President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday blasted the U.S. Congress for applauding and providing a platform to Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The whole world saw how the genocidal murderer was applauded in the U.S. Congress,” Erdoğan told a technology incentive promotion program in Istanbul. “Those who give lessons of democracy and human rights to the world do not show an ounce of shame when they crown the Hitler of our time."
“We are face to face with an eclipse of reason that not only hosts a butcher with the blood of over 150,000 Gazans on his hands but also applauds him for his speech full of delirium,” he said, likely referring to a study from the journal Lancet that put the Gaza death toll estimate to over 186,000 Palestinians.
The international community has been outraged at Netanyahu’s speech at a joint session at the U.S. Congress where he claimed Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has one of the "lowest ratios of combatants to noncombatant casualties in the history of urban warfare."
The Israeli leader drew dozens of standing ovations from those assembled within the August Chamber, but about half of all congressional Democrats chose to boycott.
The American public has also shown growing sympathy for Palestinians in recent years, and thousands of demonstrators took to Washington to protest Congress' decision to grant a highly sought platform to Netanyahu as Israel faces allegations of genocide at the U.N.'s top court.
Netanyahu’s claim is far from the truth in Gaza, where the confirmed Palestinian death toll sits at nearly 40,000, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The majority of the dead have been women and children and not every man killed has been a combatant.
Israel has largely shrugged off civilian casualties, blaming Hamas as the number has risen dramatically over the past nine months.
The actual death toll is likely far higher than the official numbers from the ministry, a fact even the Biden administration has acknowledged.
"If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren't getting enough food, it's not because Israel is blocking it; it's because Hamas is stealing it," Netanyahu said in his speech.
He also called pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the Congress during his speech “Iran's useful idiots.”
Türkiye has been a virulent critic of Israel, has hosted Hamas leaders and welcomes the Palestinian resistance group as a liberation movement, unlike the majority of the Western world.
Ankara has called on the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. to exert pressure on Israel to accept a cease-fire proposal.
Erdoğan himself often condemns Washington for providing a political shield to Israel.
