Erdoğan threatens Israel
Turkey's President Erdoğan has threatened to invade Israel if it attacks Lebanon. Since the Hamas attack on October 7 and the ensuing war relations between Turkey and Israel have deteriorated drastically and Erdoğan's rhetoric has become more aggressive: he now refers to Hamas as a liberation organisation and compares Netanyahu with Hitler. Should his threat to invade be taken seriously?
Time for firm action
Erdoğan's threat must have consequences, die Welt demands:
“We cannot continue to treat Erdoğan like an old uncle at a family gathering who, after the third schnapps, starts sounding off about the Führer - in other words an embarrassing but harmless annoyance. Erdoğan is neither harmless, nor does a Turkey under his rule belong to the Western family. It is time to find fitting responses to Erdoğan. Not with big talk or by summoning the Turkish ambassador - both well honed skills of Erdoğan's where no German politician can touch him. But with firm action.”
Only Turkey is taking a stand
Convinced that Israel is set on occupying other areas in the Middle East, the Star The Star, widely considered a government mouthpiece, is no less belligerent in tone than Erdoğan. But the real puppet masters are the US and the UK:
“Israel is the mine which the US/UK alliance has planted in the future of the region, to be detonated at will. Israel's regional massacre and its ambition to expand its borders before the beginning of a global war are no coincidence. ... While the world adjusts to a new system, only Turkey is standing up to Israel's expansionist ambitions. And this resistance will also protect other nation states in the region.”
Just empty talk
There is no real likelihood that Erdoğan will get involved in a conflict with Israel, Jutarnji list assures:
“His words have a powerful echo but you have to look a little closer and put them into context. The Turkish president was talking to members of his own party (AKP) in his former hometown of Rize and his focus was the growth of the defence industry. ... His sentences were all in the conditional tense; the condition being that Turkey is militarily strong. ... We have to see the bigger picture here: Turkey is still out on a limb in Syria and Iraq, and active in Libya. ... Against that backdrop of complex problems, the sultan of Ankara does not have enough power to stick his nose into a conflict between Israel and Hamas.”