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Turkey only pays lip service to Palestinian cause: Pundit

Monday, 24 December 2018 1:17 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 24 December 2018 1:55 PM ]

The war of words between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “circumstantial,” says an academic, adding that it is not going to affect the “real relations” between Turkey and Israel.

Turkey and Israel have exchanged new broadsides, with Ankara blasting Israel's occupation and Tel Aviv accusing Turkey of massacring Kurds and occupying Cyprus.

“This verbal feud doesn’t affect the real relations which are strong between Turkey and Israel. We know that throughout the past decade the relations were strengthened whether on the military, security or economic levels and in spite of various instances of verbal feuds … these relations weren’t affected at all … So I don’t believe that this affects much the relations. Much of it is circumstantial and directed to win over domestic public opinion whether in Turkey or among the Zionists,” Jamal Wakim, a professor at Lebanese International University, told Press TV in an interview on Monday.

“I believe that the support of Ankara [for] the Palestinian cause is mere verbal because we didn’t see any real act whether on the diplomatic level or on other levels from the side of Turkey to pressure the state of Israel or to support the resistance in Palestine. It is a mere demagogue declaration by Erdogan and I don’t believe that it has any effect on the relations between Turkey and the state of Israel,” he added.

The latest war of words is not the first of its kind. In April, Netanyahu launched a rhetorical attack against Erdogan over Cyprus after the Turkish leader called Israel a “terrorist state” following the Israeli army’s killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza.