Israel is probing its relations with Turkey. Moderate remarks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reflect their search for reconciliation.
Netanyahu, stressing that Turkey and Israel have common interests as illustrated by the Syrian crisis, says that dialogue has to be restored. About the Mavi Marmara flotilla affair, Lieberman says that a formula similar to the United States apology following accidental killing of more than 20 Pakistan soldiers could be worked out.
The reality is that although the Arab Spring and the Syrian crisis in particular have severely disrupted Turkey’s regional expectations, it was Israel that was even more shaken by these developments.
Although it had its constant tensions, the status quo in the Middle East — that is, the situation before the Arab Spring — did not pose as much of a threat to Israel. Thus, for Israel, relations with Turkey are of vital importance.
Polls in Israel also indicate that the percentage of people favoring improving ties with Turkey is increasing. But you don’t sense the same urgency on the Turkish side. If a poll were to be taken, I wouldn’t be surprised if the outcome favored a total junking of its already rock-bottom relations with Israel.
Turkey’s three conditions
While Israel wants to restore relations, in Turkey, where there is no conviction that these relations are all that important, there is no similar desire. In such a situation, it is not difficult to predict that relations are not going to improve, at least not before a resolution of the flotilla affair.
A few days ago, we participated in a round-table discussion of Turkey-Israel relations in a Rome meeting organized by the IPALMO Foreign Affairs Institute, which works with the Italian Foreign Ministry. An Israeli speaker, a former intelligence official, said that since he was deeply pessimistic about the trends in the Middle East, he was therefore optimistic about Turkey-Israel relations. This view is based on a rationale that the more turbulence there is in the Middle East, the more important strong Turkish-Israeli relations would become.
Even if we share the view that Middle East is bound to become more convoluted, we can’t really share the optimism that this would bring about an improvement in Turkey-Israel relations.
Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan recently reiterated Turkey’s three conditions of improving relations with Israel. He said Ankara still expects an apology and compensation for the flotilla attack and the lifting of the Gaza blockade. Unless these are agreed to, Israel should not waste time hoping for a dialogue.
Lack of confidence in Erdogan
There is no concrete indication that Turkey’s conditions will be met, despite milder messages from Netanyahu and Lieberman. No steps have so far been taken, and the leaders make statements like: “We could express regret, pay compensation. There is no blockade on Gaza anyway; everything comes freely from Egypt.”
When we asked our Israeli interlocutors in Rome about this situation, their response was a “lack of confidence in Erdogan.”
They believe that Erdogan will not give up his anti-Israel position even if all Turkish conditions are met. This conviction is based on the belief that both Erdogan and Foreign Minister Davutoglu are anti-Israel because of their ideological inclinations.
It is true that previous governments in Turkey tried hard to maintain a pragmatic functionalism in relations with Israel at the worst of times, based on decades-old and firmly established logic.
The AKP government, which has pursued domestic and foreign policies based on an ideological slant we are not accustomed to (with significant constituent support, mind you), has no such worry.
Given that nonchalance, you don’t have to be fortune teller to see the Israeli efforts are futile.
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