Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he was “sickened” after his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, declared that Israel had become “a burden humanity can no longer bear.”
“Dehumanizing the Jewish people as an ‘unbearable burden’ is the classic, horrific language of history’s worst eliminationist regimes,” Sa’ar wrote on X.
“The civilized world and Turkey’s NATO allies must unequivocally condemn this explicit call for the erasure of Israel.”
Speaking to CNN Türk, Fidan said Israel had become “a problem for the entire international community” and insisted that Ankara had no intention of softening its increasingly hostile position toward the Jewish state.
“Israel is not only a problem for Turkey; it has become a problem for the entire world,” he said.
Turkish FM @HakanFidan’s sickening words are textbook incitement to genocide.
Dehumanizing the Jewish people as an “unbearable burden” is the classic, horrific language of history’s worst eliminationist regimes.
The civilized world and Turkey’s NATO allies must unequivocally…
— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 2, 2026
Fidan also defended Turkey’s decision to suspend trade with Israel following the outbreak of the war against Hamas in Gaza. He accused Israel of carrying out “massacres” and claimed that Jerusalem was seeking new enemies to distract from what he described as its deteriorating international standing.
Relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have been sour for years, and the situation declined sharply in the aftermath of the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
See related: The threat of Erdoğan’s Turkey to Israel and the West
Overdue justice
Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced Israel’s decision to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, branding the Jewish state a “murder network.”
Israel’s Cabinet unanimously approved the recognition at Sa’ar’s initiative, with the foreign minister describing the move as a long-overdue act of historical justice. Ankara rejected the decision and continues to deny that the Ottoman Empire’s mass killing of Armenians in 1915 constituted genocide.
Frustration with Trump
The bitter exchange comes as frustration grows in Israel over US President Donald Trump’s continued portrayal of Erdoğan’s government as a dependable regional partner.
That confidence appears increasingly detached from Ankara’s conduct.
Turkey remains a NATO member and presents itself as a diplomatic power capable of mediating regional crises. Yet its senior officials now speak of Israel not as a state with which they have policy disagreements, but as a burden to be removed.
Sa’ar’s demand therefore places the question squarely before Turkey’s allies: how far can a NATO government go in dehumanizing the Jewish state before silence becomes complicity?
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