The Turkish Government’s Journey Down The Rabbit Hole

July 18, 2014 § 9 Comments

If Prime Minister Erdoğan is to be taken at his word, we can officially declare Israeli-Turkish rapprochement dead. Speaking this morning, Erdoğan announced that under no circumstances will Turkey’s relationship with Israel improve as long as he is in power – which after the presidential elections next month, will be for a long time – and that the West can protest all it likes to no avail. Erdoğan also accused Israel of committing genocide and of knowing best how to kill children, which was a repeat performance from yesterday when he alleged that Israel has been committing systematic genocide against Palestinians during every Ramadan since 1948. This comes after more delightful outbursts earlier this week, during which Erdoğan claimed that there have been no rockets fired into Israel since there have been no Israeli deaths and compared Israeli MK Ayelet Shaked to Hitler, among other things.

Never one to be left out of the action, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu accused Israel of crimes against humanity and revealed that he has never taken Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman seriously (although to be fair, that last point bolsters the case for Davutoğlu’s good sense). Ankara’s mayor Melih Gökçek, fresh off the heels of tweeting out pro-Hitler sentiments, urged his government yesterday to shut down the Israeli embassy in Ankara, referring to it as “the despicable murderers’ consulate” and stating that “they are 100 times more murderous than Hitler.” Not to be outdone, Bülent Yıldırım, the odious head of the “humanitarian relief NGO” IHH – the same NGO that organized the Mavi Marmara flotilla – warned Jewish tourists (yes, he said Jewish rather than Israeli, and yes, that was deliberate on his part) not to show their faces in Turkey and threatened Turkish Jews that they would pay dearly for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

While Yıldırım may have come to the conclusion of collective Jewish guilt on his own, he also could have been influenced by Yeni Akit reporter Faruk Köse. Köse wrote an open letter in his newspaper on Tuesday to the chief rabbi of Turkey in which the phrase “Siyonist/Yahudi Terör Üssü” – which translates to Zionist/Jewish terror base and is his oh-so-clever term for Israel – appeared seven times while he demanded that the rabbi and his flock apologize for Gaza because Turkey’s Jews have lived among Turks for 500 years and gotten rich off them and now support the terrorist Israeli state. Or perhaps Yıldırım is a dedicated reader of Daily Sabah, the English language AKP propaganda organ where Melih Altınok argued yesterday that not only Turkish Jews but Jews everywhere need to, in his words, “make a historic gesture” and denounce Israel publicly. According to his logic, Israel’s actions are solely responsible for increasing anti-Semitism in the world, and “hence, nationalist Jews as well as the humanist and anti-war Jews have to calculate the situation” and do what is necessary in order to stem the inevitable backlash against them. Lovely, no?

What a surprise and shock it must have been then when last night, mobs that included MPs from the AKP attacked the Israeli embassy in Ankara and consulate in Istanbul, leading Israel to reduce its diplomatic staff in the country and to send the families of diplomatic staff home. The police in Ankara, who are never hesitant to break out the tear gas, truncheons, and water cannons against Turkish civilians protesting things like government corruption, were mysteriously somehow powerless this time as they stood on the sidelines and watched. Of course, there can’t possibly be a connection between the rhetoric of high government officials lambasting Israel as a genocidal terror state and mobs attacking Israel’s diplomatic missions and chanting for murder, right? This is clearly all a misunderstanding and emanates not from Erdoğan using ugly and hateful tactics to improve his political standing but completely and entirely from Israel’s actions. Now please excuse me while I go wash off the sarcasm dripping from my keyboard.

