Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Friday accused his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, of incitement to genocide after the latter described Israel as “a burden humanity can no longer bear.”
Speaking in an interview with CNN Türk on Thursday, Fidan said Israel had become “a problem for the entire international community,” adding that “the Israeli authorities have become a burden that humanity can no longer bear.”
Fidan said Turkey had no intention of changing its position toward Israel and defended Ankara’s decision to halt trade with the Jewish state following the war against Hamas in Gaza.
“Israel is not only a problem for Turkey; it has become a problem for the entire world,” he said. He also claimed that anti-Israel sentiment was growing globally “because they are openly committing massacres” and accused Israel of seeking new enemies to divert attention from what he called its deteriorating international image.
Responding on social media, Sa’ar described Fidan’s remarks as “sickening.”
“Dehumanizing the Jewish people as an ‘unbearable burden’ is the classic, horrific language of history’s worst eliminationist regimes,” Sa’ar wrote on X.
“The civilized world and Turkey’s NATO allies must unequivocally condemn this explicit call for the erasure of Israel,” he added.
Turkish FM @HakanFidan’s sickening words are textbook incitement to genocide.
— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 2, 2026
Dehumanizing the Jewish people as an "unbearable burden" is the classic, horrific language of history’s worst eliminationist regimes.
The civilized world and Turkey's NATO allies must unequivocally…
The exchange marked the latest escalation in tensions between Jerusalem and Ankara, which have sharply deteriorated since the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced Israel’s decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide, dismissing the move as slander by what he called a “murder network” responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans.
Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved Sa’ar’s proposal to recognize the Armenian genocide, a move Sa’ar described as a long-overdue act of historical justice. The decision prompted an angry response from Ankara, which rejected the characterization of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
