Temple Mount violence bares fragility of Turkey’s attempts to fix relations with Israel

Turkey’s efforts to mend ties with Israel have been derailed by the ferocious crackdown by Israeli forces on Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, with Turkish leaders relapsing into well-worn verbal salvoes against the Jewish state amid heightened religious sensitivities during Ramadan. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took to Twitter over the weekend to air his fury in Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew. He called Israel a “cruel terrorist state” and said Muslim nations needed to take effective steps to stop the violence. Those who remained silent were “a party to the cruelty there.”

Erdogan spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to convey his support, while his foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, vowed that Turkey would continue to be the voice “of our Palestinian brothers and sisters and defend their rights.” Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, chimed in with tweets of his own, saying, “To the Islamic world, we say: It’s time to stop Israel’s heinous and cruel attacks! To humanity we say: It’s time to put this apartheid state in its place.”

The president of Turkey’s state-run religious affairs directorate ordered that prayers be performed in mosques throughout the country Monday “for the salvation of the Al Aqsa mosque” from the “occupying terrorist Israel state.”