I understand why Turks are upset about the images and news reports coming out of Gaza. Just as Diaspora Jews feel a deep sense of kinship and brotherhood with their Jewish brethren in Israel, there is a genuine sense of pan-Muslim solidarity between Turks and Palestinians. While I believe that Israel tries in good faith to minimize civilian casualties, not only do mistakes happen but sometimes Israel makes intentional decisions – like every other country in the history of the world that has ever fought a war –  that it knows will lead to civilian deaths. I get the anger and frustration, and I see it personally from Turkish friends on my Facebook feed and my Twitter stream, who are furious with Israel not because they are Jew-hating anti-Semites but because they deplore the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza, which they see as disproportionate and excessive. And it isn’t just the AKP; anger at Israel is widespread among all segments of the population, as evidenced by the multiple leftist Gaza solidarity rallies taking place in Turkey today and by joint CHP/MHP presidential candidate Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu bashing Israel’s actions in Gaza and the CHP generally trying to score points over the last few days by absurdly trying to paint the AKP as in bed with Israel and complicit with its actions. Israel isn’t exactly popular in Turkey, to make the understatement of the decade, and to expect Turkish politicians to hold their tongues completely or to support Israel’s actions in Gaza is unreasonably naive.

But there is a world of difference between criticizing Israel out of a deeply held difference of opinion versus comparing Israelis to Hitler, equating Israel with Nazi Germany, throwing around the term genocide, openly advocating violence against Israeli nationals and property, and threatening Jews over Israel’s behavior. It is completely beyond the pale, and anyone who cares a lick about liberal values should be denouncing it loud and clear without qualification. Erdoğan is appealing to the darkest forces imaginable in order to win a presidential election and bolster his laughably pathetic standing in the Arab world, and let’s not forget that he said straight out today that he will never normalize or even improve relations with Israel while he is in office. He has dropped the charade that this has anything to do with the Mavi Marmara or even a set of fulfillable demands that Israel is not meeting, so let’s all remember that the next time someone blames Israel for the impasse in the bilateral relationship. Erdoğan is anti-Israel because he does not like Israel, full stop. If Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza, stopped responding to Hamas rockets with missiles, ended the blockade, and awarded Khaled Meshaal the Israel Prize, Erdoğan and Davutoğlu would just find some other reason not to normalize relations. Yes, the situation in Gaza undoubtedly plays a big role in all of this – just look at Israeli-Turkish relations under the Erdoğan government between 2002 and 2008, which were cordial and cooperative – but it’s about more than that at this point. Erdoğan and the AKP have gone too far down the garden path of anti-Israel rhetoric at this point to ever turn back.

The Apology And What Comes Next

March 25, 2013 § 8 Comments

As everyone knows by now, on Friday Bibi Netanyahu talked to Tayyip Erdoğan (for the first time since Netanyahu was elected in 2009!) after being handed the phone by President Obama and apologized for operational mistakes causing the deaths of nine Turks aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010. Netanyahu also agreed to pay compensation to the families of the deceased, and both men somewhat fudged the issue of the Gaza blockade by noting that Israel has already lifted some restrictions and pledging to work together going forward to ease the humanitarian situation in Gaza. This formula should not be surprising; in November I wrote the following:

All this aside, there seems to me to be an obvious out here. As I mentioned above, the real long term sticking point here is the demand that Israel end the Gaza blockade, but the imprecise language makes this a point that can easily be massaged. Israel is not going to end its naval blockade, particularly given the renewed focus on Iranian missiles that are being shipped to Sudan rather than directly to Gaza in an effort to avoid the Israeli navy. There is also, however, the land blockade that is enforced by both Israel and Egypt, and if Israel and Egypt jointly loosen restrictions on the land crossings to allow more goods in and out of Gaza, then Israel and Turkey can both reasonably claim victory, and it might pave the way for the countries to make up. Unless something changes though, feel free to ignore any and all news reports about secret talks and back channel negotiations between Ankara and Jerusalem.

