Domestic Politics Vs. International Politics In The Israeli Election
December 26, 2012 § 7 Comments
As regular O&Z readers know, if this blog has any sort of running theme it is that domestic politics is often decisive in determining foreign policy. When I wrote last week for The Atlantic about the rightwing political competition that is driving settlement activity, a close friend emailed, “So you’re saying it is local politics at work…#ImagineMySurprise.” I have pointed to domestic politics to argue that Israel and Turkey won’t be normalizing relations any time soon (and I’ll try and write about the recent NATO news tomorrow, but no, I don’t think it signals that anything is going to imminently change) and to predict that there was not going to be an Israeli strike on Iran last spring, summer, or fall. Does this mean that domestic politics is always decisive in every situation? Of course not. There are plenty of times in which other considerations are at work; the months-long push on the Turkish government’s to get NATO to intervene in Syria is one such instance. Nevertheless, I maintain that a lack of focus on domestic politics and the constraints it imposes leads to lots of shoddy analysis from both professionals and casual observers.
Over the next few months, Israel is going to be a great petri dish for watching these trends at work. On the one hand, influential and respected defense and security experts like Amos Yadlin are warning that Israel is losing its international support and status because of its footdragging on the peace process, Tzipi Livni has founded a new party devoted solely to reviving talks with the Palestinians, and there is chatter that the EU is losing so much patience that it is going to try and force Israel and the Palestinians into a deal. Last week the State Department issued a harsher than usual condemnation of Israeli settlement activity, as did the fourteen non-U.S. members of the Security Council. By any measure, Israel’s settlement policy and reticence on the creation of a Palestinian state is become increasingly costly. Looking at it from a black box perspective, you have a state living in a hostile neighborhood with an enormous qualitative military edge over its neighbors that is facing a dangerous potential dip in support from its main external allies and is facing increasing international isolation over the Palestinian statehood issue, which does not present an existential security threat by any means. The state is facing what it believes is an existential threat from Iran, and on that front it needs all the help it can get from its main allies. Given everything involved, you’d expect Israel in this situation to take moves to forestall its isolation and shore up its relationship with the U.S. and EU – which are its primary providers of military and economic aid and diplomatic support across the board – by making some serious concessions on the Palestinian front. After all, even if settlements in the West Bank are viewed as a security buffer, keeping them from a security perspective given Palestinian military capabilities pales in comparison to risking the cessation of purchases of military hardware and transfers of military technology, and enabling the risk of complete diplomatic isolation.
Given all of this, one might expect to see an Israeli coalition after the election that includes Livni’s Hatnua party and that undertakes serious initiatives on the Palestinian statehood and peace process fronts. Such a coalition would under no circumstances include Naftali Bennett and Habayit Hayehudi, as Bennett wants to annex Area C and does not support the creation of a Palestinian state. Indeed, there have been moves in that direction as far as keeping Bennett out is concerned, and there have also been reports that Netanyahu and Livni are exploring the possibility of Hatnua joining the coalition after the election, which would almost necessarily mean her return to the Foreign Ministry and a greater push for a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
On the other hand, taking domestic politics into account would point to a different path. As I wrote last week, the idea behind the joint Likud-Beiteinu list was to create a right-wing monolith that would put an electoral victory out of reach for Israel’s left and to also present rightwing voters without a real alternative. Netanyahu wanted to eliminate any challenges from his right flank by co-opting Lieberman, but it now turns out that he has to deal with Bennett on his right and a swift migration of voters (so far, at least) away from Likud and to Habayit Hayehudi. It is also the case that Israeli voters do not care about the Palestinians or the peace process, which is why Hatnua is stuck in single digits, Labor and Shelley Yachimovich barely mention anything other than social issues and the economy unless absolutely forced to, and Bennett is gaining a larger following based partly on a perception that Netanyahu is actually not hawkish enough. Taking all of this into account means a coalition that includes Bennett, continues to take a hardline on a Palestinian state, and bemoans the lack of support from European states rather than constructing a policy meant to change that reality.
