There has been a lot of talk about the Turkish president in recent days, but if Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in the headlines, it is mainly because he is accumulating difficulties.
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First, there is this bellicose statement, Sunday July 28, which sets the powder keg alight with Israel. During a meeting of his party, the head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, explains that his country should intervene to help the Palestinians. He does not specify how but he says “we could do what we have already done in Karabakh and Libya“And what Turkey did in Nagorno-Karabakh and Libya was to send military personnel and mercenaries.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, relations between the two countries have deteriorated considerably. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who describes Hamas as “liberation organization”multiplies the invectives against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he regularly compares to Hitler.
This threat of intervention raises the tension a notch… In response, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs turns to NATO. He asks the member states to exclude Turkey – which is already not in good odour there, on the pretext that “Erdogan has made his country a member of the axis of evil with Iran“.
Israel Katz also posted this comment on social media: “ Erdogan follows in Saddam Hussein’s footsteps (who had invaded Kuwait). He should remember how it ended “.
Domestically, too, the Turkish president is going through a rough patch. His latest project is to put an end to the scourge of stray dogs. There are more than four million of them in Turkey, they are part of the landscape, the inhabitants are used to seeing them and feeding them. The problem is that attacks and cases of rabies are increasing.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he wants to capture dogs as a priority, put them in shelters and offer them for adoption. But his detractors accuse him of wanting to use strong-arm tactics. On Monday, his party and its allies had an article adopted in the assembly that provides for the euthanasia of sick and aggressive dogs. Animal rights activists are convinced that this is only the beginning of a mass killing. The fate of dogs is at the heart of fierce debates and protests and is creating a lot of resentment around the president’s policies.
Until the final touch, this sequence with a child treated without consideration: Saturday, July 27, in the province of Rize, during a local ceremony, Recep Tayyep Erdogan is on stage, children come to greet him. He naturally offers them the back of his right hand so that they kiss it (in Turkey it is a sign of respect for elders).
Except that a little boy, who has not understood what is happening, looks at the head of state without moving. In less than two, the president gives him a good slap on the cheek to wake him up. The child complies.
The sequence could have remained anecdotal, but it has gone viral: Internet users denounce a head of state at the end of his tether, who symbolically returns the electoral slap received by his party in the local elections of the spring. And if Recep Tayyep Erdogan was trying to improve and soften his image… it has failed again.