Photo: network54.comReproduced by Middle East Observer, Vol. 1 Issue 3, May-August, 2010
Only a decade ago, Turkey was Israel’s only Muslim ally in the Middle East. Military-to-military, intelligence and defense procurement cooperation was at its peak. In 1999, Israeli agents helped Turkish Special Forces for the capture of Turkey’s most wanted man, PKK’s leader Abdullah Ocalan, now in jail for life. Today, Turkey does not have an ambassador in Tel Aviv, Israeli military planes are barred from Turkish airspace, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were disinvited from previous joint military exercises, future drills were cancelled and Ankara, for the first time since 1970s, is threatening to cut off its diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. It was not a coincidence that in the same period Turkey and Syria moved from the brink of war (in 1998) to the brink of regional alliance in which the neighbouring states have mutually abolished visa requirement on travels.
Ostensibly, Ankara and Tel Aviv are at historic odds over the May 31 raid by Israeli commandos on a Turkish-led flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip not necessarily to deliver aid but rather to breach Israel’s blockade on the Hamas-controlled territory and, that failing, to add fuel to the global anti-Israeli public (and governmental) sentiment over the plight of Palestinians. In reality, the flotilla incident in which the Israeli commandos killed eight Turkish and one Turkish-American nationals was not a road accident: It was a planned move by Ankara aiming at multiple gains both at home and in the region.
Αlthough Turkey’s Islamist-inspired Justice and Development Party (AKP) has denied any involvement with the flotilla, the ‘aid for Gaza’ organisers are widely known with their Islamist inspirations and close links to the government. The words of Bulent Yildirim, president of the Islamic relief agency that organised the flotilla, are worth noting: “Last night (the night of the Israeli raid on the flotilla) everything in the world changed, and everything is progressing toward Islam… Anyone who does not stand alongside Palestine – his throne will be toppled!” That is not the typical humanitarian aid worker’s speech. Yildirim’s organization, the IHH, had purchased the aid ships from the AKP-controlled Istanbul Municipality a few months earlier. Therefore, it was not a surprise for me to receive a DVD, about a month after the incident, titled, “The Moments of Horror / Interviews with the Injured Aboard the Aid-for-Gaza Vessel,” sent with compliments from the Prime Ministry’s Press and Information General Directorate.
In a propaganda war, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel for “state terror, barbarity and banditry.” In February 2009, Erdogan said during a confrontation with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos that “Jews knew well to kill.” After the raid on the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel of the flotilla, Erdogan reiterated that the incident proved him right. As expected, the coffins sent back to Turkey created a shock wave and a public uproar which publicly had an anti-Israeli ethos, and privately anti-Semitic. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who declared the attack on the flotilla as “Turkey’s 9/11,” has vowed that “Jerusalem would soon become the (Palestinian) capital, and we’ll pray all together at the al-Aqsa Mosque.”
It’s been proven by unmistaken evidence that each time Tel Aviv confronts Ankara, two things happen in Turkey: Erdogan’s popularity peaks; and the Turks unite in their anti-Israeli sentiments regardless of their sterile (Israel-free) ideologies, although louder protestors are almost always ‘devout Muslims.’ Unsurprisingly, the anti-Israeli protests in the aftermath of the flotilla raid were much less humanitarian in ethos and almost entirely faith-based, with the occasional religious chants, songs, Arabic slogans and Koranic verses, all nicely topped with the usual “now-I-understand-Hitler” maxim.
In the aftermath of Davos, Erdogan realised that ‘Israel-bashing’ was probably the most profitable political venture in a country where in recent years anti-Israeli (and anti-Jewish) sentiments have peaked. It’s always wise for politicians to play into something that unites more than 80 percent of the populace (voters). For instance, most Turks now believe that the PKK’s recently escalated attacks on Turkish targets was orchestrated by Israel in retaliation for Erdogan’s pro-Muslim foreign policy. With parliamentary elections a year ahead and his government looking rattled for the first time since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan smartly calculates that he could successfully hunt votes with his love affair with Hamas and hate affair with Israel. He also calculates that his unpopularity due to public unrest over the record rise in PKK’s attacks could be minimized if the blame is put on a country which the Turks are only too willing to accuse for every evil. “My nation,” a confident Erdogan said recently, “is well aware whose sub-contractor the PKK is,” pointing to Israel without naming it. In this game plan Israel, stands as the ‘perfect alibi’ for Erdogan.
But why do the Turks feel some kind of a ‘Palestine fetish’ when they are mostly ignorant or indifferent about the plight of other Muslims in or around their region?
Why do the Turks love Hamas so dearly, a love that prompted Erdogan to declare Hamas as a democratically-elected, legitimate entity and NOT a terrorist organization? The explanation for the ‘Palestine fetish’ is more than a simple Muslim solidarity. Why otherwise did the Turks not raise a finger when, for instance, the mullahs killed dissident Iranian Muslims? Why did the Turks not take to the streets when non-Muslim occupying forces killed a million Iraqi Muslims? Why did they not protest the deaths of 300,000 Muslims in Darfur? Where were all the Turkish protestors when Israel was bombing Lebanon or when the Chinese police were using disproportionate force against their ethnic kin, the Uighurs?
