Israel catches Turkey in two
minds By M K Bhadrakumar
The crisis in Syria has prompted the
Israeli leadership to make a strong pitch for
repairing the ties with Turkey. Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu personally took the initiative.
The Israeli leader's move most certainly
enjoys American backing, while Netanyahu also felt
emboldened by his consolidation within Israel's
ruling coalition to press ahead with the
initiative. But the clincher would have been that
Turkey is a manifestly divided house with regard
to the policies to be pursued over the Syrian
crisis. The ball is now on the Turkish side of the
court.
On Monday, Netanyahu met in his
office an eight-member team of senior Turkish
journalists in a high-profile attempt to break the
ice between Israel and Turkey. This is the first
such meeting since
the incident in May 2010
involving the killing of nine Turks by Israeli
commandos who tried to stop the Turkish ship
Mavi Marmara from breaking the Gaza
blockade, which pushed the ties between the two
countries into a free-fall.
Turkey
expelled Israel's ambassador when Tel Aviv refused
to meet its demands, which included an official
apology for the incident, compensation for the
families of the victims and an end to the Gaza
blockade. Ankara also froze all military and
security cooperation with Israel and filed
criminal charges against the chiefs of the Israeli
armed forces.
Washington tried in vain to
cool down tempers while Turkish and Israeli
diplomats negotiated behind the scenes to reach a
mutually acceptable formula. But Israeli
hardliners including Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman refused to countenance an apology or to
allow Ankara a say in the blockade of Gaza.
Israel today is in a mood to compromise.
The recent inclusion of Kadima Party in the ruling
coalition marginalizes "hardliners" like
Lieberman. Netanyahu himself was never in two
minds that rapprochement with Turkey was in
Israel's interests.
The second factor is
of course the upheaval in Syria. The alienation
from Turkey hurts Israel and accentuates its
regional isolation and limits its options on the
ground to be proactive despite Israel's
unquestionable military superiority over Syria.
The tumultuous flow of events in Syria
vitally affects Israel's security - be it the
civil war and fragmentation or the role of radical
Islamists in the event of "regime change" in
Damascus. The short point is that closest possible
cooperation with Turkey at the level of the
military and intelligence is needed to optimally
handle the fallouts.
The Israeli statement
following Netanyahu's meeting with the Turkish
media personalities quoted him as saying:
"Turkey and Israel are two
important, strong and stable countries in this
region, which is very turbulent and unstable.
The Turkish people and the Jewish people have
had a long relationship. Turkey and Israel have
had a long relationship. We have to keep looking
for ways to restart the relationship we had
because I think it is important for which of our
countries, and it is particularly important now
for the stability of this region at this
time."
Netanyahu told the Turkish
journalists: "Since I believe in a common
interest, both Israel and Turkey should do as much
as they can to restore their relationship. We
would like to restore our relations again and both
countries are looking for opportunities to do so."
In background briefings to the visiting
Turkish journalists, Israeli officials were more
explicit:
"What is happening in Syria is a
tragedy, and a greater tragedy is imminent …
Both Turkey and Israel have close ties with the
United States, and each of is shares important
information about Syria with the Americans. We
share the same concern…"
Natural
allies The big question is whether or not
the Syrian crisis could inspire a Turkish-Israeli
deal. A recent article in the New York Times
co-authored by Michael Herzog (former chief of
staff to Israel's defense minister) and Soner
Cagaptay at the influential Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, toyed with this big
question. The two prominent pundits argued that
there could be a "new degree of openness" in Tel
Aviv and Ankara to the idea of reconciliation, but
a rapprochement will still probably require
American mediation. They wrote:
"President Obama has a unique
opportunity to help rebuild a strategically
vital relationship between these two American
allies. While their relationship is unlikely to
return to past levels of strategic cooperation,
normalizing it could advance important American
interests in Syria, Iran and the eastern
Mediterranean."
They estimated that
Israel's national security establishment is
"firmly in favor of a reconciliation initiative"
and a partnership at the operational level between
Turkey and Israel could be very productive to
bring about over the regime change in Syria:
"A normalized Turkish-Israeli
relationship would also open opportunities for
cooperation against the Assad government, with
the Turks taking the political and regional lead
and the Israelis providing intelligence and
additional practical assets … Any Israeli
contribution would, of course, have to be
invisible in order not to create a sense that
Israel was behind the Syrian uprising. This
makes Turkish-Israeli cooperation against Mr
Assad even more valuable, for it would allow
Israel to provide untraceable assets to support
Turkey's efforts to undermine the Assad
government."
