I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine!

In his hometown of Rize, he railed against Israel.

He said;

“Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we can do the same to them. There is nothing to stop us from doing so. We just need to be strong to take these steps.”

The response to these threatening sentences did not take long.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz made a statement on his social media account that was a veiled threat:

"Erdogan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatening to attack Israel. Let him remember what happened there and how it ended."

Moreover, knowing that the people of my country have a short memory, he did not neglect to make a small reminder by placing a photo of Saddam and His Majesty side by side.

This was clearly a message saying, “I have America behind me, be careful.”

Our Foreign Ministry did not fall behind either.

Like his Israeli counterpart, he also entered the fray via social media.

He made a scathing post, saying, "Just as the genocidal Hitler met his end, so too will the genocidal Netanyahu. Just as the genocidal Nazis were held to account, so too will those who try to destroy the Palestinians. Humanity will stand with the Palestinians. You will not be able to destroy the Palestinians.”

When Bahçeli, the government's crutch, also grabbed his salt shaker and ran to join in, the issue was moved to the top of the agenda.

We do not know if anyone will ask what Turkey's support for operations in Karabakh and Libya has to do with Israel, or if we are the ones who will save Palestine while Arab countries stand by.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter that he is mixing apples and oranges. Those who want to eat, eat. Since the people of my country are more interested in how something is said rather than what is said, every speech he makes with the tone of an imam receives applause in any case.

His Majesty had ranted in a similar way last year at the Great Palestine Rally, which he organized one day before October 29 to overshadow the 100th-anniversary celebrations of the Republic.

He had said, “Especially in the last 10 years, whatever we have done in the fight against terrorism, we have achieved despite them. Hopefully, from now on, we will continue to advance on the path we have drawn for ourselves with the motto that we may come suddenly one night. We are ready to walk this path with our nation at any moment. By the permission of Allah, this nation is ready to write new epics,” but these words fell like a dud cannonball that had lost its fire, even back then. It was never followed up on; in other words, it was a fizzle...!

In the old Turkey, which they criticize so much and try to make people forget, these things had a sense of seriousness.

Diplomacy was not conducted via social media.

Those who had a mouth didn't just talk, foreign policy was not instrumentalized to consolidate voters at home, and it was not used to polarize the people of my country.

The country's supreme issues were not used as material for demagoguery.

Whoever was in power, a national consensus was always sought before critical decisions.

It seems that now, in order to compensate for the defeat he suffered on March 31, he is once again pinning his hopes on his old strategy.

While the people of my country, who showed the government a red card in the local elections, are at each other's throats over stray dogs, he has created an opportunity for himself to align his voters, who have begun to drift away due to the economic crisis.

He broke and smashed things with the comfort of being in his hometown.

Netanyahu, who is committing genocide in Gaza, was already a legitimate target! He took up the saz with the unbearable lightness of acting as the patron of the Palestinians and shaking his finger at Israel.

He struck a chord with the so-called “nationalist,” sanctimonious, and conservative voters who get irritated even by the casual use of the word “Israel” in any sentence, and who, not content with just being irritated, develop an allergy to it.

While CHP's barely-out-of-adolescence Chairman Özgür Özel continues to go soft on the government, His Majesty quickly changed the agenda the moment he felt cornered.

The palace-fed news channels and the government's social media trolls began to stir up the issue, strictly following the instructions they received.

But what about the people of my country...

Will the people of my country, who live almost at the hunger threshold, whose earnings have become worthless due to the inflation that the government stoked to transfer capital to its own cronies, who have reached a point where they can barely afford to take home a hundred grams of ground meat, who are thinking about how they will make ends meet at the end of the month with the pittance they earn, and who have even lost hope for the future of their children, say “we are fed up with empty words”! That remains a mystery.

This move by His Majesty also works in Netanyahu's favor.

Don't let their mutual bluster fool you. As they lash out at each other, they are consolidating their bases through empty noise and religious, hollow nationalist demagoguery.

His Majesty's barrage of fire, far from scaring Netanyahu, is laying the groundwork for him to protect his religious, racist, bigoted government.

The barrage of fire opened from there is similarly giving ammunition to the one here.

It is a kind of “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” situation.

The country is now struggling in such a quagmire that the concept of “normal” has disappeared from our lives in every respect. The fact that His Excellency slapped a baby in the palm of his hand for not kissing his hand did not become as much of an agenda item as the petty squabble with Israel.

Let us ask whether we should look for the secret of his acting so recklessly despite the debacle he suffered in the local elections in the charm of his blue checkered jacket, and leave the answer to the discernment of the reader as we put a period to our article.