The anti-Israel speech that has nothing to do with Israel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used a joint appearance with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Istanbul on Saturday to deliver his latest broadside against Israel, warning that the "war-addicted Israeli government must not be allowed to drown our geography in the smell of gunpowder and blood again" and accusing Jerusalem of trying to "dynamite" the US-Iran peace deal.

"No solution that does not take strength from the will and contributions of regional countries can be lasting," Erdogan declared, positioning Turkey, conveniently, as an indispensable regional power whose voice must be heard.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacres, Erdogan has delivered an almost unbroken stream of anti-Israel rhetoric, accusations of genocide, comparisons to Nazism, trade suspensions, diplomatic posturing and now warnings about the US-Iran deal. The intensity has been remarkable. The concrete impact on events in Gaza, Lebanon or anywhere else has been precisely zero.

Which raises the obvious question: who is this actually for?

The answer is not difficult to find. Turkey's economy has been in serious difficulty for years, inflation, currency collapse, a cost-of-living crisis that has eaten into the purchasing power of millions of Turkish households. Erdogan's AKP base, which once supported him on the promise of prosperity and national dignity, is restless. Many supporters feel that their president has delivered neither.

In this context, Israel is a gift. Anti-Israel rhetoric costs nothing, requires no policy, produces no results, but generates enormous emotional resonance among the conservative, religious segments of Turkish society that form Erdogan's electoral base.

Every speech about Gaza, every condemnation of Netanyahu, every warning about "dynamiting" peace deals is a message to AKP voters: whatever your economic grievances, this president stands with the oppressed Muslims of the world.

It is, in short, a displacement activity. And it has been working for two years.

The Erdogan Credibility Problem

There is, of course, a credibility gap. The man who lectures Israel on human rights presides over a country where journalists are imprisoned, Kurdish politicians are jailed, opposition mayors are removed from office and democratic institutions have been systematically hollowed out over two decades of AKP rule.

The man who demands accountability for civilian deaths in Gaza has overseen military operations against Kurdish populations in Syria and Iraq that have themselves produced significant civilian casualties, operations that attracted a fraction of the international attention Erdogan demands for Palestinian suffering.

And the man positioning Turkey as a pillar of regional peace is a NATO member who has simultaneously maintained relations with Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, purchased Russian S-400 missiles in defiance of NATO allies and played all sides of every regional conflict with practiced opportunism.

On Israel, Erdogan is playing to the gallery. The gallery is Turkish. And the performance has nothing to do with peace.