As readers of this blog know, I have maintained for awhile that Israel was ready and willing to apologize to Turkey but that I did not think Turkey was prepared to accept an apology given the domestic political benefits for Erdoğan and the AKP of feuding with Israel. Indeed, over the past few months there have been reports of Ahmet Davutoğlu and other Turkish officials rebuffing Israeli attempts to meet and lay the groundwork for a rapprochement. That the apology was suddenly offered and accepted took me by surprise, and got me thinking about what would make Turkey change its calculus. I wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs identifying Turkey’s suddenly more pressing need for better intelligence in Syria given the chemical weapons angle and Ankara’s desire to meet its energy demands through channels other than Russian natural gas as the primary reasons, and noting that the timing here is also related to the successful talks with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Here’s the core of the argument:

For Ankara, the Syrian crisis has been a major headache. Turkey has suffered a loss in trade, been forced to rely on NATO for Patriot missiles to defend against border threats, and accepted just under half a million Syrian refugees. Ankara’s demands for Assad to step down have fallen on deaf ears, and its requests for NATO intervention in the form of a no-fly zone and heavy arms for the Syrian rebels have also been brushed aside.

All this has been unfortunate for Turkey’s leaders, but it was the recent introduction of Syrian chemical weapons into the equation that really changed Turkey’s calculus; now more than ever, the country needs better intelligence and allies to bring an end to the civil war or at least prevent it from spilling over. Turkey cannot afford to have chemical weapons used anywhere near its border with Syria, and the longer the fighting goes on, the greater the chances of a chemical weapons strike gone awry. Israel simply has better intelligence on regional developments than Turkey does, and Turkey can use that help to monitor Assad’s weapons stores and troop movements on both sides. In addition, whereas the United States and other NATO countries have been reluctant to support the Syrian rebels in any meaningful way, Israel has a greater incentive to make sure that the moderate Sunni groups prevail over the more radical jihadist elements of the opposition. As the situation in Syria heats up, Turkey and Israel will be thankful that they can talk to each other and coordinate.

Another area in which Turkey needs Israel’s assistance is energy. Turkey’s current account deficit, which stood at $48.8 billion in 2012, is almost entirely a result of the country’s reliance on oil and natural gas imports; Turkey has no natural resources of its own. Furthermore, Turkey is paying through the nose for both Russian and Iranian natural gas, due to onerous price contracts. Earlier this month, I talked with a number of people in Turkey — government ministers, opposition politicians, business tycoons, and trade group leaders — and they all mentioned Turkey’s growing energy needs and lamented the country’s overreliance on Russian and Iranian natural gas. Israel, meanwhile, has just discovered two major natural gas basins, the Tamar and Leviathan fields, off its coast in the Eastern Mediterranean. Since Turkey has no hope of smoothing over ties with Cyprus, its longtime adversary, which has been the other main beneficiary of the Mediterranean gas boom, it will likely turn to Israel as a natural gas supplier. With Turkey’s economic growth slowing, Israel’s potential as a partner makes reconciliation more attractive now than at any point in recent years.

Because it is – in my view – Turkey that changed its mind on reconciling, I focused on the Turkish side of things in the FA piece, so I thought I’d now write a little bit about the Israeli side. From Israel’s perspective, making up with Turkey has made sense for awhile now, and the reasons to do so only grew stronger with each passing day. First, there is the regional dynamic in the Middle East, which is hardly trending in Israel’s favor post-Arab Spring. While I do not think that Israel has anything to fear from new governments in the region, the upheaval has opened up power vacuums in the Sinai and Syria that allow hostile non-state actors to operate with impunity. Add to this the existing threats from Hamas and Hizballah and the distinct possibility that the Jordanian government falls, and Israel desperately needs any friend who will have her. Making up with Turkey means that at least Israel is not entirely alone in the region, and being able to coordinate with Turkey and with Jordan (so long as King Abdullah remains in power) will be extremely helpful in containing the spillover threat from Syria. While I highlighted the urgency for Turkey in my FA piece, Israel’s biggest concern with regard to the Syrian civil war has always been the transfer of chemical weapons to hostile non-state actors, and now that the chatter around chemical weapons has increased, apologizing to Turkey took on an urgency for Jerusalem that was absent before.

