Netanyahu calls out Erdogan on 'dark, libelous' characterization of Zionism

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled Wednesday’sstatement by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as“dark and libelous.”
“I strongly condemn the comparison that the Turkish primeminister drew between Zionism and fascism,” Netanyahu wasquoted as saying by Haaretz, adding that he “thought that suchdark and libelous comments were a thing of the past.”
Netanyahu was responding to a speech by Erdogan at the openingof the fifth United Nations Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna onWednesday, where in passing the Turkish leader compared modernZionism to fascism, in the way it treats Muslims.
“Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomesunavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime againsthumanity,” Erdogan said in his address to high-rankingofficials including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Following the speech, UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmentalorganization that monitors the treatment of Israel and Jews ingeneral in the UN, asked Ban Ki-moon to condemn the speech andcalled on Erdogan to apologize for the statement, which itdescribed as an “Ahmedinejad-style pronouncement.”
“We remind Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that his predecessorKofi Annan recognized that the UN's 1975 Zionism-is-racismresolution was an expression of anti-Semitism, and he welcomed itsrepeal,” the lobby group stated.
The group argued that such statements by the Turkish leader“will only strengthen the belief that his government is hewingto a confrontational stance, and fundamentally unwilling to end itsfour-year-old feud with Israel.”
In its request to the UN General Secretary, UN Watch wasreferring to a November 1975 General Assembly resolution which saidthat Zionism, a multifaceted ideology that opposes theassimilation of Jews into other societies, was “a form of racismand racial discrimination.” In 1991 the resolution wasrepealed.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called theWednesday comments “hollow words that only reflectignorance.”
“Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people, andto deny any people their right to self-determination and to theirnational movement is absurd,” Palmor was quoted as saying bythe Jerusalem Post. “We will not dignify such nonsense with anyfuture comment.”
Turkey and Israel have been at diplomatic loggerheads since theMavi Marmara flotilla raid in 2010, when Israeli commandoes stormeda humanitarian ship trying to bring aid to victims of the siege onGaza. Israeli forces killed nine Turkish civilians in theordeal.