Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) on July 28 threatened Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by likening the path he is on to that taken by Iraq’s former president, Saddam Hussein, who was eventually captured and executed after the US invasion of his country 21 years ago.

Katz tweeted a collage putting together a photograph of Erdogan wearing a Palestinian scarf and a photograph of Hussein, taken in 2003 after he was found by the US army in a hole in the ground, where he was hiding during the invasion of his country.

“Erdogan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote in the post with the collage.

Katz’s tweet was sent out as a reply to Erdogan who on July 28 threatened Israel with a military intervention.

“If we are strong, Israel cannot [behave like this toward] Palestine. Just as we intervened in Karabakh [in ally Azerbaijan’s conflict with the Armenians] and Libya, we can do the same to them,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan also again likened Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Tweet: For efficiency, Israel’s trolls are hard to beat. They take the job seriously. Nothing on social media escapes them.

In normal circumstances, when a head of state threatens another country with military action, the target country would sound the alarm. Yet when Erdogan talks, no one takes him seriously. Even Netanyahu does not bother with direct replies to Erdogan anymore. He instead tasks his minister to exchange some words with Turkey’s president.

During his speech in which he threatened Israel with an armed intervention, Erdogan also complained that State of Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas takes no account of him.

Erdogan has invited Abbas to Turkey to address its parliament. But Abbas has not replied. Abbas finds himself already sandwiched between Israel and the genius Islamists in Gaza. He is in no need of more fools.

The hardcore Islamists that demand serious action against Israel are a minority in Turkey. However, they are an effective minority. They are cornering Erdogan, who in his rhetoric presents himself as an Islamist, and demanding some deeds rather than nonsensical talk.

Due to the pressure, Erdogan can by now only continue to trade with Israel via third countries.

More nonsense

In an earlier episode of this nonsensical war of words, Katz on July 21 posted a tweet showing a mocked-up fake scene in which a “toddler” Erdogan is sat in the lap of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, though Iran and Turkey are not known for coordinating their foreign policies.

In March, Erdogan vowed to “send Netanyahu to Allah”, while in May he called Israel’s leader a "psychopath", "maniac" and "vampire".

What does it all mean? It is total baloney, utter drivel.

And it should be boring to parrot the same line. However, the same movie is screened in a loop in the media. There is nothing to be done about it.

In November 2022, when Netanyahu returned to the post of PM, bne IntelliNews noted: “Netanyahu has to regularly kill some Palestinians to remain in power. Erdogan’s gambit is to issue harsh words and yell his ire. It works a treat in relaxing the masses who get angry over the global silence that meets Israel’s murderous actions against the Palestinians.

“‘Once he [Erdogan] used to call me Hitler every three hours, now it’s every six hours but thank God trade [between Israel and Turkey] is up,’” Netanyahu said in 2020, describing the international relations game between him and Erdogan.

“In 2002, when Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the elections in Turkey, Israel was among the biggest supporters of the AKP. It was from 2009 that things turned sour.

“At the end of the so-called Arab Spring, which included a series of uprisings and armed rebellions, amid major public tensions between Erdogan and Israel, all threats against Israel in the region were destroyed. Erdogan particularly served for the destruction of Syria.”

Netanyahu: And still he remains

In October 2023, after Erdogan launched his latest cycle of yelping at Israel, this publication posed a simple question: “Does anyone have a satisfactory answer as to why Hamas has provided Netanyahu with the opportunity to get comfortable in his post for the first time since he returned as Israel’s leader?”

At that time, the mainstream pundits were confident that the October 7 cross-border assault mounted by Hamas against Israel was a big threat to Netanyahu staying as PM.

In the last millennium, the Palestinians launched a similar attack against Israel and the then PM eventually lost his post, according to the pundits.

The mainstream’s job is to manipulate the masses. Thus, it would be stupid to argue that the pundits in question have no idea about the current mindset not only in Israel but across the globe.

As of July 29, Netanyahu remains the Israeli PM.

On July 25, he was at the US Congress. His speech was met with much bipartisan euphoria. If he had put to the vote the annexation of the US by Israel and his appointment as the American Caesar, he might have swung it on both sides of the floor.

Why waste time?

Why is readers' time wasted with the reporting of all this nonsensical talk and the inane tweets? The media has become a “clicks industry”. The reader clicks, the media gets its hit. It's enough said, unfortunatey.

If we were to take Katz’s latest tweet seriously, he might be seen confirming that it was Israel that took down Hussein.

In 2003, when the second war against Hussein was launched, Erdogan was a rookie PM in Turkey. He pushed hard to join the war but could only manage a supporting role, opening up air bases in Turkey and providing some help behind the curtain.

If Katz was a serious character, he would thank Erdogan for contributing towards Hussein’s end.

Erdogan in his comments on military action also referred to Turkey’s roles in the Karabakh and Libya conflicts. The Karabakh war opened up the prospect of a trade corridor for Azerbaijan, a country that meets almost half of Israel’s oil demand thanks to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that delivers oil that is shipped from Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

The corridor is an alternative route that would avoid the circuitous route through Georgia. Azerbaijan could send oil bound for Israel oil directly to Turkey’s Ceyhan port.

The Libya war, on the other hand, took Muammar Gaddafi’s head, which was another plus for Israel.