Miki Zohar: We need to Start Treating Turkey Like an Enemy Country

With a Turkish activist flotilla making its way toward Israeli waters, Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar sat down for an interview on Srugim studio's program "Iron Kippot" and wasted no time getting down to hard truths. Turkey, he said, can no longer be treated as a neutral party.

"We need to start treating Turkey as an enemy state," Zohar declared. He described the flotilla as "a kind of provocation, but a very, very dangerous provocation" designed to blacken Israel's name on the world stage. "They understand that their goal is probably to delegitimize Israel," he said. "This thing is simply a lie." His warning to Ankara was direct: "We know how to hurt those who hurt us, they are welcome to try."

What Netanyahu Told Him

The minister offered what he framed as a rare private window into the prime minister's thinking. Speaking of a recent one-on-one conversation, Zohar said he asked Netanyahu plainly where Israel was headed.

"His answer was very clear," Zohar recounted. "We will decide the outcome. We will decide against Iran, we will decide against Hezbollah, and we will decide against Hamas."

Zohar said Netanyahu has undergone a visible transformation in his approach. "Netanyahu, let's call it, has taken off the gloves. He no longer operates the way he once did." The minister added that his own personal position goes even further: he supports striking Iran directly and bringing down the regime. On the northern front, he said Israel should keep pressing forward. "We don't need to stop, we continue to advance toward Beirut, and we will keep going as long as Hezbollah still exists in Lebanon."

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Blaming the Bennett-Lapid Government

Asked about responsibility for the failures of October 7, Zohar did not hesitate. "The responsibility is on us, but it is also on everyone who sat in the Bennett-Lapid government," he said. "That was a government that leaned on the Islamic Movement. That was a government that broadcast weakness to the enemy."

He extended that argument to the security establishment, noting that the heads of the Shin Bet, the IDF, and Military Intelligence at the time of the attack were all appointed under the previous government. "They were not appointed by us and were not chosen by us to serve in those important roles."

Ultra-Orthodox Conscription: "If You're Not Learning Torah - Go to the Army"

Zohar, whose own son recently enlisted in the Givati Brigade, addressed the deeply divisive issue of ultra-Orthodox military service with unusual candor for a coalition minister. "What is troubling and angering the people of Israel and rightly so, is that there are young Haredi men who are not going to study Torah," he said. "If you are a young Haredi man who is not going to study Torah, go to the army."

At the same time, he placed significant blame on the IDF itself for failing to create a suitable framework. "The IDF did not do its job well enough with Haredi leadership," he said. "The situation today is that there is no conscription law, and also no Haredi conscription."

A Cultural Revolution at the Ministry

On his tenure as culture minister, Zohar was unapologetic. "I carried out a cinema reform in which I redirected budgets toward films that Israelis love, instead of giving them to films that are against IDF soldiers and against the State of Israel."

He was careful to frame the move not as censorship but as a funding decision. "The soldiers who ultimately protect us, you cannot stand by and watch them be attacked and portrayed as oppressors and occupiers."

"The Military Advocate General Must Pay the Price"

Zohar weighed in sharply on the recent controversy surrounding the arrest of soldiers from the elite "Force 100" unit. "They took soldiers here who did their job and turned them into a tool to blacken Israel's name," he said. "In my eyes, that is nothing less than delusional."

He called for accountability and aimed his sharpest words at the IDF's Military Advocate General. "She needs to pay the price for her actions. Someone will have to bear the cost, and in this case, unequivocally, it is the Military Advocate General."

On the separate case of a soldier convicted in connection with a "Messiah patch," Zohar was equally blunt. "This man believes in the Creator of the world. He did not commit any sin. To bring him to that point, in my opinion, a terrible mistake."