By Soli Ozel
The deadly forest fire on Mount Carmel presented a timely opportunity for the Turkish and Israeli governments to climb down from their crisis mode and look for an opening to start the normalization of their relations. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan swiftly decided to send two firefighting aircraft to Israel as his “humanitarian and Islamic duty”. Rising to the occasion, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called his Turkish counterpart to show his appreciation, and at the site of the blaze personally thanked Turkish firefighters.
With the theatrics of the situation well taken care of, the two sides in short order sent their representatives to Geneva to look for ways to break the impasse they have found themselves in since the end of May. Relations hit a breaking point when the Israeli military attacked an aid flotilla in international waters and killed nine Turks (one of them an American citizen) after it encountered resistance by activists on the flagship Mavi Marmara.
The Israeli side argued that this was an act of self-defense and that the primary instigator of the flotilla was an Islamist organization whose members had at the very least dubious affiliations. The Turkish side, on the other hand, insists on the illegality of the attack since it took place in international waters, accuses Israel of violating international conventions and laws in the way it treated the detainees, and demands both an official apology and indemnity for the victims of the raid.
So far, a judicious report by the UN Human Rights Council has provided strong support for the Turkish case. A commission brought together by the secretary general of the UN is also working on a report that is already overdue mainly because of Israeli lethargy and foot dragging.
Although the gestures by the two parties came rapidly and the Geneva talks immediately convened (they were later suspended), a problem remains. How do you come up with a magic formula for a conflict-resolving statement that gives two diametrically opposed messages so that both parties can save face? Turkey will not be satisfied unless it receives an apology for the death of its citizens. Israel is officially hesitant even to express regret.
This is the impasse in the troubled, edgy and acerbic Turkish-Israeli relationship.
If the formula can be found, then the parties may turn to their publics, boast of their victory and go back to reasonably civil relations, even if the intimacy that obtained during the heyday of their relations is likely never to be recovered. Indeed, the degree of commonality of interests that existed in the context of the mid-1990s between the two countries is no more.
On the most critical issues of the Middle Eastern regional order, the two capitals do not see eye to eye. Turkey’s preference is almost exclusively for non-belligerence in solving the problems of the region. It is committed to a two-state solution and strongly opposes Israeli settlement activities, not to mention Israel’s policy toward Gaza. On Iran, it steadfastly opposes the military option. Therefore Turkey is at odds with Israel, even though it may not like a nuclear Iran or an Iran that makes its strategic peace with the United States any better than Israel.
What developments since the Carmel fire demonstrate, however, is the existence of a political will on the part of both prime ministers to forge ahead, break the impasse and move on. Turkey is interested in not having Israel as a thorn in its side, especially when this concerns its relations with the US. Israel values the Turkish connection, is interested in normalizing relations and wishes to have an agreement so that Turkey can help indemnify its military against lawsuits that might result from the findings of the report of the secretary general’s commission.
Many observers wanted to invest the forest fire with the kind of psychological breakthrough that the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece in 1999 proved to be. Although there is no denying the importance of the psychological dimension, that was not the only reason for Turkish-Greek relations to take a turn for the better. There were already political developments and a fairly well advanced rapprochement at both the political and societal levels that provided the basis for that breakthrough.
In the Israeli-Turkish case as well, I would argue that political expediency plays an important role in Erdogan’s apparent readiness to jump on the opportunity provided by the fire. While Erdogan was taking this critical step, his party members were accusing Israel of being the mastermind behind the Wikileaks scandal that they saw as a plot to embarrass and weaken the AKP government.
For Turkey, the falling out with Israel and the populist rhetoric used in the wake of the flotilla incident have proved to be pretty costly in terms of its relations with Washington. Combined with the shock and fury engendered by the Turkish vote against the new Iran sanctions package at the UN Security Council, Turkish-American relations have soured significantly.
Erdogan’s meeting with US President Barack Obama in Toronto during the G-20 summit was reportedly testy. In the US Congress, anti-Turkish sentiment rose to new heights. The Israeli lobby that long acted as Turkey’s reliable ally in Congress and in American public opinion turned decisively anti-Turkish and engaged in a defamation campaign against the AKP government. All this resurrected the tired talk about Turkey’s changing axis because of the Islamization of its foreign policy. It became quite clear to the Turkish authorities that so long as the row with Israel continued, relations with the United States could not be put on the right track.
Israel and Turkey look at the Middle Eastern regional order from very different perspectives. The Turkish military no longer calls the shots in determining the course of these relations. Public opinion, which will remain anti-Israel as long as the Palestinian issue is not resolved, influences policy-makers. At the same time, there are now strong constituencies that prefer a more cautious and moderate course in the conduct of policy toward Israel.
So if the magic formula is found, one can expect correct if not cordial relations between Israel and Turkey. This will get Israel off the hook on the flotilla affair and relieve Turkey of the pressures of an antagonistic and influential lobby in Washington. Based on the overwhelmingly positive reaction of the Israeli public and the media to Turkish assistance during the fire, such a development may also lead to a return to the trends of pre-flotilla days in societal relations.-
Soli Ozel is a lecturer at Kadir Has University and a columnist for Haberturk newspaper. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org.
