Understanding Turkey’s Policy of Confrontation with Israel
On a bright, cold day in mid-January, 1998, I stood with a group of Turkish journalists at the water’s edge on Haifa Bay. A shape appeared on the horizon. It was a Turkish warship, beginning its approach to the Israeli coastline. One of the journalists handed out cigars as the ship slowly drew nearer. We toasted the friendship between Israel and Turkey — and the transformation of the Middle East’s strategic balance.
I was a young official of the Israel Prime Minister’s Office at the time. The Turkish journalists were our guests. They were in Israel to cover the Reliant Mermaid naval exercise. Reliant Mermaid, a joint maneuver involving the Israeli, Turkish, and U.S. navies, launched the strategic alliance between Turkey and Israel which formed a lynchpin of the pro-western dispensation that marked the post-Cold War Middle East.
How things have changed. Turkish navy ships may soon once again be sailing to the eastern Mediterranean. This time, however, they will do so with the real possibility of a clash with their former Israeli comrades in arms. This sentence sounds absurd even as I write it. Yet it is accurate. What has transformed these friends into enemies?
Profound changes are under way in the Middle East. In recent years, the key strategic process in the region was a Cold War-type system, placing the U.S. and its regional allies in a contest with a rival alliance led by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The series of upheavals known as the “Arab Spring,” however, have cut across this picture, weakening both the rival sides. The United States lost a key lynchpin of its alliance with the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt.
Iran, contrary to its early expectations, has not yet been able to successfully take advantage of the travails of its enemies. The uprising in Syria and Tehran’s determination to preserve the dictator Bashar al-Assad at all costs have left Iran with the image of an oppressive, alien power supporting violence against Sunni Muslim Arabs.
The weakening of both the U.S.- and Iranian-led regional alliances has left a power vacuum into which Erdogan’s Turkey is now trying to step. Ankara used to pride itself on its “zero problems with neighbors” policy. Today, under the leadership of the Islamist AKP, Turkey is simultaneously picking fights with a long array of enemies, while trying to propose itself as a candidate for the leadership of the region.
Thus, Ankara is playing the key role behind the scenes in aiding and organizing the Sunni opposition in Syria. It has in recent days been enthusiastically bombing Kurdish targets in northern Iraq (with the loss of a number of civilian lives). It is threatening Cyprus against beginning to drill for gas in its own territorial waters.
The clash with Israel, however, forms the centerpiece. This is not simply another item on the list of disputes. Opposition to the Jewish state remains the commanding political passion for millions across the Arabic-speaking and broader Muslim world. Turkey has for the last year been engaged in launching a bid for the ownership of the Palestinian cause, knowing it represents the path to popularity in the eyes of the region’s masses, and therefore influence over their rulers.
Turkey’s move toward enmity with Israel is also encapsulated in the image of a ship heading toward Israeli waters. This ship, the Mavi Marmara, carried Islamist activists of the IHH organization, as part of the naval flotilla to Hamas-controlled Gaza, in May 2010. Israel’s killing of nine of them, as they resisted the boarding of their ship, was the moment when the die was cast. Since then, Israel’s relationship with Turkey has been in free fall.
Events are moving fast. The Turkish prime minister was in recent days met by wildly enthusiastic crowds in chaotic Egypt. They chanted “Erdogan! Erdogan! A real Muslim and not a coward,” named him “the new Salah al-Din,” and called for joint Turkish and Egyptian action to end the naval blockade on Gaza.
The media is full of rumors that three Turkish frigates are set to be dispatched to the Mediterranean. Some unconfirmed reports even suggest that they will be authorized to clash with Israeli vessels if aid ships are intercepted in international waters.
We have come a long way from Reliant Mermaid, via the Mavi Marmara, to the prospect of Israeli-Turkish naval clashes. With the region in flux, a new Turkey is looking eastwards. Israel will do all it can to repair relations, but will stand in the defense of its vital interests — as it did in May 2010, and as it has always done.
It will be many years before Turkish sailors, journalists, and officials can toast their Israeli counterparts in friendship again by the blue waters of Haifa Bay. All is changed, changed utterly, as an Irish poet once wrote.
Strange and tumultuous days.