So which will it be? Unsurprisingly, my money is on the second option, but the first one is certainly plausible. It really just depends on how much weight you place on the domestic political calculus. Netanyahu’s history is that he pays attention to his domestic political survival above all else, and I see no evidence that he has suddenly become a changed man. To my mind, Israel’s long term health necessitates the first path, while Netanyahu’s lies with the second. Let’s hope that events in 2013 prove me wrong.
Why Is Erdoğan Needling The EU?
November 14, 2012 § Leave a comment
Prime Minister Erdoğan seems to be going out of his way lately to push the European Union’s buttons. First, while in Berlin for meetings with Angela Merkel, he gave the EU an ultimatum that Turkey would halt its accession talks for good if it was not granted EU membership by 2023. Turkey’s frustration at being strung along is quite understandable, but there’s no doubt that Erdoğan’s threat to drop out of the process ruffled some European feathers. While in Germany he also made a strange reference to Turkey not adopting the euro but setting up its own “lira zone” which would presumably compete with the euro zone, thrilling a segment of Turkish nationalists who are convinced that the EU needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the EU but leaving many observers scratching their heads as the lira has a low trading volume and it is unclear which countries, if any, would ever join such a project.
The biggest salvo aimed at the EU, however, has been the prime minister’s recent comments on the death penalty. Erdoğan has now hinted that Turkey should reinstate the death penalty in a number of different forums, including an AKP meeting, a press conference, and on twitter, where he said that the state is not entitled to forgive a killer and that some killings may warrant the death penalty. Ahmet Davutoğlu and Sadullah Ergin both insist that Erdoğan was only referring to the Norwegian mass murdered Anders Breivik and that no preparations are being made for Turkey to reinstate the death penalty, but the issue rankles the EU nonetheless. While Turkey has not executed anyone since 1984, it officially abolished the death penalty in 2002 as part of its reforms aimed at joining the EU, and this issue is associated with EU reforms perhaps more than any other. That Erdoğan is now bringing up the death penalty is seen as a direct affront to the EU and is being taken by some as a signal that Erdoğan is trying to put some distance between Turkey and Europe. The prime minister’s comments prompted a swift response from Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, who stated in no uncertain terms that a Turkish move to reinstate the death penalty would deliver an enormous blow to Turkey-EU relations.
It seems strange that Erdoğan is going out of his way to upset the Europeans, and while the death penalty row is a patented Erdoğan technique for deflecting attention away from the government’s missteps by bringing up a controversial issue (see his comments on abortion sweeping the Uludere airstrikes right off the front pages over the summer), this time it fits into a larger pattern of implicit and explicit EU-bashing. I actually don’t think that what is going on is about the EU at all, but is a misguided effort on Erdoğan’s part to pressure European countries into being more active in solving the Syria mess. Erdoğan has been trying in vain to get the U.S. or NATO to intervene, so far to no avail, and not only has he not made any progress but has managed to annoy both the U.S. and NATO by keeping up the rhetorical pressure in public and constantly bringing up intervention in private. Instead of recognizing that this strategy has failed and coming up with a new approach, I think Erdoğan is trying something similar now with the EU but from a different direction. Ankara has made it clear that Syria is its absolute top priority right now, and Erdoğan is playing on European fears that the West is going to “lose” Turkey. By threatening to withdraw from the EU process and by implying that he will consider reinstating the death penalty, Erdoğan is trying to do whatever he can to get European states to act to bring back Turkey into the fold – a fold that Turkey has never actually left – and the easiest way to do that is to give Turkey a helping hand on Syria. Deploying Patriot missiles along the Syrian border is the U.S. and NATO response to keeping Turkey happy and by taking constant digs at the EU, Erdoğan is trying to coax some European action in order to pacify Turkey, whether it be greater rhetorical pressure on Syria and recognition of the Syrian opposition (as France did yesterday) or a renewed push in the Security Council for some sort of action. The question is whether Europe is going to play along or call Erdoğan’s bluff, and that remains to be seen. In any event, I don’t think that the recent attempts to imply distancing from Europe is about Europe at all, but like so much else going on with Turkey these days, is actually about what’s taking place with its next door neighbor.
