BICOM

Key points

• The events surrounding the Gaza flotilla are the latest in a series of crises that have hit relations between Ankara and Jerusalem.
• The AKP and its Islamist ideology exacerbate growing Turkish hostility to Israel. But the picture is complex, with Turkey’s considerations influenced by its changing interests and ambitions in a rapidly shifting region.
• Turkey is currently turning eastwards. A large, rich and powerful Sunni Muslim country, it is seeking to emerge as the central power broker in the region. A gradual shift away from Israel forms a part of this larger ambition. It is important to remember, however, that Iran and Turkey are vying for the same goal – namely, regional domination.
• The presence of a powerful, probably Islamic oriented Turkey seeking to emerge as the key power broker in the region is serving to severely complicate efforts to isolate and eventually roll back truly dangerous and destructive forces, such as the regime in Iran and its client Hamas.

Introduction

The IDF interdiction of the flotilla organised by the Free Gaza movement and the Turkish IHH last week marks a new low in the troubled relationship between Israel and Turkey. Nine Turkish citizens lost their lives as activists sought to prevent Israeli Naval Commandos from taking control of one of the six ships in the convoy – the Mavi Marmara.

In the days that followed, Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Israel. Turkey’s Ambassador to Washington, Namik Tan, told reporters on Saturday that unless Israel apologised for the boarding of the Marmara, Turkey might be forced to break diplomatic relations. He also demanded that Israel accept an independent investigation into the events. Over the weekend, large and stormy anti-Israel demonstrations took place in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. The Turkish government also spearheaded efforts at the UN Security Council to issue a harsh rebuke of Israel.

The latest crisis is part of a longer process of decline in relations between Israel and Turkey over the last half decade. This document identifies the underlying reasons for the decline in relations between Jerusalem and Ankara, and ascertains whether the situation can be halted and reversed, or whether Israeli-Turkish enmity is likely to become a long-standing feature of the Middle Eastern strategic situation.  

The declining relations between Israel and Turkey

The events surrounding the Gaza flotilla are the latest in a series of crises that have hit the once very close relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem. The launching of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the 1990s formed the backdrop to a very significant warming in relations between the two countries and extensive strategic, diplomatic and defence collaboration.

The collapse of the peace process and the Second intifada strained the warm relations between the two countries, but a particularly sharp decline was noted since the election to power of the Turkish Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002. The turn toward a distant policy toward Israel has been particularly notable since the party won a second term in government in July 2007.

Turkey under the AKP seeks to recalibrate, not to break its relations with Israel. Turkey brokered talks with Syria during the period of Ehud Olmert’s prime ministership, but the talks broke down with Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s term in office, which has witnessed growing international diplomatic isolation for Israel, has also been the context for the further decline of Israel-Turkish relations, though the downward direction began prior to the last Israeli elections.

The downturn in military cooperation between the two countries has been accompanied by a near permanent sense of diplomatic crisis, punctuated by regular flare-ups – such as the public insulting of President Shimon Peres by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the Davos Conference in 2009, or the latest row surrounding the Gaza flotilla.

­The downgrading of relations with Israel has been accompanied by a parallel distancing of Ankara from Washington. This in turn is paralleled by a growing closeness between Turkey and the anti-US alliance of states and movements led by Iran, including Hamas, Syria and Hezbollah. This has been exemplified in the recent Turkish attempt in cooperation with Brazil to broker a nuclear deal with Iran, and the Turkish decision to upgrade its military relations with Syria and the visit of official Hamas representatives to Ankara.

The Mavi Marmara incidents thus represent a new nadir for Israel-Turkish relations. But the decline has been steady, over the past half decade.

The decline in Israeli-Turkish relations

The decline in Israeli-Turkish relations is often attributed to the Islamist ideology of the AKP, and the enmity toward the Jewish state which forms a part of this. However, Turkey’s considerations do not derive from ideology alone, but rather from a changing perception of Turkey’s interests and ambitions in a rapidly changing region.

The architect of Turkey’s new strategic orientation is its powerful foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who is neither part of the Islamist camp in Turkey nor driven by ideology. Since the Gaza flotilla incidents, for example, he has claimed that Turkish brokered talks between Israel and Syria had been set to recommence. Whether this statement is correct or not, it is an indication that Davutoglu does not envisage a total rift in Israeli-Turkish relations. Rather, a number of additional, structural factors are underlying the Turkish turn away from its Western alliances and towards its current attempt to emerge as a dominant regional power.