“Israel will do all it can to repair relations…” That will be a waste of time, because Turkey does not want to repair relations. So Israel use your energies in a more productive manner, i.e. like getting the resolve to sink the first Turkish warship that even attempts to make a provocative move towards you. You are already at war with Turkey and you just don’t know it yet. The war started when Turkey put armed Islamic Jihadists (Terrorists not “activists”) on the Mavi Marmara. Please Israel don’t be like a co-dependent woman trying to get back her abusive drunk (for power) boyfriend. It’s pathetic and disgraceful. Looks cowardly too and you are not a nation of cowards so don’t beg your enemy. Just destroy them.
And get ready to defend the lives of Jews who are currently in Turkey:
See: Jews in Turkey prepare for mass emigration
“Strange and tumultuous days.”
Maybe so but they are no surprise. When Islam perceives it has enough adherents in any given area; it turns militant quickly and the deceit of being a “peaceful” and legitimate “religion” turns into the reality that Islam indeed is a governing doctrine.
Ignorance of that fact is THE major threat to the U.S.A. and many other countries around the globe. Islam is a form of government and NOT a “religion”; it has no place in any freedom-loving nation and pining for the daze of Reliant Mermaid won’t change that. Israel in the only nation on earth at this point that has decided that, enough is enough. No compromise with Islam any more – Allah has effectively been told to pack his bags and get out of town.
Husky – You say: “Islam is a form of government and NOT a “religion.’” I would go one step further: Islam is a totalitarian political ideology cloaked in the pretense of religion.
Exactly.
Regarding the Turkish warships, people tend to forget that there is another player in this little drama that is being forgotten. It’s the US Navy. Unless Obama really does want to lose every Jewish vote in the country, he’s not about to let Israel get into a confrontation with Turkey on the high seas. Therefore, he will send elements of the US Sixth Fleet into the area to prevent any hostilities from taking place. Turkey is NOT about to fire on US warships. Just not going to happen.
Also, Turkey is still a member of NATO. Is Turkey really willing to risk abandoning its trade with all of Western Europe and the United States over the Palestinians and Gaza? Not going to happen. Also remember that Turkey always talks tough but always seems to back out at the last minute. Just last month they were making all these threats to Syria over the refugees flooding into Turkey. Turkey even threatened to invade Syria. Did any of it come even close to happening? Nope. Assad just stared the Turks down and they went away. And that’s with a country that has a common border with Turkey. Israel does not have a common border with Turkey, so I don’t really know what they’re going to threaten Israel with, unless it’s a naval war which the Turks would lose if they decided to start it.
Israel simply needs to stare Turkey down and they will find a reason to go away. Turkey loves playing to an Islamic crowd in the Middle East, but they never seem to back up their words with force. Unless it involves the Greeks.
There is yet another, inanimate player in all this – supposedly.
Israel’s vast nuclear arsenal. If Erdogan overplays his hand, he could be looking at 25 million dead Turks.
Liberty ship,
I hope you are correct, but I think you have too much faith in rational behavior. If aggrandizing leaders and their followers acted rationally we would not have the legacy of two world wars. Turkey like Iran and Egypt has insurmountable internal problems, war may be their only out.
And I disagree with the assertion that the Turks are all bluff. Ask the Kurds in Iraq.
That’s because the Kurds have their hands tied, so to speak, as Turkey knows that no one will pay attention.
Did any of the media mention that Turkey invaded Iraq and killed Kurdish civilians?
Did Hillary get on her horse and gallop to a rhetorical defense?
I Agreed, confrontation with Israel always been Erdogan’s goal. Without Hussein Obama pressing Israel to commit suicide Erdogan could never dare to go as far he has gone. At the end of the day Erdogan will fail, neither the Arab dictators nor The Iranian mullah will never accept Turkish leadership. Plus The internal Kurdish problem will be the deciding factor in Turkey’s future map.
Libertyship46: You say: “It’s the US Navy. Unless Obama really does want to lose every Jewish vote in the country, he’s not about to let Israel get into a confrontation with Turkey on the high seas.” You’re assuming some rationality and competence on O’s part. They’re already planning how to demonize Jews who vote Republican according to Barry Rubin here at PJM. See,http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/09/16/a-new-selective-semi-antisemitism-only-jews-opposing-obama-are-evil-greedy-and-have-dual-loyalty/
BTW the Anonymous reply to Husky was me. I forgot to put my name down.
