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.”