Traditionally, Israel
enjoyed deep pockets of influence in Ankara. The
"Kemalists" were drawn to Israel and the
Turkish-Israeli partnership flourished in the
recent decades. The Turkish security and military
establishment (which used to be the "deep state"
up until recently when the civilian elected
leadership gained control) valued Israel's
expertise and professional acumen. Among the
Turkish elites, there was high regard for Israel
as an outpost of democracy in a region dotted with
despots. Suffice to say, in the a priori
history of Turkey's politics, the mainstream
secular parties saw Israel as Turkey's natural
ally in the Muslim Middle East.
However,
things began to change after the Islamist AKP
stormed into power. In retrospect, a trend toward
"downgrading" the ties with Israel began much
before the Mavi Marmara incident. The
leadership of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan moved
according to a pre-determined plan to
fundamentally reset Turkey's Middle Eastern
relationships in which ties with Israel were
downsized in a calibrated way. Arguably, Mavi
Marmara episode provided a leitmotif to hasten
the reset.
Many sub-plots It
cannot be that Israel is unaware of the reality
that the deep chill in Turkey's relations with
Israel is symptomatic of the massive
transformations in Turkish society and politics
during the past eight years, rather than being the
inevitable consequence of an unfortunate incident,
however tragic it might have been.
The
fact that Netanyahu nonetheless made his overture
on such a sensitive issue to a group of
journalists rather than discreetly at a political
level or through diplomatic channels shows that
Israel hopes to appeal to Turkish public opinion.
A spokesperson of the Israeli foreign ministry
Yigal Palmor, while briefing the visiting
journalists, alleged that there are personal
dislikes and feelings of mistrust between senior
Turkish and Israeli officials. All the same, he
added, "We want to have strong ties with Turkey,
and we have not given up on relations with Turkey.
We need to work on it. We do want to extend our
hand to Turkey. We need to understand what is
hurting each other. The doors are open."
To be sure, Netanyahu's overture has many
sub-plots. It weighs in on Turkey's acute
predicament over the Syrian crisis and it most
certainly enjoys US support. It estimates that
Turkey is going to make some crucial moves over
the Syrian situation in the coming days and weeks.
And it tries to rally the enduring sections of
Turkish opinion (which are by no means
insubstantial) that always favored strategic ties
with Israel.
Prominent commentator Mehmet
Ali Briand probably drew attention to just one
such intriguing sub-plot when he sized up
Netanyahu's olive branch in this way:
"One important factor we should not
ignore is that a Turkey which has no dialogue
with Israel is not as interesting as it used to
be in the eyes of the countries of the region …
The change in the Arab world is also reflected
in Turkey. And Turkey, involuntarily, has lost
its former influence. Everyone knows that no
Middle East policy can be conducted without
Israel. It is also obvious that in the chess
game of the Middle East, one cannot go anywhere
with only Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf
countries, or be influential just by forming a
Sunni front. Turkey also should make a decision
now. Paths in diplomacy never come to an end;
there is always an exit."
Meanwhile,
ironically, one of the main Turkish conditions for
reconciliation with Israel - ending the blockade
of Gaza - has also been partly fulfilled. On
Monday, Cairo announced the easing of restrictions
for Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt. The
unprecedented move followed last week's meeting in
Cairo between President Mohammed Morsi of the
Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leader Khaled
Mashaal.
Thus, it becomes highly
significant that on Tuesday - within a day after
Netanyahu made his overture - at an Iftar dinner
at Erdogan's residence, there were surprise guests
- a team of Hamas officials led by Mashaal.
Mashaal used to be based in Damascus but
his equations with the Syrian regime have lately
become ambivalent. An estimated 500,000-strong
Palestinian community lives in Syria. Hamas is
also a "branch" of the Muslim Brotherhood and
Turkey is currently hosting the exiled leadership
of Syria's Brotherhood.
Erdogan's talks
with Mashaal lasted well over three hours and it
seems they will have substantial bearing on the
Syrian situation. Erdogan was assisted at the
meeting by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and
the head of the Turkish intelligence Hakan Fidan.
There will be a sigh of disappointment in Tel Aviv
- and in Washington.
Ambassador M K
Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included
the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and
Turkey.
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