Within the next few weeks, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog is expected to travel to Istanbul to meet with his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Israeli officials have described this visit as signaling warmer relations between the two countries, despite Erdogan’s longstanding and forceful criticisms of the Jewish state. Ruthie Blum argues that this effort is misguided, noting, among other things, Turkey’s condemnation of the Abraham Accords. To illustrate her point, Blum notes the recent imprisonment of an Israeli couple vacationing in Turkey, who “were slapped with the bogus charge of espionage for taking a photo of the presidential palace.”

Immediately before their detention, the husband and wife from Modi’in had made a video lauding their holiday venue. “Turkey is fun. It’s safe. You can speak Hebrew freely here; . . . . they love us. Come on over,” they said on camera with great cheer.

Since the harrowing ordeal, they’ve changed their view of the country and its “safety” for Israelis. Their government should do the same when it comes to trusting Erdogan.

Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spent days appealing to Erdogan to intervene. Each begged him to persuade Turkish law enforcement to release the Oknins from custody, on the grounds that they weren’t Mossad agents. But Erdogan excels at capitalizing on a crisis of his own making.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.