Image by Arzu Geybullayeva

A verbal spat between Turkey and Israel highlighted the country's complicated relationship with Israel and Palestine and drew attention to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's penchant for doublespeak.

During a speech in the province of Rize on July 28, Erdoğan said there was no reason for Turkey not to intervene in Israel's war on Gaza, just like it has done in Karabakh and Libya. The president did not elaborate on what this intervention would look like. 

The remarks triggered an exchange that started with Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, comparing Erdoğan to Saddam Hussain in a post on X, writing, “Erdoğan follows in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended.” The Minister was referring to Saddam Hussain's capture and eventual execution.

Katz also urged NATO to expel Turkey following Erdoğan's remarks. An opposition figure Yair Lapid also joined the fray, calling on the world and NATO to “strongly condemn [Erdoğan's] outrageous threats against Israel and force him to end his support for Hamas,” adding that Israel “won’t accept threats from a wannabe dictator.”

There were no statements from NATO or any of its members at the time of writing this story, with the exception of a bipartisan group of US lawmakers who denounced Erdoğan's threats.

Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded on X, comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, “Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu. Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, so will those who try to destroy the Palestinians.”

Turkey's public broadcaster TRT took it a step further in a tweet:

“Soykırımcı Hitler’in sonu nasıl olduysa, soykırımcı Netanyahu’nun sonu da öyle olacak.” pic.twitter.com/iF9QxX8Oke

— TRT HABER (@trthaber) July 30, 2024

“Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu” The murderer of millions, Hitler, drank cyanide and then shot himself after losing Berlin. Just as genocidal Hitler ended, so will genocidal Netanyahu.

The Directorate of Communication also tweeted, “They have committed an atrocity that will outshine Hitler, the most cursed figure of the last century. Gaza has become the world's largest extermination camp today.”

Since October 2023, Turkey went from trying to mediate between Israel and Hamas to recalling its ambassador to Tel Aviv and announcing total restrictions on all trade with Israel until the war on Gaza ends. But a recent investigation by Turkish journalist Metin Cihan showed how Turkey has continued to steadily supply oil to Israel via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline — a gas pipeline that carries Azerbaijani oil through Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean ports, where it is then shipped around the world, including Israel.

Turkey continued to maintain the flow despite calls to halt the supply of Azerbaijani oil exports to Israel (Turkey did restrict the sale of certain goods to Israel in April and announced its decision to cease all trade ties with Israel in May 2024). Reportedly, the sale of Azerbaijani oil to Israel increased by 23 percent between January to April 2024, compared to the indicators from 2023.

Using data from BOTAS — Turkey's state-owned oil and gas company which operates Turkey's section of the BTC — Cihan wrote how millions of barrels of oil are shipped from Ceyhan on a monthly basis. “We don't know how much of it goes to Israel,” wrote Cihan on X. “According to our Minister of Energy, we do not have influence nor authority over where oil is shipped. The oil is sold by Azerbaijan. We simply get our share,” explained Cihan.

In his following tweets, Cihan wrote that after looking into relevant agreements, Turkey cannot sanction this trade route given the existing agreements. “According to an agreement with British Petroleum (BP) we would pay compensation to the company in case of a delay of petroleum for any given reason,” explained Cihan. “According to the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline agreement [Turkey] signed we are obligated to continue supply oil even at times of war or terrorism. This trade is considered superior even to human rights and state sovereignty. In exchange, we receive a share of 80 cents per barrel of oil loaded onto tankers from Ceyhan,” added Cihan.

Due to this agreement, Erdoğan's statement was viewed in Turkey as nothing but an empty threat. In a tweet, veteran journalist, Amberin Zaman wrote, “If Erdoğan meant any of it he would start off by halting Azerbaijani oil sales to Israel which go through Turkish ports.”

President Erdoğan has made empty provocative statements before. On two occasions in 2022, he said Turkey could invade Greece overnight.

Turkey also took a U-turn in the Gulf Diplomatic Crisis. During the crisis, Turkey backed Qatar while Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt severed their ties with Qatar. After openly supporting Qatar in the conflict, Turkey's relations with Saudia Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt took a chilly turn. However, once the crisis ended, Erdoğon changed his tune on these countries and relations improved dramatically.

In the case of Egypt, relations between the two countries soured after former president Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a military-backed uprising in 2013. Morsi was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had ties with the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP). But in 2022 during the opening of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the infamous handshake between President Erdoğan and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi signaled that changes were afoot.

Brushing aside past name-calling and accusations, the Turkish and Egyptian presidents shared an enthusiastic handshake on the sidelines of Qatar's World Cup and followed it with claims of a “new era” in ties. (by @NazlanEr) https://t.co/Hi9obw01N8

— Al-Monitor (@AlMonitor) November 23, 2022

In January 2024, Erdoğan traveled to Cairo where he signed several agreements with al-Sisi.

On the United Arab Emirates front, the ties between the two countries showed signs of thawing in 2022, when the UAE expressed interest in purchasing Turkey's Bayraktar drones. After Erdoğan's victory in the May 2023 election, the two countries signed a five-year trade agreement.

But the recent strongly worded statement from the President should not go unnoticed, warned Sinan Ciddi and Sophia Epley in a recent policy brief for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington DC-based research institute. The authors wrote:

Erdoğan often threatens other countries to bolster political support from his nationalist and Islamist base. Neither the United States nor its NATO allies should ignore Erdoğan. President Joe Biden in concert with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg should demand a de-escalatory statement and corrective language from Erdoğan.

There is also the matter of domestic audience as Gonul Tol, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program explained in an interview with Al-Monitor, “The tough rhetoric against Israel is his attempt at keeping his most conservative supporters from defecting to New Welfare and to maintain his image as ‘a tough guy who stands up to Israel.”

According to a survey by the Turkish Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research (SETA), which is known for its close ties to the ruling party, in 2024, an overwhelming 83 percent of the respondents expressed support for Palestine. In October of last year, hundreds of thousands of Turks attended a pro-Palestine rally waving Turkish and Palestinian flags.

Erdoğan's statement also stirred some international controversy, especially with his reference to Karabakh — a formerly disputed territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which Azerbaijan reclaimed control over last year. Turkish troops were not directly involved in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020 but the country did provide operational and political support “by supplying arms and conducting joint military drills during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.” Naturally, the president's remarks about “entering Karabakh” raised eyebrows as both Turkey and Azerbaijan denied direct involvement of foreign troops during the war and after. In response to a media inquiry, Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense called the statement untrue.