How many Turks protested when there was civil war in Algeria? How many of them volunteered for humanitarian aid missions for Sudan? Why were the protests too weak during the Serbian atrocities against Muslim Bosnians? What makes nine Gaza ‘martyrs’ more sacred than all the other ‘martyrs?’
Part of the explanation is that the Turks feel in solidarity with the Palestinians for exactly the same reasons why other nations feel in solidarity with the Palestinians: the intellectual conscious to ally with the underdog. But that does not explain the whole picture. Another explanation is the political indoctrination that Turkey’s Islamists, communists and liberals and (even to a certain degree) ultra-nationalists went through in the early 1970s. These otherwise hostile groups in their ideological battles always united in pro-Palestinian rhetoric and (sometimes violent) action against ‘western, Zionist, imperialist’ targets. The legend of the ‘Palestinian cause’ has always been kept alive in Turkey. But still there is a big blank in the picture. It’s the devout Muslim Turk’s perception of ‘wrongs against fellow Muslims.’ Subconsciously the Muslim-Turkish thinking tolerates if Muslims killed Muslims; does not tolerate but does not turn the world upside down either if Christians killed Muslims; pragmatically ignores if too powerful Christians killed Muslims; but is programmed to turn the world upside down when Jews killed Muslims.
Five weeks after ‘Turkey’s 9/11,’ Ankara and Tel Aviv seem to have agreed to disagree in the foreseeable future, despite Washington’s (and, to a lesser degree, EU’s) concerns over having two major Middle Eastern allies at each other’s throat. Since the immediate aftermath of the crisis, Erdogan put forward four conditions for the normalisation of Turkish-Israeli relations: an official apology; compensation for the victims’ families; acceptance of an impartial, international commission for a probe into the incident; and a complete removal of the blockade on Gaza. After ‘secretly’ meting with Israeli Trade Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Davutoglu narrowed the scope but threatened to cut off relations: Israel will either apologise, OR agree to an international commission and its findings, OR have to see Turkey severing its relations with it. He reiterated his pledge to alienate Israel (the meeting planned as ‘classified, and took place in Brussels, was later ‘leaked to the press by Israel, according to the Turks).
In Ankara many options are on the table, with their pros and cons, and the official Turkey sitting around various meeting tables pondering where, when and how to hit back best (best = maximum public impact, minimum political cost). There is plenty of time. Elections are more than a year ahead. From Turkey’s point of view, there will have to be a closure, and it won’t come in a pleasant way unless reason overcomes faith-based foreign policy and playing for domestic consumption.
* Burak Bekdil is a Journalist and a columnist of the Turkish Daily News and the Defense News, Ankara
Ostensibly, Ankara and Tel Aviv are at historic odds over the May 31 raid by Israeli commandos on a Turkish-led flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip not necessarily to deliver aid but rather to breach Israel’s blockade on the Hamas-controlled territory and, that failing, to add fuel to the global anti-Israeli public (and governmental) sentiment over the plight of Palestinians. In reality, the flotilla incident in which the Israeli commandos killed eight Turkish and one Turkish-American nationals was not a road accident: It was a planned move by Ankara aiming at multiple gains both at home and in the region.
Αlthough Turkey’s Islamist-inspired Justice and Development Party (AKP) has denied any involvement with the flotilla, the ‘aid for Gaza’ organisers are widely known with their Islamist inspirations and close links to the government. The words of Bulent Yildirim, president of the Islamic relief agency that organised the flotilla, are worth noting: “Last night (the night of the Israeli raid on the flotilla) everything in the world changed, and everything is progressing toward Islam… Anyone who does not stand alongside Palestine – his throne will be toppled!” That is not the typical humanitarian aid worker’s speech. Yildirim’s organization, the IHH, had purchased the aid ships from the AKP-controlled Istanbul Municipality a few months earlier. Therefore, it was not a surprise for me to receive a DVD, about a month after the incident, titled, “The Moments of Horror / Interviews with the Injured Aboard the Aid-for-Gaza Vessel,” sent with compliments from the Prime Ministry’s Press and Information General Directorate.
In a propaganda war, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel for “state terror, barbarity and banditry.” In February 2009, Erdogan said during a confrontation with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos that “Jews knew well to kill.” After the raid on the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel of the flotilla, Erdogan reiterated that the incident proved him right. As expected, the coffins sent back to Turkey created a shock wave and a public uproar which publicly had an anti-Israeli ethos, and privately anti-Semitic. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who declared the attack on the flotilla as “Turkey’s 9/11,” has vowed that “Jerusalem would soon become the (Palestinian) capital, and we’ll pray all together at the al-Aqsa Mosque.”
