Turkish PM likens Netanyahu to Paris attackers

Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Paris attackers who killed 17 people last week “committed crimes against humanity”, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said yesterday.

Davutoğlu said the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip and its deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010 which left ten Turks dead were similar to the Paris attacks in which people were killed.

He said: “Just as the massacre in Paris committed by terrorists is a crime against humanity, Netanyahu, as the head of the government that kills children playing on the beach with the bombardment of Gaza, destroys thousands of homes … and that massacred our citizens on an aid ship in international waters, has committed crimes against humanity.”

“If Israel is looking for a bully, it needs to look in the mirror,” Davutoğlu added.

Turkey’s statements against Netanyahu in recent days have started a war of words with Israel. On Wednesday Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “an anti-Semitic bully”.

A spokesman for Erdogan issued a statement describing Netanyahu’s remarks in which he linked the Paris bloodshed to Islam as unacceptable and Islamophobic.

Ibrahim Kalin said: “The Israeli government must halt its aggressive and racist policies instead of attacking others and sheltering behind anti-Semitism.”

The Israeli navy’s attack on an aid convoy in which 10 Turks were killed ruptured relations between Turkey and Israel.