Second, Turkey has successfully blocked Israel from NATO military activities and summits, and the ability to get back in the game has always been important to the Israeli government. While the Noble Dina naval exercises with Greece and the U.S. that Israel began doing in 2011 are nice, they are a poor substitute for Israel being able to use the vast Turkish airspace for aerial training or being able to participate in NATO military exercises. Israel has attempted to ramp up its military relations with Greece and Cyprus in response to the freeze in relations with Turkey but this has always been a suboptimal solution, and Israel has felt this acutely as the government has become increasingly preoccupied with possible threats from Iran. Furthermore, Israel’s defense industry has had billions of dollars in contracts with Turkey suspended by Ankara, and being able to resume sales to Turkey should provide a nice jolt to the Israeli economy.

Nobody should expect Israel and Turkey to go back to where they once were. Turkey does not feel as alone in the region as it once did, there is still a benefit from having cool relations with Israel, and too much has taken place between the two, from Davos to the Mavi Marmara to the “Zionism is equal to fascism” kerfuffle of a month ago. It is unfortunately not surprising to already see Erdoğan backing away from his commitment to normalize relations, although it will happen sooner rather than later since this is only Erdoğan playing politics in response to some hardline domestic criticism over the deal with Israel. Exchanging ambassadors and resuming limited military and intelligence cooperation does not negate the fact that bashing Israel will remain a potent element in Erdoğan’s box of tricks, and I expect to see issues big and small arise between the two countries, particularly as things remain static on the Israeli-Palestinian front and settlement building in the West Bank continues. Nevertheless, this restoring of formal ties is good for both sides, and I hope that both countries can get over their past issues and begin work on developing a healthier relationship.

The Mavi Marmara Fallout Continues

December 19, 2012 § 3 Comments

Despite the Mavi Marmara incident being two and a half years in the past, its effects are still reverberating in Israel and Turkey and neither side is exactly covering itself with glory. On the contrary, both countries are in the midst of taking action directly related to the Gaza flotilla of 2010 that reflects poorly on each, and that does not inspire confidence for the future of Israeli-Turkish relations.

First is the less egregious example brought to us by Israel, which is the effort to bar National Democratic Assembly MK Hanin Zoabi from running in the January 22 election. Zoabi was the first Arab Israeli woman elected to the Knesset as a member of an Arab political party, and the Central Elections Committee is voting to bar her from running again based on charges that she does not support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and that she incites violence against the government. The first part of this equation stems from the fact that Zoabi decries Israel as racist for being a Jewish state and is openly and proudly anti-Zionist. The second part stems from Zoabi’s participation in the flotilla, as she was aboard the Mavi Marmara when it was boarded by IDF troops and afterwards blasted the IDF and accused it of deliberately killing people on board. It is for this latter reason that Likud MK Ofir Akunis submitted the petition to have Zoabi barred from the next Knesset, since there is an enormous amount of anger in Israel that a Knesset parliamentarian would take Turkey’s side against Israel and actually participate in a flotilla designed to break the Gaza naval blockade. In the past, petitions have been filed to ban parties, and this is again the case this time, but now we have the addition of going after Zoabi personally for her involvement in the flotilla.

There is no doubt that Zoabi is enormously critical of Israel, and there is also a strange cognitive dissonance involved when Zoabi uses her perch as an Arab Israeli elected to the Knesset on behalf of an Arab Israeli party to claim that Israel is fundamentally undemocratic. Nevertheless, one of the wonderful things about Israel is that someone like Zoabi can be elected to the Knesset and can express her opinions as loudly as she wants; this is precisely why arguments that Israel is not a democracy fall flat. Furthermore, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, who is not exactly a leftist, has urged the Central Elections Committee not to disqualify Zoabi because he says the evidence against her is not sufficient to do so. Once Zoabi is banned – the vote is not in question – she is almost certainly going to be reinstated by the High Court, but that does not make this episode any less discomforting. Democracies tolerate all types of unsavory and odious speech, and nobody has alleged that Zoabi herself engaged in violence or attacked IDF soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara. Letting Zoabi continue to spout her view that Israel is not a democracy while doing so from the floor of the Knesset is a much better way of strengthening Israel than providing her with ammunition for her point.

