Israel’s Gaza operation has become one of the central themes of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s campaign for the presidency culminating in an election this Sunday, Aug. 10, the first ever by public vote. Despite strong international criticism, Erdogan has repeatedly compared Israel’s Gaza operation to Adolph Hitler’s barbarism and accuses his opponent, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, of looking the other way on Israeli aggression.
“They are killing women so they cannot give birth; they are killing babies so they don’t grow up,” Erdogan said Aug. 3 at an election rally in Istanbul attended by nearly 2 million people accusing Israel of genocidal intent to create a pure race. “They are even afraid of babies, but believe me, the more they kill, the more scared they will be.”