After suffering a drastic defeat in the local elections last Sunday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now reportedly seeks to restore his country’s ties with Israel after months of incitement and open support for Hamas, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported.

When Erdoğan threatened to “send Netanyahu to Allah” in a post on 𝕏 two weeks ago, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz summoned the Turkish deputy ambassador to Israel for a serious reprimand.

During this dressing down, according to Maariv, the Turkish diplomat assured the director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry that “Erdogan’s harsh rhetoric against Israel stems from Erdoğan’s political considerations in the local elections in Turkey.”

After the elections were over, Turkey would start restoring the deeply strained relations by returning Turkey’s ambassador to Israel and inviting Israel’s ambassador to return to Ankara, he claimed.

Türkiye’de yerel seçimler Erdoğan’ın adayları için yenilgiyle sonuçlandı. İstanbul’da @ekrem_imamoglu ve Ankara’da @mansuryavas06‘a tebrikler. Bu @RTErdogan‘a açık bir mesaj: İsrail’e saldırmak artık işe yaramıyor, yeni malzemeler bulması gerekli.— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) March 31, 2024

The Maariv report came shortly after Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz claimed Erdoğan’s defeat was caused by his animosity toward Israel, and provocatively congratulated his rivals on their victory in a Turkish-language post on X.

“Local elections in Turkey ended in defeat for Erdoğan’s candidates. Congratulations to Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul and Mansur Yavas in Ankara,” Katz wrote.

“This is a clear message to Erdoğan: Attacking Israel no longer works, he needs to find new materials,” he added.

After years of good relations between the countries, Erdoğan began to harshly criticize Israel after the Gaza flotilla incident in 2010, before restoring full diplomatic relations in 2022, culminating with an announcement last September that he planned to visit Israel soon.

However, since the start of the Gaza War with Hamas’ invasion and massacre on October 7, Erdoğan has again thrown his full support behind Hamas, refusing to call them terrorists on several occasions and comparing Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

In Sunday’s local elections, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won 15 other mayoral races, including in the capital Ankara, and in Istanbul, where Erdoğan began his political career as mayor decades ago.

This is the worst defeat for Erdoğan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AK) since the party took power in 2003, according to Reuters.

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