Erdoğan affirms support of Hamas, repeats Netanyahu-Hitler comparison

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated his country’s strong support for the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas.

“Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them,” Erdoğan said on Saturday. “No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organization.”

Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, the European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Erdoğan also repeated his comparison of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the principal architect and driving force behind the Holocaust of at least six million Jews during the Second World War.

“Netanyahu and his administration, with their crimes against humanity in Gaza, are writing their names next to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, like today’s Nazis,” the Turkish president claimed.

Erdoğan also drew this comparison back in December, when he asked: “What is the difference between you (Netanyahu) and Hitler? How do the actions of the Netanyahu government differ from the actions of Hitler?”

For his part, Netanyahu pointed out Turkey's hypocrisy.

“Erdoğan, who is committing genocide against the Kurds and who holds the world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his regime, is the last person who can preach morality to us.”

While Erdoğan continues to draw comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany for its response to Hamas' massacre and invasion on Oct. 7, Turkey's ally, in fact, openly identifies itself with Hitler’s genocidal ideology.

During a BBC interview in November, Israeli President Isaac Herzog presented a copy of Hitler’s infamous book, ‘Mein Kampf,’ translated into Arabic, which was discovered by IDF troops inside the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

“This is the book that led to the Holocaust and the book that led to World War II,” Herzog stated.

“This book was found a few days ago in northern Gaza, in a child’s room, which became a base used for terrorist activities by the terrorist organization, Hamas. The terrorist wrote notes, marked the sections, and studied again and again, the ideology of Adolf Hitler, to hate the Jews, to kill the Jews, to burn and slaughter Jews wherever they are. This is the real war we are facing.”

Turkey and Israel used to have close military and commercial ties before the rise of Erdoğan, some two decades ago. As an Islamist, Erdoğan quickly moved Turkey away from Israel and its Western allies, and towards the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terror proxies, such as Hamas.

In September, just weeks before the Hamas Oct. 7 atrocities, Netanyahu and Erdoğan met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

However, the brief hope of improved Turkish-Israeli relations ended, when the Erdoğan regime refused to condemn the unprecedented Hamas massacres, and instead openly sided with the terrorist organization against Israel.