Erdogan rejects Trump's call for 'second Nakba'
The Turkish President continues to support Israel covertly while publicly speaking against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again rejected a US proposal on 10 February to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and said Israel should pay for the damage it caused there, and that reconstruction must begin.
“We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously,” Erdogan said during a visit to Malaysia on Monday.
“No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba,” he added, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab–Israeli war.
US President Donald Trump has advocated “cleaning out” Gaza of its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants and “taking ownership” of the strip.
Erdogan, who is on a four-day tour of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, highlighted the severe destruction in Gaza.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government should look for funds to “compensate” for what he said was damage amounting to $100 billion “instead of looking for a place for the people of Gaza.”
Despite Erdogan’s strong public rhetoric accusing Israel of crimes against Palestinians, the Turkish leader has a long record of collaborating with Netanyahu.
Both Turkiye and Israel supported the Nusra Front – Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria – during its attempts to topple the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and spark a sectarian war in Syria.
Erdogan also ensures Israel receives oil from Azerbaijan. Azeri oil, which is crucial for powering Israel’s military and keeping its economy afloat, travels by pipeline through Turkiye and is shipped by tanker from Ceyhan to Israel’s Haifa port.
Shortly before Israel’s war on Gaza began on 7 October 2023, Erdogan met with Netanyahu at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The two leaders discussed plans to partner on an underwater natural gas pipeline from Israel to Turkiye in the Mediterranean Sea.
Turkiye seeks to become an energy hub transporting oil and natural gas from West Asia to Europe.
Erdogan’s government also facilitated the illegal sale of oil from the disputed city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq to Israel starting in 2014. After Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani ordered his Peshmerga to seize Kirkuk amid the chaos of the ISIS takeover of Mosul, he partnered with Erdogan to send oil to Turkiye in a pipeline they jointly constructed the year before. The oil was then sent to Israel via tankers loaded up at Ceyhan as well.