers.

Earlier this week, Israel’s foreign minister warned France of an Iranian-backed plot to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli athletes in Paris. And on Sunday, Israeli athletes had their personal information hacked and leaked publicly by cyber criminals, who are believed to be affiliated with Iran. Two men have already been arrested in Paris for plotting terror attacks during the games, likely targeting Israeli athletes. Israel’s athletes have remained under 24 hour security by French and Israeli forces since arriving in France. 

The specific targeting of Israeli athletes is an example of textbook xenophobia. Because of the Israeli government’s military campaign in Gaza, Israeli athletes, who simply want to participate in the Olympics and compete for gold medals, are targeted and threatened violently because of their national identity. One would think that people learned their lesson from the horrifying 1972 Munich tragedy, but it seems that for some, that wasn’t enough. And for the Iranian regime, all attacks, protests, and threats against Israeli athletes serve the government’s agenda of denormalizing and destabilizing Israel’s standing on the world stage, and attempting to alienate Israel, turning it into a pariah state.

Earlier this month, Adidas announced that it was bringing back its 1972 Munich Olympic shoes, and that they would be modeled by Palestinian supermodel Bella Hadid, one of the Internet’s leading anti-Israel propagandists, who constantly maligns and libels the Jewish State to her millions of followers on social media. Adidas has since walked back its Hadid sneaker campaign, and issued vague apologies for insensitivity and to Hadid herself.

As a Western society that is quick to condemn any form of discrimination based on identity, it is imperative that we condemn this discrimination against Jews and Israelis emphatically.

It is acceptable to criticize Israeli’s government, but completely unacceptable to target, harass, and threaten Israeli athletes because of the Israeli government’s perceived wrongdoings. Iran and its terrorist allies want nothing more than to destabilize, intimidate, and alienate Israel and its citizens on the world stage. We are constantly told not to accuse “anti-Zionists” of being antisemitic, and yet, we see these same “anti-Zionists,” targeting Israeli athletes alone, regardless of their individual views — and for no other reason than their national identity. In keeping with the 2024 Olympics motto of “Games Wide Open,” it is crucial that the athletes from each country be treated with fairness, respect, and equality, and that the spirit of the Olympic Games is preserved.

Nathaniel Miller is a Tulane University student, where he is the president of the Tulane Israel Public Affairs Committee, and is a CAMERA fellow.

The post Anti-Israel Hate, Iranian Influence Take Center Stage at Olympic Games first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli Olympic Delegation Holds Minute of Silence for 12 Children Killed in Hezbollah Attack

Thousands of Druze mourners in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights attended a funeral procession on July 28, 2024 in Majdal Shams for 11 of the 12 children and teenagers killed in a rocket attack the prior day. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad

Israel’s Olympic delegation gathered at the Olympic Village in Paris on Sunday night to have a minute of silence in honor of the 12 Druze Israeli children killed a day earlier in a Hezbollah rocket attack in the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria.

Israeli athletes, staff members, and heads of the delegation all came together to pay tribute to victims of the attack, in which 20 others were wounded, according to the Israeli military. An Iranian-made rocket, fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon, hit a soccer field where children were playing in Majdal Shams, a Druze-majority town located south of Lebanon and next to the Syrian border.

All those killed were between the ages of 10 and 16.

The Israeli Olympic delegation shared a photo on Facebook of delegation members gathered in a circle, with their heads bowed down, as they stood in silence in memory of the children killed in the Hezbollah strike. The delegation said the attack and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war are “constantly in the minds and hearts of all the delegation members.”

During the funeral for 11 of the 12 children killed in the attack, thousands of Druze mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets on Sunday as they were carried through Majdal Shams. The 12th victim — 11-year-old Jifara Ibrahim — was thought initially to be missing after the Hezbollah attack, but authorities confirmed on late Sunday that he was also killed in the rocket strike.

Israel vowed retaliation for the deadly strike and hit a number of targets inside southern Lebanon on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said that Hezbollah “will pay a heavy price for this attack, one that it has not paid so far.”

The attack by the Lebanese terrorist organization took place as Israel and another Iran-backed terror group, Hamas, are negotiating a ceasefire deal to end the war in the Gaza Strip that began after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel.

The post Israeli Olympic Delegation Holds Minute of Silence for 12 Children Killed in Hezbollah Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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