Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday called on Islamic nations to ally against “the growing threat of expansionism” from Israel.
He made the remarks a day after the death of a dual U.S.-Turkish citizen during a protest near Nablus (Shechem) in Samaria. The Israel Defense Forces is investigating allegations that Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, an activist with the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement, was shot by Israeli forces.
“The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries,” Erdoğan said at an Islamic schools’ association event near Istanbul.
Erdoğan has become increasingly hostile toward the Jewish state and closer to Hamas since the terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. The Turkish president and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), along with Qatar, are state supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch.
In his speech, the president claimed that Jerusalem aims to conquer Muslim territory, including Turkey, and quoted claims that Hamas was not only defending Gaza but his country and other Islamic lands.
“Israel will not stop at Gaza. After conquering Ramallah, it will want the lands of Syria and Lebanon. They will raise their eyes to our homeland, between the Tigris and the Euphrates. They state this openly in every map they show,” he said, referring to the “Greater Israel” map displayed by some Israeli leaders.
“This is why we say that ‘Hamas opposes in the name of the Muslims.’ This is why we say that ‘Hamas does not only defend Gaza, it defends on the Islamic lands, on Turkey,'” Erdoğan asserted.
The Turkish leader went on to state that the latest steps Ankara has taken to improve relations with Egypt and Syria are aimed at “establishing a front of solidarity against the growing threat of expansion” on the part of Israel.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was in Turkey last week for the first presidential-level visit in 12 years amid warming relations between Cairo and Ankara. In July, Erdoğan said that he was ready to host Syrian President Bashar Assad for talks on renewing relations between the two countries that were severed in 2011 after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
srael’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz criticized the Turkish leader’s comments in an X post on Saturday evening, saying that he “continues to throw the Turkish people into the fire of hatred and violence for the sake of his Hamas friends.
“Today, he calls on Islamic nations to form an alliance against Israel, claiming ‘Israel wants to conquer countries in the region, including Turkey.’ This is a dangerous lie and incitement. Israel is defending its borders and citizens from the murderers and rapists of Hamas, and from the Shi’ite axis of evil led by Iran. Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood alliance have been working for years alongside Iran to undermine moderate Arab regimes in the Middle East. Erdogan should be silent and ashamed.”
This is not the first time Erdogan has spewed such rhetoric about intervening in Israel. Last year at this time the Turkish leader delivered a speech at an anti-Israel rally in which he told attendees that Israel was responsible for war crimes and framed Hamas as “freedom fighters.”
He then went further to suggest that Turkey may need to intervene in Gaza, saying Turkey can “come at any night unexpectedly,” to an ecstatic reception from the hundreds of thousands of attendees who chanted in response: ‘Turkish military to Gaza.’
Some experts warn that Erdogan is trying to appear as the champion of Islam, much like Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. As such, Turkey has emerged as one of the primary antagonists of Israel in the Middle East over the past few decades.
Historically, Turkey has been an ally of Israel and the U.S., and one of the more “moderate” Muslim nations in the world, with a Western-style democracy. Both of those concepts appear to have been thrown to the wind in recent years.
Turkey’s friendlier posture towards Israel began to shift in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At this time, Islamic factions in Turkey gained a firmer foothold in Turkish politics, eventually leading to the election of now-President Erdogan to the Prime Minister’s office in 2002.
Erdogan is a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim through and through. He disdains democracy. One of his primary goals is to re-establish Turkey as the leader of a revived Ottoman Islamic Empire. Since coming to power, Erdogan has systematically silenced, jailed, or executed most of his opponents in the military, media, business sector, and academia.
The rise of Turkey as a global power and its hostility towards Israel aligns with certain key Bible prophecies related to what will take place in the Middle East before the return of Jesus. In Ezekiel 38-39, Ezekiel specifically predicted that Turkey would become one of the primary geopolitical enemies of Israel in the last days, along with Russia and Iran.
There have been several meetings of the leaders of Russia, Iran, and Turkey over the past few years as they draw closer into an alliance. While Turkey is still part of NATO, it has all but given up its push to become part of the European Union after decades of failure to be accepted.
If Turkey were to become involved in a conflict with Israel, it would put the United States and NATO in a difficult position of supporting Israel while one of its own members attacks the state.
Erdogan knows that going after Israel gets him votes and makes him popular in the Muslim world.
While Erdogan may be all words at this point, the expected shift of world opinion against Israel, especially in the Muslim world, will continue to gain momentum.
Ezekiel warns that this invading coalition, referred to as the Gog/Magog Coalition, is brought into the region with a ‘hook in the jaw,’ implying that there are some underlying circumstances that will force them into the region, almost against their will.
Much of the speculation over the years has been that it would be Israeli oil discoveries or natural gas that would lure them, or even a retaliatory strike after Israel takes out Iran’s nuclear program. The Gaza invasion and worldwide opposition could soon provide that hook that forces this coalition to march. An expanded war including Hezbollah could draw in Iran and eventually their ally Russia.
Just as Ezekiel warned us 2,600 years ago.