While the move to kick Zoabi out of the Knesset is misguided, Turkey’s new effort to place heat on Israel over the flotilla is far more insidious. Turkish intelligence is now claiming that five of the IDF soldiers who boarded the Mavi Marmara were Turkish citizens who helped raid the ship and interrogate passengers, and it has sent their names to the prosecutor trying the case against IDF officers. According to this new information, which somehow nobody had ever mentioned for two and a half years until now, people on board the ship heard IDF soldiers talking in fluent Turkish and the alleged Turkish IDF members told the Turks whom they were interrogating that Israel had solicited them to be interpreters. In order to figure out who these people are, Turkey has investigated all of its citizens who traveled to Israel and back in the weeks before and after the flotilla, which means that the MIT is spending lots of time checking out Turkey’s Jewish community.

It is certainly in the realm of possibility that Israel sent Turkish translators to interrogate passengers, but I don’t buy the story for a second about Turkish Jews flying in to work for the IDF and then flying right back home when they were done. This is a not so subtle effort to intimidate Turkish Jews and create an implicit threat that if Israel does not apologize and pay compensation, it is Turkey’s Jewish community that will suffer the consequences. Hüseyin Ersöz Oruç, who is the vice chair of the IHH (the group that organized the flotilla), declared that the five names are going to be published and that “everyone will know who the Turkish Jews are that served in the Israeli army and killed Turkish civilians on the Mavi Marmara.” This obviously is worrisome for Turkish Jews who now have to worry about reprisals and attacks upon their loyalty, which is even more absurd considering that a large portion of Turkish Jews purposely back away from Israel and go out of their way to stress that Judaism and Zionism are two separate things. Since Turkey’s efforts to pressure the Israeli government through traditional diplomatic means are not working, someone has made a decision to try new tactics and hit Israel in a sensitive spot by threatening the local Jewish community. As misguided as Likud MKs are in trying to throw Zoabi out of the Knesset over her support for a foreign government, it does not even begin to compare to threatening an entire minority community for nothing more than being Jews. I am confident that the Israeli High Court will do the right thing, and let’s hope that the Turkish government comes to its senses and does the right thing as well.

The Week In Ridiculousness

November 9, 2012 § 1 Comment

I thought I’d use today’s post to highlight a couple of things going on this week that are so absurd that I had resolved to ignore them at all costs, but since they are burning a hole in my brain I am giving in. And no, I will still not be commenting on anything that Jennifer Rubin has written (which should be the new textbook definition of ridiculous) since I am hoping that if nobody pays any attention to her she will, like my 5 month old son, eventually cry herself to sleep and we will no longer have to listen to her.

