Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a “sworn enemy of Israel and the West, a jihadist in a suit,” Amichai Chikli, the Jewish state’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, charged on Monday.
The Jewish state “will not tolerate a Turkish presence” on its southern border with the Gaza Strip or northern frontier with Syria, Chikli tweeted, slamming Ankara’s potential involvement in U.S. President Donald Trump’s recently-launched peace plan for the Middle East.
“‘May Allah, for the sake of His name ... destroy and devastate Zionist Israel.’ This sentence was not uttered by a Hamas or Hezbollah leader, it was said in a public prayer on March 30, 2025, by the President of Turkey,” the Israeli Cabinet minister noted in his post on X.
Erdoğan “is consistently trying to undermine the Jewish people’s eternal bond with their capital,” according to Chikli, who said that the Muslim leader “likely never opened the Quran nor heard of King David and Solomon, both praised in Surah Al-Anbiya and other chapters.”
“We remind the ignorant dictator Erdoğan of one simple truth,” Chikli wrote. “Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since the days of King David 1,500 years before the birth of Muhammad, and 2,500 years before the imperial-colonial Ottoman occupation.”
Erdoğan’s remarks were “not slips of the tongue. They are the words of a dangerous enemy,” he concluded.
In a statement backed by Trump last week, Erdoğan pledged support for Washington’s peace plan for the Gaza Strip, committing to supporting post-conflict management in the coastal enclave after the war ends.
Under the plan, Turkey has committed to deploying search and rescue teams to Gaza to help recover the bodies of slain hostages and clear up the rubble. Ankara is also expected to join a multinational task force overseeing the ceasefire and assisting in the training of local forces.
However, according to an Israel Hayom report on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out Turkey’s participation in the International Stabilization Force, defining it as Israel’s “red line.”
Netanyahu has reportedly also communicated reservations about Turkish companies participating in the reconstruction of the Strip.
Israel Hayom cited political sources as saying that Netanyahu’s mention of “new threats” in a Knesset speech on Monday referred to the growing influence of Turkey and Qatar. Trump is said to hold Ankara and Doha in high regard, while Israel views both nations as destabilizing forces.
Ze’ev Elkin, who serves as an additional minister in the Israeli Finance Ministry, told the nation’s Kan Reshet Bet radio station on Tuesday that Jerusalem “must act” to limit Turkish involvement in the Gaza Strip.
“We all hear Erdoğan’s statements,” the minister said, adding that while “the Emirates can be trusted a bit more, " he did not have faith in their ability to effectively disarm Hamas as required under Trump’s plan.
Turkey is believed to have been among the issues discussed during Netanyahu’s meetings on Monday with Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and his Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, Israel Hayom reported.