Turkey’s close alignment with the West was to a great extent the product of the Cold War. This absolute need for a close alignment with Washington ceased to apply in the post-Cold War period, which was characterised by a period of flux and disputes in Turkish foreign policy thinking, as Ankara sought to redefine its role vis-à-vis the West and its regional neighbours. More recently, Europe’s continued perceived rebuff of Turkey in its bid for EU membership has led Ankara to turn eastwards in its search for influence. The economic opportunities available to Turkey in the region increase the natural attraction of this orientation.

Since the turn toward the east – what some analysts have called the ‘neo-Ottoman’ strategy – became a dominant trend in Turkish foreign policy, the sharp cooling of relations between Turkey and Israel became almost inevitable. Turkey’s bid to become the central power broker in a region dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian issue and anti-Israel sentiment almost dictates a move away from the strategic alliance with Israel.

It is worth noting that while there are very sharp disagreements within the Turkish establishment regarding the more extreme and ideological aspects of the AKP government’s behaviour, there is a general agreement across the political spectrum regarding the broad direction of Turkish regional strategy. This turn is also coloured by a sense of declining American influence and power in the region, which enables Turkey to consider itself an independent actor, rather than a junior partner, to the US in key areas. The Turkish attempt to mediate in the Iranian nuclear dispute and Turkey’s warming relations with Syria, are examples of this. In turn, Turkey’s new orientation is likely to bring it into conflict with Egypt, as the traditionally dominant power in the Arab world.

The ‘turn to the east’ in Turkey’s domestic debate

While the broad direction of Turkish foreign policy may not be dependent on ideological matters, the sense that Turkey is deliberately seeking to inflame matters and to seek confrontation with Israel is largely a product of the AKP and its particular orientation. General elections are due in Turkey in July 2011. The main secularist opposition party, the Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP), has made recent gains in the polls. The Turkish economy is not doing well, and the CHP, which has a new and more dynamic leadership, is seen as having a fair chance of victory at the polls.

It is quite possible that electoral considerations played some role in the decision of the AKP government to back the Gaza flotilla at this time, which involved a near inevitable heightening of tension with Israel. A CHP victory would probably not mean a return to the very warm relations between Turkey and Israel of the late 1990s, but the support for Hamas, the attempt to build regional legitimacy through the assertion of a shared Muslim identity between Turks and Arabs, and perhaps the outreach to Iran and Syria might well form casualties of an AKP defeat.

There is probably nothing that Israel can do to change the orientation of the AKP, which for reasons stated above, finds raised tensions with Israel both of pragmatic worth as well as to its ideological liking. But the relations between Israel and Turkey are not of benefit to Israel alone. There is now a fierce internal debate under way in Turkey in which more extreme Islamists around the AKP are demanding a complete breaking in relations with Israel, including the annulling of all military agreements. The country’s military establishment is firmly opposed to such a move. Radicalism of this type, and the accompanying unfamiliar partisanship on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, may in the end cost the AKP in the polls, if middle class voters feel that the party is taking the country too far away too quickly from its traditional foreign policy orientation. The secular and republican tradition runs very deep in Turkey, and the increased Muslim orientation is likely to encounter significant domestic opposition.

Conclusion: what lies ahead?

Turkey is now in sharp disagreement with the west on several key areas of policy and strategy in the Middle East – on Iran, on Syrian and Iranian support for Hezbollah (on which Ankara is notably silent), on Sudan, on policy toward Syria, and on policy toward the Hamas enclave in Gaza. Turkey’s growing enmity toward Israel forms an inherent part of this larger turn.

The real danger probably does not lie in frontal confrontation between Israel and Turkey, or between Turkey and the West. Rather, the presence of a powerful, probably Islamic oriented Turkey seeking to emerge as the key power broker in the region severely complicates efforts to isolate and eventually roll back truly dangerous and destructive forces, such as the regime in Iran and its client Hamas. The events surrounding the Gaza flotilla offer a particularly intense example of how this dynamic is manifesting itself.