It’s been proven by unmistaken evidence that each time Tel Aviv confronts Ankara, two things happen in Turkey: Erdogan’s popularity peaks; and the Turks unite in their anti-Israeli sentiments regardless of their sterile (Israel-free) ideologies, although louder protestors are almost always ‘devout Muslims.’ Unsurprisingly, the anti-Israeli protests in the aftermath of the flotilla raid were much less humanitarian in ethos and almost entirely faith-based, with the occasional religious chants, songs, Arabic slogans and Koranic verses, all nicely topped with the usual “now-I-understand-Hitler” maxim.
In the aftermath of Davos, Erdogan realised that ‘Israel-bashing’ was probably the most profitable political venture in a country where in recent years anti-Israeli (and anti-Jewish) sentiments have peaked. It’s always wise for politicians to play into something that unites more than 80 percent of the populace (voters). For instance, most Turks now believe that the PKK’s recently escalated attacks on Turkish targets was orchestrated by Israel in retaliation for Erdogan’s pro-Muslim foreign policy. With parliamentary elections a year ahead and his government looking rattled for the first time since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan smartly calculates that he could successfully hunt votes with his love affair with Hamas and hate affair with Israel. He also calculates that his unpopularity due to public unrest over the record rise in PKK’s attacks could be minimized if the blame is put on a country which the Turks are only too willing to accuse for every evil. “My nation,” a confident Erdogan said recently, “is well aware whose sub-contractor the PKK is,” pointing to Israel without naming it. In this game plan Israel, stands as the ‘perfect alibi’ for Erdogan.
But why do the Turks feel some kind of a ‘Palestine fetish’ when they are mostly ignorant or indifferent about the plight of other Muslims in or around their region?
Why do the Turks love Hamas so dearly, a love that prompted Erdogan to declare Hamas as a democratically-elected, legitimate entity and NOT a terrorist organization? The explanation for the ‘Palestine fetish’ is more than a simple Muslim solidarity. Why otherwise did the Turks not raise a finger when, for instance, the mullahs killed dissident Iranian Muslims? Why did the Turks not take to the streets when non-Muslim occupying forces killed a million Iraqi Muslims? Why did they not protest the deaths of 300,000 Muslims in Darfur? Where were all the Turkish protestors when Israel was bombing Lebanon or when the Chinese police were using disproportionate force against their ethnic kin, the Uighurs?
How many Turks protested when there was civil war in Algeria? How many of them volunteered for humanitarian aid missions for Sudan? Why were the protests too weak during the Serbian atrocities against Muslim Bosnians? What makes nine Gaza ‘martyrs’ more sacred than all the other ‘martyrs?’
Part of the explanation is that the Turks feel in solidarity with the Palestinians for exactly the same reasons why other nations feel in solidarity with the Palestinians: the intellectual conscious to ally with the underdog. But that does not explain the whole picture. Another explanation is the political indoctrination that Turkey’s Islamists, communists and liberals and (even to a certain degree) ultra-nationalists went through in the early 1970s. These otherwise hostile groups in their ideological battles always united in pro-Palestinian rhetoric and (sometimes violent) action against ‘western, Zionist, imperialist’ targets. The legend of the ‘Palestinian cause’ has always been kept alive in Turkey. But still there is a big blank in the picture. It’s the devout Muslim Turk’s perception of ‘wrongs against fellow Muslims.’ Subconsciously the Muslim-Turkish thinking tolerates if Muslims killed Muslims; does not tolerate but does not turn the world upside down either if Christians killed Muslims; pragmatically ignores if too powerful Christians killed Muslims; but is programmed to turn the world upside down when Jews killed Muslims.
Five weeks after ‘Turkey’s 9/11,’ Ankara and Tel Aviv seem to have agreed to disagree in the foreseeable future, despite Washington’s (and, to a lesser degree, EU’s) concerns over having two major Middle Eastern allies at each other’s throat. Since the immediate aftermath of the crisis, Erdogan put forward four conditions for the normalisation of Turkish-Israeli relations: an official apology; compensation for the victims’ families; acceptance of an impartial, international commission for a probe into the incident; and a complete removal of the blockade on Gaza. After ‘secretly’ meting with Israeli Trade Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Davutoglu narrowed the scope but threatened to cut off relations: Israel will either apologise, OR agree to an international commission and its findings, OR have to see Turkey severing its relations with it. He reiterated his pledge to alienate Israel (the meeting planned as ‘classified, and took place in Brussels, was later ‘leaked to the press by Israel, according to the Turks).
In Ankara many options are on the table, with their pros and cons, and the official Turkey sitting around various meeting tables pondering where, when and how to hit back best (best = maximum public impact, minimum political cost). There is plenty of time. Elections are more than a year ahead. From Turkey’s point of view, there will have to be a closure, and it won’t come in a pleasant way unless reason overcomes faith-based foreign policy and playing for domestic consumption.
* Burak Bekdil is a Journalist and a columnist of the Turkish Daily News and the Defense News, Ankara
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