The Future of Turkey and Israel

Israel attacked the flagship of a flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza in international waters and killed nine pro-Palestinian activists on May 31st. Since most of the passengers on the ship Mavi Marmara were Turkish, this meant that the Israeli army killed Turkish civilians. To be fair, the Israelis warned repeatedly before the flotilla took off and during its journey that they would not allow the ship to sail to Gaza. But probably even the most pessimistic observers would not have expected the attack, worthy of a rogue state, with no concern for either international law, human life, or for Israel’s own image in the international arena. Upon the return of passengers, Turkish papers published harrowing accounts of the raid and what happened inside the ship.

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The already tense relations between Turkey and Israel quickly deteriorated further. Israel at first detained the passengers on all six ships and declared that it was going to try some of them, a position that the Turkish government said was unacceptable. The next night the Israelis announced that they were releasing all detainees. According to newspaper reports in Turkey, the foreign minister told Hillary Clinton that Turkey would cut off diplomatic relations with Israel unless its demands, that included an official apology from Israel, were met.

By early Thursday morning all Turkish detainees except for two who were in critical condition and some members of the group from other nationalities flew to Turkey. In mass demonstrations and at the funeral services for the nine, strong anti-Israeli slogans were chanted. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that “this irresponsible, heedless, unlawful attitude that defies any human virtue should definitely, but definitely, be punished … No one should dare to challenge Turkey or test her patience for that the strength of Turkey’s animosity is as strong as the value of its friendship.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the attacks against his country an “international offensive of hypocrisy.” The Israeli public, sharing his sentiments, took a strongly anti-Turkish stance.

It is safe to argue that Israeli-Turkish relations will not be the same again soon, if ever. Certainly not, so long as the current Israeli government remains in place. After all, civilian blood has been spilled by Israel’s military, although the two sides are not at war. The botched raid is a turning point for this partnership that was valuable for the United States.

Partially, this is the result of the fact that the conditions that led to the flourishing of these relations a decade and a half ago are no longer valid. The balance of power between the two partners as well as the strategic framework in the Middle East within which the two parties operated has changed drastically. Turkey, unlike Israel, is a beneficiary of such changing conditions.

Because the ruling party of Turkey (Justice and Development Party, or AKP) belongs to Turkey’s Islamist tradition, many pundits see this turn of events as a function of an ideological drift in Turkish foreign policy. After all Turkey took a violently critical position against Israel’s Operation Cast Lead: the prime minister walked out on a panel in Davos after telling the Israeli president that his people knew well how to kill people. Turkish televison shows depicted the Israelis as heartless monsters capable of killing toddlers in Gaza.

Furthermore, Mr. Erdoğan attacked Israel and its policies in Gaza on every opportunity he could find. The relations came close to a breaking point earlier in the year when Israel’s deputy foreign minister tried to humiliate the Turkish ambassador by sitting him on a low sofa and then bragging about this before television cameras. That crisis was brought to an end only after Israel issued a formal apology.

I would argue that most of these incidents — including the latest, bloody one, which may have significantly changed the nature of Turkish-Israeli relations — stem from structural causes. The two countries have diverging visions for the Middle East and their policy preferences and approaches are increasingly irreconcilable. There is also a sense of competition as Turkey increasingly sees itself as a regional power and seeks to be America’s main partner in the region. Under the rubric of “model partnership” introduced by President Obama, Ankara believes that it has a chance to forge such a relation that will inevitably come at the expense of Israel’s most favored and protected status.

Turkey wishes to have a Middle East order that is based on economic integration, political stability, and peace. Achieving peace is seen as the precondition of political stability and economic integration that would consolidate that stability. Ankara believes Israel’s current policies are blocking this path. Whereas Israel is against the lifting of the siege of Gaza, Turkey believes it must be ended and a way must be found to engage Hamas in the political process. In pursuit of that goal, though, Turkey slides too far towards Hamas.

Prime Minister Erdoğan strongly reiterated his view that Hamas is a resistance movement and not a terrorist organization and that it won elections fair and square and that it ought to be treated accordingly. Such rhetoric, along with the Islamic undertones of his speeches and the relentless attacks on Israel, helped bring about the usual questions about the Islamization of foreign policy. Rhetoric notwithstanding, ideology is not the essence of the policy that Turkey pursues: it is the pursuit of regional hegemony that drives Turkish diplomacy. Still, while the Turkish government takes risks to open some space for Hamas to be engaged in the political game, until today Hamas had done nothing, such as releasing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to the Turks, to boost Turkey’s position.

For Israel, Turkey had lately become a problematic partner. Not only does Turkey continue to engage Iran, despite criticism that Tehran uses it to gain time for further enrichment, it also keeps bringing up Israel’s nuclear arsenal every chance it gets. The recent decision of the nuclear conference that invited Israel to open its nuclear program to scrutiny proved that Turkey’s persistence on this matter paid off.

In this light, the Israeli raid on the flotilla is seen in Turkey as an attempt by the current Israeli government to send a clear message of its discomfort with Turkey. Since Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who consistently argued that relations with Turkey were of utmost importance, masterminded the operation, many Turks took the raid to be a deliberately hostile act that resulted from a strategic decision by the Israelis to deny the Turks their goals.

The operation got strong condemnation from the world community despite reservations expressed by the nature and intentions of the main Turkish sponsor of the flotilla. Turkey got what it wanted but at an intolerable cost. In the wake of the bloody event, the siege of Gaza is back on the world’s agenda. Israel has lost more legitimacy but Turkey also lost its status as a mediator between Israel and Arab parties. The all-important Ankara-Tel Aviv axis is in disrepair, if not broken.

This should be of some concern for the United States, which always supported and promoted this particular relationship. The mood in Turkey is furiously anti-Israeli and the Israeli public appears no less incensed about Turkey. A member of the ruling party in Turkey suggested that the escalation may lead to the annulment of all bilateral military agreements between the two countries.

Should the current Israeli government fall, the relations might have a chance to start a long process of recuperation. American diplomacy should spend more time and energy in helping repair this alignment, the precondition for which is the lifting of the Gaza siege and a serious peace process. Both for Western interests and the long-term stability of the region, such a restoration would be most desirable.

Whether or not it can be attainable after this bloody encounter, however, remains to be seen.