Even if Israel and Turkey soon announce an end to their diplomatic crisis, which began almost six years ago as a result of the Mavi Marmara flotilla ship incident, relations between the two countries will not go back to how they once were. The golden era of cooperation in the security and intelligence fields between the two countries up until a decade ago will certainly not come back.
Turkey was a large and important market for Israel’s security industries, which provided drones, intelligence systems, tank and planes upgrades, and more. For years, there was close cooperation between the Mossad and Turkey’s intelligence agency, the MIT, which included meetings, an exchange of each countries’ situational assessments and more.
This cooperation began in 1958 with the initiation of an intelligence pact between Iran’s SAVAK, under the Shah, the Mossad and Turkish intelligence. The codename in Israel for this pact was “Clil” (Complete).
These intimate relations were ended by Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he rose to power in 2002, first as prime minister, and currently as president. It was a gradual process that deteriorated after the Marmara incident. However, the 2010 flotilla was merely a symptom of a deeper issue. Yet, despite the security and intelligence disconnect and the diplomatic crisis, both commercial and tourism ties did grow under Erdogan.
The initiative for a turnaround in relations has come from Ankara – if indeed there is a reconciliation afoot as Turkish media have reported and Turkey’s foreign minister expects.
Erdogan’s foreign and defense policies have failed miserably. He saw himself as the renewer of the days of the Ottoman Empire and as a modern-day, 21st century Sultan. He aimed to turn Turkey into a regional power, and perhaps into the strongest force in the Middle East, but this did not happen.
Instead, Turkey finds itself in a conflict with Russia and Iran over Syria, where Erdogan hoped to see President Bashar Assad ousted. Erdogan supported the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and now he finds himself at odds with Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. Because of Turkey’s uncompromising fight against its Kurdish population, as well as in Syria and Iraq, Ankara is also losing its influence with NATO and with the US. Turkey is now more isolated than ever and is therefore interested in renewing ties with Israel, in the hope that the Jewish state can help Ankara improve its standing in Washington. Turkey also needs natural gas from Israel in order to diversify its sources of energy and to reduce its dependency on Russian gas.
Most of the disagreements between Israel and Turkey stemming from the Marmara incident have already been rectified. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the incident in which nine Turkish citizens were killed. Israel has already made clear that it is prepared to pay some $25 million in compensation to the families of the victims. Turkey has deported senior Hamas military wing official Salah Aruri from the country and has tightened its supervision of the organization’s members at Israel’s request. Ankara has also agreed to institute special legislation that will prevent IDF commanders from standing trial for the Marmara incident.
However, the bigger problem to be solved is connected to Hamas in Gaza. Turkey is looking for a foothold in the Strip. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is strongly opposed to this, with his main argument being, to use a schoolyard expression, “You started it.” Meaning, Erdogan broke the rules, and therefore he bears the responsibility for rectifying the situation. Egypt’s Sisi as well is not prepared to easily forgive and grant Erdogan a prize for his behavior, as if nothing happened.
If the golden formula is found, and the crisis is indeed solved, it will be part of a three-way deal: Israel-Egypt-Turkey, in which the strategic alliance with Egypt is much more important to Israel than rehabilitating ties with Turkey.
Anyways, as the phrase goes, it’s not over until it’s over.
Israel has no need to make a bad deal with Turkey. Ya’alon is making this plain.
If Israel does not get what it wants for ONE: Turkey dumping Hamas for real and buying the gas it said it would buy Israel has no incentive for the deal at this point.
There are a few other things also that Israel wants without making them too public.
@ babushka:
But, of course, the Israeli prime minister is not only an idiot, but one imagines himself wiser than all Israel.
Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican dictator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries once lamented:
“Poor Mexico, so far from God but so near the United States.”
El Presidente was drawing an accurate conclusion, even if there was nothing he could do about it. In any case, it rings truthfully in my ears whenever I think about Israel’s dependence on the USA under both Democrats and Republicans.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Fortunately, the Jewish State would never even consider throwing a lifeline to the neo-Nazi Erdogan unless the Israeli prime minister was an idiot.
Uh oh.
Not for nothing has great Russia extended its armed forces to ssurround Turkey, in the Orthodox Christian world of the southern Balkan peninsula, the Crimea and the eastern provinces of Ukraine, in Syria, and now in Armenia.
Good and constantly-improving relations are not just important to Israel, but in coming decades and even coming centuries, vital. Indeed the friendship of the USA is important to Israel. But our America is halfway around the Earth from Eretz-Yisrael, and the the US State Department and US Defense department always has and probably always shall be hostile to the interests of the Jewish state and the Jewish nation.
No matter who wins the coming presidential battle, which almost certainly will be fought out by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the problems faced by the United States after decades of foolish and self-destructive national policies that have brought chaos and mass suffering to the Middle East, the public mood is this country is turning to isolationism — and not without good reason. Even if that were otherwise, Russia is in position to serve as the superpower that shall prove to be overlord of southwest Asia and northeast Africa. That is where Moshe was instructed to guide the Hebrew-speaking tribes that became the Jewish nation. The geography of Eretz-Yisrael cannot be changed. But international alliances can and must be modified. So let us all get real about this.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker