In a clear change in the tone of the Turkish official discourse regarding the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, which broke out on October 7, 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, and said that it is not a “terrorist organization,” but rather a national liberation movement of mujahideen, waging a battle to protect its lands and people.

In a speech before his party’s representatives in Parliament on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, Erdogan condemned the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, announcing the cancellation of an official visit to Tel Aviv that was previously scheduled, saying that “Israel took advantage of Turkey’s good intentions, and that he will not go to Israel.” As was planned, he added that the Israeli attacks on Gaza and support for these attacks amount to assassination and mental illness,” referring to Western support for the Israeli occupation.

The Turkish President said that "the tears that the West is shedding for Israel are a kind of fraud," and stressed that his country will continue to use all necessary political, diplomatic and military means, and urged Israel to respond to calls for peace.

He added: "In order to clearly show the truth in a world full of the living dead, Turkey, as a people and a state, is ready to use political, diplomatic, and if necessary military means" to stop this war, without clarifying what these means are, especially military ones. He added, "Since October 7, Israel has been carrying out one of the bloodiest, most brutal, and disgusting attacks in history against innocent people in Gaza."

Türkiye increases the pace of its rhetoric towards Israel.. What are the messages?

There is no doubt that the most prominent thing that Erdogan’s speech revealed about the development of the official Turkish discourse on this crisis was the complete clarification of its position towards the Hamas movement and the defense of Ankara’s relationship with it, as a national liberation movement against the occupation, in contrast to what America seeks to impose on the countries of the region, which is to condemn Hamas and linking its actions to ISIS.

As a translation of these statements, Turkish media said that shortly after Erdogan’s speech, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with leaders of the Hamas movement in Istanbul, to confirm the Turkish position on defending the movement, after Israeli media claimed that Ankara demanded on October 7 the leaders of Hamas to leave Turkey so as not to put Ankara in an awkward position.

At the same time, the American Bloomberg Agency revealed that Turkey decided to suspend plans for cooperation with “Israel” in the field of energy, and that the Turkish Energy Minister decided to cancel a scheduled visit to Tel Aviv, after Erdogan announced the cancellation of his visit to Israel as well.

Since the beginning of the war, Turkish rhetoric during the first days was limited to condemning "the loss of all civilian lives" and emphasizing "contacting with all parties concerned to help end the conflict."

But after Israel's bombing of the Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip, which led to the death of about 500 Palestinians, most of them children and women, the Turkish president said, "The Israeli bombing is a disproportionate response, and amounts to a massacre." He called on Israel to stop its attacks on the Gaza Strip, which amount to ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Erdogan also called on the Israeli government to stop its bombing of Palestinian lands. He called on the Palestinians to "stop their harassment against civilian residential communities in Israel." This speech was not similar to his reactions to the Israeli escalation in previous wars, or the crimes in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The Turkish President said in the 2014 Gaza War, in which about 3,000 Palestinians were killed: “The Israelis curse Hitler and curse him day and night because of the Holocaust, but today, we find that the terrorist state of Israel has surpassed Hitler’s atrocities through its operations in Gaza.”

In 2018, when dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed in the activities of the return marches on the Gaza Strip border, Erdogan described Netanyahu as a terrorist, and Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv and declared the Israeli ambassador to it persona non grata.

But Turkey later sought, at the end of 2020, to improve its relations with a number of regional parties, with which its relations had witnessed tension and decline over the past years, including Israel.

Ankara decided to release the Israeli couple detained in Istanbul and open a new page with Israel. In return, the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, visited Turkey amid a rich official reception.

Last September, Erdogan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, where they discussed developing political and economic relations, according to what was announced at the time in a statement by the Turkish presidency.

What means did Erdogan threaten to use against Israel?

Erdogan, during his last speech in which he launched an attack on Israel for committing a war of genocide in Gaza, said that Turkey was ready to use “political, diplomatic, and if necessary military means” to stop the war, but the Turkish President did not clarify what these means were, especially military ones.

Diplomatic and political options are available to the Turks, and they have been used before, such as canceling some joint economic or political agreements between the two parties, which is what happened now by suspending plans for cooperation with “Israel” in the field of energy, according to Bloomberg, or expelling the Israeli ambassador and withdrawing the Turkish ambassador from Tel Aviv on For example, or putting pressure on Washington and the West with several cards, such as withdrawing the Turkish Parliament’s authorization for Sweden to join NATO.

But Erdogan's threat to use "military means" is the first of its kind, and unprecedented in official discourse. Therefore, there is no doubt that this sentence needs an explanation from the Turkish side, as this option can only be imagined across the Mediterranean, according to analysts.

Turkey is currently conducting military maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea that have been ongoing for about a week. Is it possible, for example, that these maneuvers will develop to put pressure on the Israeli or American side there, as Washington is moving aircraft carriers and military battleships to the coasts of occupied Palestine? Nobody knows that.

Source: Arabis Post