The Turkish state-media come under increased scrutiny for the rhetoric it is pushing towards Israel. The scrutiny has only increased in the last few weeks after a Turkish commentator on state-run media said that Turkey 'could enter Tel Aviv (the Israeli capital) in 48 hours'.
This comment comes on the back of an increasingly strong narrative being posted within the Turkish media that has denounced 'Zionists', spread hate speech against all Jews (and not just the Israeli government), and a desire to 'liberate Al-Aqsa', an important mosque that is held within Israeli territory.
This narrative is extremely important as it highlights the role Turkey now sees for itself within wider Middle-Eastern geo-politics. More and more Arab states have recently sought to normalise ties with Israel after years of hostility and a refusal to recognise the existence of Israel as a legitimate state. Increasingly, Turkey is positioning itself as the defender of the Palestinians, many of whom feel they have been sold out by the likes of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Tellingly, the same commentator who stated that Turkey could seize Tel Aviv in 48 hours said during the same broadcast that 'we are not like the Arabs'.
While it may be easy to dismiss these comments as the ramblings of one individual, the media in Turkey are now controlled almost exclusively by the Turkish state, meaning that a comment such as this one would have been permitted with state-backing or state-sanctioning.
Recep Erdogan, the Turkish leader, has himself stated that Turkey will 'liberate Al-Aqsa' and that 'Jerusalem is ours'. In 2018, a Turkish newspaper even stated that Turkey should form an army exclusively for the destruction of Israel, and in 2019 a Turkish military general, Adnan Tanriverdi, said:
"The Islamic world should prepare an army for Palestine from outside Palestine. Israel should know that if it bombs [Palestine] a bomb will fall on Tel Aviv as well."
Turkey has become increasingly alienated from the Arab world in large part due to Recep Erdogan's expansionist and interventionist politics which has seen Turkey back Islamic extremists in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, and saw Turkey invade northern Syria in 2019. Earlier this year, many Arab states began a boycott of Turkish goods in opposition to the actions of the Erdogan regime.
While Turkey was formerly one of the more democratic countries in the Middle-East, it has, under Erdogan, become far moreauthoritarian, particularly since the failed coup attempt in 2016. Journalists and opposition politicians and activists have been routinely jailed and tortured for simply speaking out against Erdogan. Turkey now has more imprisoned journalists than any other country in the world. It has also moved away from its secular non-religious roots towards an Islamic theocracy.
Clearly, the Turkish regime takes it that it can gain power in the Middle-East by taking a hard anti-Israel position, and that it may even be able to undermine Arab regimes if their populations feel that their own governments have sold-out the Palestinians.
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