Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Binyamin Ben-Eliezer on Tuesday expressed his outrage over what he considered to be a public humiliation of Turkey's ambassador by Deputy ForeignMinister Danny Ayalon, Jpost reported.
"I don't like this step," Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio from India, where he is conducting an official visit. "The respect for Israel is not judged by how you humiliate an ambassador; humiliation doesn't help, it only harms."
Ayalon had summoned Oguz Celikkol to the Knesset to express outrage over a new Turkish television show that depicts Mossad agents as baby-snatchers, and in a break from the diplomatic norm, invited the press for a photo-op, during which he was seen telling the cameramen to film him and his aide sitting on tall chairs, and the Turkish envoy on a lower chair, with the Israeli flag in the middle.
"We have enough problems with the Muslim world without picking a fight with a country that has 72 million Muslims," Ben-Eliezer continued, referring to Turkey.
"When I met with the Turks, I told them what needed to be said privately," the minister said of his November visit for economic talks, which make him the highest-ranking minister to travel to Ankara since diplomatic ties took a nosedive in October when Turkey called off a military drill due to Israel's planned participation in it. "This is not the way [to do things]; it is the way to get the entire Muslim world against us. Whoever wants the entire Muslim world against us, well, the best of luck to him."
...