As Turkey's Erdogan threatens an invasion, Israel reminds him of Saddam Hussein's fate

After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Israel with an invasion, the Jewish state hit back with a warning of its own.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Foreign Minister Israel Katz reminded Erdogan of the fate of Saddam Hussein who had also openly threatened Israel once.

In 1991, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain had attacked Israel with dozens of missiles after issuing threats for months. The attack came at a time when he was already waging war on Kuwait that had led the United States to come to the aid of Kuwait in what came to be known as the Gulf War.

In 2003, Saddam was captured after the US-led invasion of Iraq over suspicions of him harbouring weapons of mass destructions (WMDs). Three years later, he was executed after being convicted for crimes against humanity which included willful killing, illegal imprisonment, deportation, and torture during his decades of rule in which he terrorised the ethnic minorities of the country.

‘Just remember how it ended for Saddam Hussein’

Sharing a photo of Saddam in captivity, Israeli Foreign Minister Katz said that Erdogan should remember Hussein’s fate.

“Erdogan follows in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” said Katz in a post on X in Hebrew.

In 1991, Saddam had ordered the attacks on Israel with the intention of provoking a retaliation that could ignite the Muslim-majority Middle East against the Jewish state. At a time when he was already waging a war on Kuwait, Saddam had hoped that once Israel retaliated on a fellow Muslim country, the Muslim countries of the region would stop supporting Kuwait and siding with the United States and would open a front against Israel — or at least stand in solidarity with Iraq.

As Israel did not retaliate, no such solidarity happened and a US-led coalition of 42 countries launched a war to free Kuwait from the invading Iraqi troops. Saddam lost the war.

What did Erdogan say?

Amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Erdogan on Sunday said that Turkey could invade Israel just like it stormed into other conflicts in the region, such as the civil wars in Syria and Libya and the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Speaking at a meeting of his AK Party, Erdogan said “there was no reason Turkey cannot do this”.

“We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them,” said Erdogan, as per Reuters.

Erdogan further said, “There is no reason why we cannot do this … We must be strong so that we can take these steps.”

In war-torn Syria, rebels and the regime forces of dictator Bashar al Assad have fought since 2011 even as a parallel war raged between the terrorist group ISIS and the Kurds ethnic minority. Turkey under Erdogan intervened to take military action against Kurds whom it considers terrorists.

In 2020, Turkey intervened in Libya in support of the United Nations (UN)-recognised government.

In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey supported Azerbaijan. The conflict led to the exodus of at least 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh. The exodus, a result of Azerbaijan’s military actions with Turkey’s support, is considered a case of ethnic cleansing.

As Armenians were fleeing for their lives in the wake of Azerbaijan’s onslaught, Erdogan visited Azerbaijan to show solidarity.

“It’s good they will be there and they will become witnesses that these people were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland, from their homes where their parents, where their ancestors were living and these people were totally cleansed from this territory,” said Armenia’s Ambassador-at-Large Edmon Marukyan at the time to BBC.