Netanyahu’s office slams ‘antisemitic dictator’ Erdogan after Turkey calls for PM’s arrest

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issues a searing statement castigating Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, amid spiking tensions between the two countries over an Israeli strike in Syria and Turkey’s issuing an arrest warrant for the premier today.

Erdogan “now seeks to extend his aggression against Israel into Syria. Israel will not tolerate it,” the Prime Minister’s Office says in a statement, in the latest barb between the countries following Israel’s strike on a Syrian airbase over Israeli concerns regarding the potential deployment of Turkish troops there.

The PMO reiterates past accusations by Israel against Erdogan, calling him “an antisemitic dictator who has massacred Kurds, harbors Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him.”

The statement comes hours after Turkey issued an international arrest warrant for Netanyahu as part of an investigation into Israel’s interception of an activist flotilla bound for Gaza.

“Erdogan’s pathetic attempt to intimidate the leaders and soldiers of Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, will go nowhere,” the statement adds.

In a separate Hebrew-language statement, the PMO asserts that “Israel will continue to act forcefully against Turkey’s attempts to destabilize the region and against any threat to its security.”

Turkish-Israeli relations, once close, have collapsed following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and subsequent Gaza war.