Erdogan's bellicose support for the flotilla has sacrificed Israeli relations in the service of retrograde east-facing aspirations
Joshua Teitelbaum
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 June 2010 13.30 BST
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/08/turkey-jihad-israel-flotilla/print
Support for Turkey is at an all-time high in the Arab world. The last time
Turkish flags were carried through the streets of Middle Eastern capitals
was during the first world war, as people took to the streets in continued
support for the Ottoman sultan-caliph against the western entente powers.
The sultan-caliph had proclaimed a jihad. Thanks to Turkish government
support of a blockade-running mission led by a group of Hamas sympathisers,
they are flying once again. No ruling Arab leader is as popular as the
Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose discourse amounts to
calls for a jihad against Israel.
Israel's relations with Ankara - military, economic, and tourist (Israelis
once flocked to Turkey) - have been sacrificed on the altar of Turkey's
retrograde aspiration to lead the Islamic world and establish itself along
with Iran as an alternative to American power. Turkey is once again turning
eastwards.
The Erdogan government's outrageous provocation of Israel could have been
prevented. Israel begged the Turkish government not to let the Mava Marmaris
depart with its meagre cargo of humanitarian aid (meagre compared to the aid
Israel facilitates every day) and Islamist extremists armed to the teeth
with clubs, wrist rockets that fire deadly projectiles, switchblades and
military-style night vision equipment.
The provocation is all the more shameful since the Turkish government has
proclaimed that all passengers were checked thoroughly. Is this the
behaviour of a friendly country? Of the six ships, only the Turkish ship
resisted violently; all the others were boarded without incident.
But the gall of Erdogan and his foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu knows no
bounds. Erdogan's bellicose exhortations were beyond belief. "The heart of
humanity has taken one of her heaviest wounds in history," he cried. "Bloody
massacre" . "spilling the blood of innocent humans" . "in the history of
humanity this has been recorded as a major shame" . "a despicably cowardly
and vicious act." Turkey, unlike Israel, bellowed Erdogan, is not an
"adolescent, rootless state". "As precious as Turkey's partnership is, so
harsh will be her hostility." He concluded, no less: "Today is a turning
point in history . Nothing will ever be the same again."
While Erdogan was engaged in war-mongering, Davutoglu was urging the west to
drop sanctions against Iran. He next expressed his "disappointment" that the
US had not condemned the Israeli raid, which he termed "murder conducted by
a state". (In contrast, the sinking of a South Korean ship in May by North
Korea, killing 46 sailors, was of "great concern" to the Turkish foreign
ministry.)
It is difficult to imagine that Turkey would be engaging in this kind of
behaviour were the US demonstrating world leadership and not abandoning the
field to the likes of Erdogan. While the administration works to assure
Israel's security with co-operation on missile defence, it has yet
emboldened Israel's enemies by publicly pressuring Jerusalem at every turn,
not taking decisive action against Iran, and caving to Egypt by singling out
Israel - to the exclusion of Iran - at the nuclear non-proliferation treaty
review conference last month. Post-conference palliatives offered up by US
officials did little to ameliorate the impression in the region that the US
was hanging Israel out to dry. Turkey was simply bandwagoning.
Israel will now be closely examining its relationship with Turkey. Turkish
Jews are afraid to leave their homes. Israel has withdrawn the families of
its diplomats out of fear for their safety. Israel has excellent relations
with the armed forces of Turkey, but they have had their wings clipped by
the massive assault against them in the murky episode known as Ergenekon, in
which several military officers and others are accused of trying to
overthrow Erdogan's party.
Turkey's over-the-top behaviour has Israelis scratching their heads. How
would Ankara react, for instance, if Israeli "humanitarian organisations"
decided to run aid missions to the terrorist PKK, the Kurdish separatist
group in Turkey? Do the Turks really want an Iranian port on the
Mediterranean in Gaza? And for that matter, do the western countries, which
have so roundly castigated Israel?
There may be an international commission of inquiry into the incident. An
unbiased commission must certainly also examine the possible complicity of
the Turkish authorities in arming the militants.
There is still hope for Turkey. While old-style Kemalism probably needs to
be revamped, the person to do it just might be Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the newly
elected head of the Republican People's party (CHP). As the Washington
Institute's Soner Cagaptay notes in the Jerusalem Post, he could bring about
a "New Kemalism - Kemalism 2.0 - [which] would be updated and recast to
preserve the liberal aspects of a Kemalist polity, while jettisoning
authoritarianism and anachronistic aspects of traditional Kemalism."
Spurned by the EU, where it has applied for membership and ruled by an
Islamist party with delusions of grandeur, Turkey is determined to lead the
Muslim world once more and is promoting a clash of civilisations in order to
compete strategically with the US. Turkey is no longer a friend, but not yet
an enemy of the US. It is a "frenemy," writes Steven Cook of the Council on
Foreign Relations. Let's hope that Ankara's Islamist rulers pull back from
the brink represented by its risky and irresponsible policies.
“There is no such thing on our agenda,” Erdogan said at a news conference with Putin in Istanbul when asked about the gas.
RELATED:
Israel may not need the extra gas, which could be transported to Syria or Lebanon instead via the planned Blue Stream-2 pipe, Putin said.
“The Blue Stream gas may not go to Israel because of economic considerations,” Putin said. “I don’t think Israel needs the gas because they found a reserve recently.”
Turkey has said it’s considering paring economic and military ties with Israel and has recalled its ambassador to the country after nine Turks were killed on an aid flotilla headed
for Gaza and intercepted by Israeli commandos last week.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Turkey is calling for a jihad against Israel
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that they don’t plan to export natural gas to Israel via a new pipeline to Turkey.
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