Magical Thinking On Turkey’s EU Bid
May 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
The swearing in of new French president François Hollande has led to a round of renewed optimism in Turkey over its bid to join the European Union. The Turkish parliament is racing to introduce new legislation that would establish a human rights commission and a panel to deal with complaints about Turkey’s judiciary, and the hope is that these moves will lead France to unblock five chapters in the EU accession talks. On Monday, Germany’s foreign minister said that there is space to once again resume negotiations but that Turkey should not get its hopes up too much since progress on the issue will take awhile. As always, it is interesting to note the difference in the accounts from Hürriyet and Today’s Zaman, as the former includes the German minister’s words of caution while the latter omits them. Zaman does, however, take stock of the elephant in the room, which is Cyprus. Despite the fact that Cyprus is a member of the EU, Turkey’s seaports and airports are closed to Cypriot ships and planes, which is what led the EU to suspend succession talks in the first place. Turkey has no plans to change its policy, and on Monday FM Davutoğlu confirmed Turkey’s position that it will suspend relations with the EU once Cyprus assumes the rotating presidency on July 1. At the very same press conference, Davutoğlu also voiced the expectation and hope that there is going to be a “positive acceleration” of relations between Turkey and the EU now that Sarkozy is gone and Hollande is in his place.
I call this magical thinking because it completely glosses over the real obstacles to Turkey’s EU bid and and ignores the hard facts on the ground in favor of highlighting ephemeral minutiae that will barely register in the grand scheme of things. The actual situation is as follows: of the 35 chapters of EU law that must be negotiated, 13 have been successfully opened, 17 are currently frozen, 4 have yet to be opened, and only 1 has been successfully completed. Furthermore, of the 17 that are frozen, only 5 were blocked by France; the other 12 were blocked by the EU itself or Cyprus, a situation which is not bound to resolve itself any time in the foreseeable future. Turkey is convincing itself that a new French president means that its EU bid is about to begin sailing through, as if perfidious France was the only obstacle to Turkey’s accession, and Davutoğlu is busily crowing about a new era of positive relations while at the same time preparing to freeze all political relations and EU accession talks come July. The notion that replacing Sarkozy with Hollande is ultimately going to make even one lick of difference is laughable. Until Turkey complies with EU demands over normalizing relations with Cyprus, Turkey will remain on the outside looking in. The French could elect Abdullah Gül and it still wouldn’t change a thing.
For what it’s worth, outside experts appear to believe that Turkey’s future if it does not soon join the EU is going to be one that looks very different from its present. Foreign Policy surveyed 59 experts (including heads of state and foreign and defense ministers) about issues relating to NATO, and on the question of Turkey’s orientation in five years if it is still not a member of the EU, 21 believed that Turkey would pursue a revival of Ottoman power, 13 that it would be more closely aligned with its Muslim neighbors, and only 11 that Turkey would still be closely aligned with its Western allies. The point of bringing this up is not to allege that Turkey is on the verge of anything drastic, but to illustrate the European and American perception that Turkey’s reliability as an ally is in many ways contingent on it officially joining Europe in the form of becoming an EU member. If this perception holds and Turkey is not able to join the EU, the consequences will be bad for all parties involved. It is encouraging to see Turkish optimism over the EU once again, but the optimism will continue to be entirely misplaced so long as Turkey continues to fool itself over what true obstacles remain in its path. It is altogether possible that Turkey could do everything that is asked of it and still get rejected for xenophobic cultural reasons, and if that does indeed happen, it will be the EU’s loss. But Turkey as of now is not doing everything that is required to mount a successful accession bid, and that has not changed just because we now have President Hollande.