Topic number one that I had resolved to ignore is the Kafkaesque exercise in propaganda trial of Israeli military officers, including former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, taking place right now in Turkey. The four IDF commanders are being tried in absentia for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens aboard the Mavi Marmara, and in case you are wondering if this trial is a genuine attempt to exercise justice or a political theater of the absurd, all you need to know is that the prosecution is asking for individual sentences of 18,000 years apiece. It might also interest you to hear that the government IHH (ed.. that was a sloppy mistake on my part), which sent the flotilla in 2010, has decided to run advertisements for the trial that are plastered around Istanbul, so you would not be mistaken in thinking that this is closer to a reality show than it is to an impartial judicial hearing. Despite the Turkish government’s best attempts to entice people to come out for its intricately planned modern day gladiator spectacle, the plaza in front of Çağlayan court house has been sparsely populated with only a couple of hundred people who have been competing for attention with Turkish pro-choice activists. The timing of the trial and the government’s efforts to use it to stir up nationalist sentiment are no doubt related to the fact that the AKP and Prime Minister Erdoğan himself are at the shakiest point in their decade-long rule, between the Syrian morass and intra-party tension between Erdoğan and President Gül. Rallying around the flag is the oldest trick in the book and this is a nakedly transparent move in that direction, but it remains to be seen whether it will work. There should be no doubt at all though that this is not a serious effort to get Israel to compromise, will have absolutely zero positive effect on Turkey’s campaign for an Israeli apology and compensation, and is purely and simply about domestic political gain. It is a political temper tantrum, beneath Turkey or any country that purports to take itself seriously. If Ankara were actually interested in a resolution to the dispute with Israel, rather than stage a show trial it would drop its demand for Israel to end the Gaza blockade – which it knows Israel will never agree to and which has nothing to do with Turkey anyway – and work out language on an apology and specific compensation, both of which Jerusalem has indicated it is open to accepting under the right circumstances. It might be too late now that Avigdor Lieberman’s power has been enhanced, but at least a good faith effort would put the ball in Israel’s court. What is going on now, however, is nothing short of an embarrassing and disgraceful spectacle.

Topic number two is the figurative self-immolation of Eric Dondero. For those unfamiliar with his work, Dondero is a former Ron Paul aide who is so upset at President Obama’s reelection that he has decided to personally boycott all Democrats for the rest of his life. What does this mean in practice, you might ask. The answer, in Dondero’s own oh so eloquent words:

All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them. They are in short, the enemies of liberty. They deserve nothing less than hatred and utter contempt.

I strongly urge all other libertarians to do the same. Are you married to someone who voted for Obama, have a girlfriend who voted ‘O’. Divorce them. Break up with them without haste. Vow not to attend family functions, Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas for example, if there will be any family members in attendance who are Democrats.

Do you work for someone who voted for Obama? Quit your job. Co-workers who voted for Obama. Simply don’t talk to them in the workplace, unless your boss instructs you too for work-related only purposes. Have clients who voted Democrat? Call them up this morning and tell them to take their business elsewhere.

I read this yesterday, and assumed it had to be a joke. Nobody takes themselves this seriously, right? Not to mention that this is about as insane as it gets, even for a devoted Ron Paul employee who believes that the government is secretly planning to form a union with Canada and Mexico and probably carries Krugerrands with him to the supermarket to buy groceries. As it turns out based on Dondero’s interview in New York Magazine, not only is he not joking but he is more deranged than I could have ever imagined. Read the whole interview for a wonderful snapshot of the mental fever that has seized some folks in this country, but my two favorites snippets are Dondero’s answer to whether he would tap an unknown Republican to perform a complicated and risky brain surgery over a Democrat ranked as the top neurosurgeon in the country – “Simple: Avoid them both. Go to Mexico for your medical treatment. Avoid all the red tape and bureaucracy – and his demand that a Democratic neighbor drowning in a lake would have to yell “Obama sucks” before Dondero would jump into the water to rescue him. That people like this exist make me laugh until it hurts and curl up in a ball and cry at the same time.

Some Non-Blog Writing

June 27, 2012 § 1 Comment

Brent Sasley (whose excellent blog can be found here) and I wrote an op-ed that is now up at the Christian Science Monitor on the steps that need to be taken for Israel and Turkey to restore their relationship. This is not an argument that Turkey and Israel will actually to do so; in fact, regular readers of this blog know that I am pessimistic on the chances of this happening since domestic politics and personality clashes on both sides are working against it. The fact remains though that there are powerful reasons why the two countries should make up, and this op-ed is my and Brent’s effort to set forth a roadmap for how both parties can do so. I’d love to know what people think, so please share your thoughts via blog comments or email.

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