Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who oversees the country’s largest law enforcement and intelligence agency, announced that Turkish nationals fighting for Israel will face extensive legal repercussions. His statement was widely interpreted as a direct warning to Turkish Jewish citizens who enlist in the Israeli army.
The minister’s remarks, issued in a government communiqué in November 2024, mark the first official confirmation by a senior Turkish official of efforts to crack down on Jews with dual citizenship.
In the unusually phrased communiqué, a copy of which was obtained by Nordic Monitor, the minister referenced the sensitivities of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the matter, implying that the directive to target dual nationals originated directly with Erdogan himself.
“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demonstrated the strongest global response to the massacre committed by Israel in Gaza. In consideration of our president’s sensitivities and the sentiments of our nation, all legal measures are being taken against individuals who were granted dual citizenship while being Turkish citizens and are fighting for Israel,” Yerlikaya stated in the communiqué.
The minister did not specify the exact legal measures to be taken. However, given that his portfolio includes overseeing the Security Directorate General (Emniyet), which employs approximately 350,000 personnel, these actions are likely to range from criminal investigations to surveillance and intelligence operations targeting Turkish Jews who also hold Israeli citizenship.
The full text of the communiqué from Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya:
The communiqué, dated November 1, 2024, was issued in response to Islamist lawmaker Mehmet Emin Ekmen, who previously collaborated with Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Ekmen currently serves in parliament representing a small Islamist party led by Ali Babacan, a former associate of the Turkish president who held cabinet positions in past AKP governments.
Ekmen was urging the interior minister to provide information on how many Jews acquired Turkish nationality by birth and later became Israeli citizens. He asked how many of these individuals serve or have served in the Israeli military as well as whether any criminal, administrative or other actions have been taken by the Interior Ministry against them.
The Turkish minister did not provide specifics in response to these questions; however, he indicated that various legal actions are being pursued against such dual nationals. This indirectly confirms that the Erdogan government has employed numerous measures to monitor and penalize Jews who have Israeli citizenship and have served in the Israeli military.
The call for action against dual Turkish-Israeli nationals has long been ongoing in Turkey, contributing to a pervasive antisemitic campaign that has at times received endorsement from Turkish officials. Criminal complaints have been lodged against unidentified dual nationals as well as against prominent Israeli political and military leaders, with various prosecutor’s offices.
Although similar legal actions were initiated in 2014 and 2021 following flare-ups in the Gaza conflict, none resulted in significant action by the Turkish government. However, this time appears to be different in both intensity and scope, with the Erdogan government adopting serious measures, including a total trade ban with Israel and designating Israel as a national security threat.
The primary force behind the public campaign against Jews is Erdogan’s political ally, HÜDA-PAR, the political arm of Turkey’s pro-Iran Hizbullah group. This group, which entered the Turkish Parliament for the first time through Erdogan’s political party in the last election, not only organizes rallies nationwide but is also advocating for legislation to revoke the Turkish citizenship of dual Israeli-Turkish nationals, confiscate their assets and pursue criminal prosecutions against them.
The bill, which has been endorsed by Erdogan’s party, was fast-tracked to the General Assembly without undergoing the usual committee process, a rare and unusual practice in the Turkish Parliament. Although it has not yet been put to a vote, it remains pending, awaiting an opportune moment for further consideration.
Another significant driver of the antisemitic campaign in Turkey is the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsani Yardım Vakfı, IHH), the organization responsible for the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010, which resulted in deadly clashes with the Israeli army.
The IHH works closely with MIT, the Turkish intelligence agency, and has been regarded as a global logistics supplier for radical jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda. It has organized numerous rallies against Israel, including many in Istanbul and Ankara in front of the Israeli embassy and consulates as well as US diplomatic missions.
There is no reliable data on how many Turkish Jews currently serve or have served in the Israeli military. However, antisemitic campaigners circulate significantly exaggerated figures in public discourse to amplify their message and inflate the issue beyond its actual scale.
Yılmaz Bilgen, a radical Islamist figure, wrote a headline story in Turkiye, a newspaper owned by US-Turkish citizen Ahmet Mücahid Ören, in June 2024, claiming that as many as 10,000 Turkish Jews are serving in the Israeli army as conscripts, volunteers, reservists and in logistical support roles. Given that an estimated 10,000 Jews live in Turkey, it is evident that Bilgen’s figures are highly exaggerated and lack credibility.
He further asserted that 4,000 dual Turkish-Israeli nationals are responsible for shedding Palestinian blood in Gaza. Bilgen alleged that many Jews with Turkish citizenship use third countries in Europe and Africa to evade detection. He claimed to have obtained this information from government sources, although he did not specify what those sources were.
The story quickly gained traction in the Turkish media, with many quoting and citing these figures, even presented in academic circles as a base for further studies. Ankara Sosyal Bilimler Üniversitesi (Ankara Social Sciences University, ASBÜ) organized a panel discussion inviting Bilgen and others to speak about the issue in July 2024 and later published a report treating these claims as facts.
A report by the government-run Ankara Sosyal Bilimler Üniversitesi emphasized the inflated figures of Turkish Jews serving in the Israeli military as part of a public campaign against Israel:
The Erdogan government does not seem to have an issue with such antisemitic campaigns and, in fact, adds further fuel to the mass propaganda against Israel in general and Jews in particular. President Erdogan has publicly sided with Hamas in the Gaza conflict, declared Israel a national security threat and even claimed that the Jewish state intends to invade Turkey, praising Hamas as defenders of Turkey’s territory.
Although Israel has denied any intention of attacking Turkey and the Turkish government has yet to provide evidence to support such claims, the Erdogan regime continues to publicly entertain these assertions.
In the meantime, Turkish intelligence agency MIT reports that it has been involved in half a dozen criminal investigations since 2021 aimed at cracking down on what it claims to be a Mossad network of agents, assets and informants operating in Turkey. These actions appear to have been primarily focused on disrupting Israeli intelligence efforts to monitor Iranian, Hamas and affiliated groups operating out of Turkey.
Erdogan and his nationalist ally, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), believe that Israel has mobilized its regional and global resources to undermine the pair’s hold on power in Turkey. Their paranoia has been further exacerbated by what they perceive as a more pro-Israel stance during Donald Trump’s second term in office in the United States.
