Israeli official: Erdogan's remarks "sick"

Ilhan Tanir

For the first time an Israeli official responded Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's attacks on Israel.

PM Erdogan, first accused Israel for committing genocide. Later on, he evoked Hitler and stated, several times that what the Israeli government does to the Palestinian people exceed what Hitler did to them (Jews) in barbarity.

Speaking at a political re-election rally in the Turkish city of Ordu, Turkey’s prime minister said that Israel has “surpassed what Hitler did to them” and declared the country a “terrorist state.”

“[Israelis] have no conscience, no honor, no pride. Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism,” said Erdoğan. He accused Israel of rejecting ceasefires that Hamas has proposed and “spitting death, spitting blood.”

When asked about PM Erdogan’s rhetoric, comparing Israel to Hitler, and accusing it as committing a genocide, an Israeli official in Washington, on Friday morning, said:

“Outrage! I see it with an outrage. I hear the word genocide. There must be some limits, for a person who calls himself as a leader of a state.. a leader of great people and civilization. But for a leader to accuse Israel with Nazism?

900K people killed in Ruanda, that’s a genocide. What happened in Darfur is a genocide.

Now we deal with Nazists: Nazi Germany was killing 10 thousand Jew a day, exterminating them everyday in 1944. And now the leader of Turkey accuses my country as worse than Nazis? How sick is that? How sick is that? And where is the outrage of the world when you make these kind of statements? This is unacceptable for a responsible leader in the international diplomacy. Totally unacceptable. There have to be some limits. And apparently with him (Erdogan), there is no limits, at least none rhetorically."