Critics say Turkey’s verbal attacks on Israel have crossed into antisemitism

As Iran, Russia’s war with Ukraine and NATO’s defense spending dominate the organization’s summit in Ankara — one issue that has escaped the media glare is the increasingly antisemitic rhetoric coming from Turkish leaders.

As relations between Turkey and Israel continue to hit new lows, a war of words between the two nations has erupted.

In a July 2 interview with CNN Türk, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Israel has “become a burden that humanity can no longer bear,” the Jerusalem Post reported. Fidan also said that Israel is representative of “humanity’s common problems,” and asked other countries to apply pressure to the Jewish State, according to Israel National News.

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In a press statement, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called Fidan’s words “a clear call for genocide. The Jewish people know very well what happens when such words are allowed to go unchallenged. The first step on the road to genocide is dehumanization.

“This is a sentence that sounds very familiar to sentences from about 100 years ago,” Sa’ar added. “To speak about a people as a ‘problem for humanity.’ What do you do with a ‘burden that you can no longer bear?’” he asked.

Sinan Ciddi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and director of FDD’s Turkey program, told Fox News Digital that Fidan’s statement was “some of the vilest rhetoric to come out of any statesman since the Holocaust.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a rally in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Istanbul, Turkey October 28, 2023.  (Dilara Senkaya/Reuters)

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Ciddi said that escalated anti-Israel rhetoric in Turkey “goes all the way back to 2008” when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “began the process of ripping apart the bilateral relationship between Israel and Turkey. But after Oct. 7, it just went into overdrive,” he said. “I have never heard any Arab leader utter the words that Foreign Minister Fidan has said.”

Yet Erdogan has condemned antisemitism; the Turkish Minute reported that he told Turkish religious minority representatives at an Ankara dinner in March that “just as Islamophobia is a crime against humanity, antisemitism is also a crime, an evil that cannot be considered reasonable or legitimate.”

Yet despite his recent condemnation, he and other ministers have continued with their rhetoric against the Jewish state.

In June, Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Ҁiftҁi said that the world would “witness the liberation of Jerusalem,” according to the Times of Israel.

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In May 2021, the Times of Israel reported that Erdoğan called Israelis “murderers,” claiming they were ‘only satisfied by sucking their [victims’] blood.” At the time, the State Department spokesperson issued a strong condemnation of Erdoğan’s “anti-Semitic comments regarding the Jewish people,” calling them “reprehensible.”

In May 2025, Erdoğan invoked similar language, accusing Israel of being “a terror state that feeds on the blood, lives and tears of the innocent,” Israel National News reported.

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Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar (R) and Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon (L) speak to journalists ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting at U.N. headquarters on August 5, 2025 in New York (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey has infiltrated far beyond leadership. A Pew Research poll from June found that Turkey had the highest level of anti-Israel sentiment of any polled country, with 91 percent of the population holding “very unfavorable” views on Israel, 6% holding an “unfavorable” view, and just 1% expressing any favor of Israel.

In response to questions about whether the State Department plans to respond to antisemitic statements from Turkish leadership, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “Türkiye is a longstanding and valued NATO Ally and we continue to engage on all aspects of our important and multi-faceted relationship.”

Ciddi said there are “numerous channels” for the State Department and Trump administration to reprimand Turkey for its unchecked hatred. “The president could obviously pull aside a Turkish counterpart and demand an apology,” he explained, while the State Department could address the comments or place Turkey on a watchlist.

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The Hague, Netherlands – In photos, NATO leaders participate in the summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025. NATO countries pledged to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, as demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump. The summit’s final declaration states that countries will invest “at least 3.5%” of their GDP annually in military capabilities and an additional 1.5% in protecting critical infrastructure. (Handout / Latin America News Agency via Reuters Connect)

As the two-day NATO summit winds down in Ankara, Ciddi said that Turkey “is going to try and overshadow anything else” and “promote itself as the sort of premiere NATO ally, so we need to watch out for Turkey’s whitewashing of its human rights record.” Ciddi warned that “We cannot safeguard our allies’ democratic norms, rights and practices if we don’t hold member states like Turkey accountable for the threats that it presents.”

The Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.