Middle East & North Africa
Netanyahu: “Turkey wants a clash with us” – he accuses Erdogan of seeking to rule Jerusalem and return to the Ottoman Empire, and points to Israel’s F-35s and F-16s
In an interview with Channel 14’s English-language service, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Turkish President Erdogan of wanting to rule Jerusalem and revive the Ottoman Empire, said Turkey wants a clash, and warned Ankara to avoid one.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of wanting to return to the Ottoman Empire and rule Jerusalem, in an interview with journalist Sophia Tupolev of the English-language channel C14 English (Channel 14). The full interview aired on Tuesday afternoon, October 20, on YouTube, while the channel had earlier posted the excerpt about Turkey on X.
“I don’t want a clash with Turkey. Turkey wants a clash with us,” Netanyahu said. “Erdogan says Israel must be destroyed, that Jerusalem is their city, that they will rule Jerusalem, back to the Ottoman Empire. He forgets that there is a country here, our nation, our land, to which we have been bound for more than 3,000 years. We are not in the 16th century, when the Ottomans conquered the region and ruled it for 400 years. There is this force here. It is called the Jewish state in the Jewish homeland.”
“We will not capitulate to an extreme Sunni axis”
The Israeli prime minister also invoked his country’s military strength: “It has both strength and faith. We have F-35s, we have F-16s and these exceptionally brave soldiers. And we have our independence.” He added: “Now that we are on the verge of destroying the extreme Shiite axis, we are not going to capitulate to an extreme Sunni axis, led by Turkey. And the best thing they can do is understand this and avoid a clash.”
Tupolev asked what it would take for Israel to carry out a pre-emptive strike on a country such as Turkey, under the new 10-point security doctrine he presented a few days ago. Netanyahu answered that Israel has already struck Hezbollah and Iran pre-emptively, but declined to give details: “I’m not going to analyse the application of these principles. I analyse the principles. And of course I don’t think it would be particularly responsible to expose” the plans. The doctrine includes the line “when necessary, we pre-empt”.
The reply to the “ring of fire”
The remarks come a day after Erdogan’s speech on Mukhtars’ Day in Ankara, in which he said that “good news is coming from Syria, but Zionist Israel is doing everything it can to destabilise the situation there too” and that Israeli attacks on Palestinians continue “despite the agreements that have been signed”. “There is a ring of fire around us,” he added.
On Sunday Netanyahu had said he hoped not to reach a direct clash with Turkey, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke of strengthening the alliance with Greece against Ankara. The interview was given a week before Israel’s elections on October 27. The claims in this report about Erdogan’s aims are Netanyahu’s own, and Ankara has not yet responded.
