Meeting with Christian IDF soldiers on Sunday as acting Defence Minister, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the row with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who earlier questioned the morality of "Jews in Israel".
I was just exposed to the daily trolling of the anti-Semitic dictator Erdogan.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) 23 December 2018
He is obsessed with Israel. He knows what a moral army is and he knows what a genuine democracy is, as opposed to an army that massacres women and children in Kurdish villages and a state which, to my regret, is becoming more dictatorial day by day.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) 23 December 2018
He is obsessed with Israel. But there has been an improvement. Erdogan used to attack me every two hours and now it is every six hours.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) 23 December 2018
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier took to Twitter to accuse Netanyahu of being responsible for the killing of thousands of Palestinians.
The occupier which kicks people lying on the ground is easily offended: @netanyahu is a cold-blooded killer of modern times, responsible for massacres of thousands of innocent Palestinians, bombing children on beaches. Turkey will never stop exposing the truth. pic.twitter.com/gr5NcDwO8S
— Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (@MevlutCavusoglu) 23 December 2018
The tweet came just a few hours after Erdogan claimed in a Saturday speech that Jews physically abuse Palestinian women and children:
"The Jews in Israel kick people laying on the ground. In fact, Jews don't kick men but also women and children when they fall in the ground. But as Muslims, we will confront these people [the Jews] if they have courage to deal with us and we'll teach them a lesson", he said.
It didn't take Netanyahu long to come up with a response:
Erdogan – the occupier of northern Cyprus, whose army massacres women and children in Kurdish villages, inside and outside Turkey – should not preach to Israel.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) 22 December 2018
Erdogan and Netanyahu have on numerous occasions verbally clashed, with the Turkish president accusing Israel of "thuggery, violence and state terror" amid the Palestinians' Great March of Return, and comparing Israel's actions to the Nazi persecution of Jews.
Netanyahu hit back, reiterating that "a man who sends thousands of Turkish soldiers to hold the occupation of northern Cyprus and invades Syria will not preach to us".
Since April-May 2018, relations between Israel and Turkey hit a fresh low point after they expelled each other's envoys amid an Erdogan-Netanyahu battle of words over deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip and the US Embassy's relocation to Jerusalem.
