Netanyahu slams Erdogan's Paris rally remarks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday demanded the international community condemn Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks on Israel’s participation in Paris’s anti-terrorism rally on Sunday, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Netanyahu’s office quoted him telling leaders of the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): “I think the war against terror will not succeed if it’s founded on hypocrisy, and I’ve yet to hear any world leader condemn the comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, not one.”

He added: “He [Erdogan] said that Israel should not have been represented in the march in Paris, and the reason he gave was our actions to defend our citizens against the thousands of rockets hurled at our cities by the terrorists of Hamas.”

“I believe his shameful remarks must be repudiated by the international community, because the war against terror will only succeed if it’s guided by moral clarity.”

Terrorists and their supporters must be condemned, he explained, while support should be given for those who fight terrorism such as Israel and the United States.

At a joint press conference with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, Erdogan lashed out at Netanyahu for attending the rally in Paris. Erdogan said: “How can you see this individual, who carries out state terrorism by massacring 2,500 people in Gaza, waving his hand? He is waving his hand as if people are very enthusiastically waiting for him. How dare he go there?”

He said he could “hardly understand how he [Netanyahu] dared to go” to Sunday’s massive march in the French capital and urged him to “give an account for the children, women you massacred”.