Is the Palestinian cause receiving more support or less support these days?
No kidding: In early 2003, the families of Palestinian martyrs were receiving big cash rewards from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. At that time the “martyrs” were the heroes of the day. Since that time, many other “martyrs” have died in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, Yemen and even Somalia, and other places of lesser profile. Are they quite as “heroic” as they once were? One can argue they are no longer so. Of course, in the ME, defeat is often spun as victory, but how many defeats can still be spun as quite so many victories?
What if Turkey is picking up the Palestinian cause just as it is there for the taking, and no other country is contesting the appropriation by the new Islamist entity on the rise? Let’s face it: Turkey is the only traditionally muslim nation with an economy not principally dependent on oil, with fairly good education, opportunity, and prosperity.
The Palestinian cause has provided many juicy slogans for the Arab tyrannies, the Europeans are still talking about it, but the Arab street has turned to more pressing causes, like food in the first place, and beyond that relatively abstract items such as personal freedom, education and opportunities. Could the Turkish regime be for the first time a regime seriously concerned with the destiny of the Palestinians, or are they just positioning themselves as a new beneficiary of the political dividends to be “earned” by waving the Palestinian flag?
What if they calculated that the posturing is more politically expedient and useful than cooperation with Israel, which may not have been driven by deep feelings of mutual allegiance anyway? What if the Palestinian bid for nationhood before the UN was only a desperate attempt to stay relevant to the media?
That would not diminish the risks facing Israel, but would it make them manageable?
How do you say, “That’s a real nice navy you got there. Be a real shame if something happened to it,” in Hebrew?
That’as a good one J.J.
“Yesh lecha ChaylHayam yafe, chaval im haya kore lo mashehoo”
– be fought already. The Sons of the Prophet can then spend 40 years, as they did following the Six-Day War, trying to rationalize why they lost.
Erdogan sees benjamins and I don’t mean a son of Jacob.
The next step may be a Turkish-Israeli naval confrontation. Turkey will do it with a small number of ships just to see if Israel will back down. If Israeli subs send some Turkish warships down to Davy Jones Locker, look for a coordinated attack on Israel by all of its neighbors + Iran in the next few years. The prelude will probably be a fall of the regimes in Syria and Jordan which will be replaced with Turkish allies. I expect the war to start with a massive rocket barrage on Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, and Sinai, simultaneous with a massive uprising in the West Bank, Turkish and Syrian armies moving in from the north, and Egyptian armies moving from the South. Once Iran enters, the war goes nuclear.
Can someone explain the fullness of what is occurring in Iraq? United States military is in a Iraq locked and loaded? Yes, and withdrawing. Yet the Turkish military is taking target practice on Kurdish Iraqi’s, in Iraqi territory. Read, heard, am aware this has been going on along time. What the hell is the Obama administration and State Department up to as this weird war within a war within a war within a war ( Palestinian and Israeli /Kurd vs Turk) WWF style death cage match seems to to take shape. This administration encourages sardonic imagery and expression like no other.
“What the hell is the Obama administration and State Department up to”
They are reducing our presence in Iraq to almost nothing while this is happening. This exemplifies the administration’s foreign posture: they can’t stand the heat so they’re getting out of the kitchen.
The Turkish Gov’t is as phony as a 3 dollar bill & as hypocritical as it can be. Just look at this senario. Israel sends a ship of radicals to Turkey to help encourage Jews in a small area of Turkey. Arms are to be smuggled in too. The 1st thing the Turkish Navy would do is send this ship down to Davey Jones locker. Never mind that they Turks exterminated the Armenians & Greek Christians in their old Ottoman lands. Never mind that they have a war against the Kurds. And…that Erdogan guy sure looks a lot like Hitler w/ his mustache!
Excuse a non professional question. Doesn’t the Friend or Foe software on advanced weapons stop Turkey and Israel firing on each other?
No, it can be reprogrammed. Turkey has reported that it has done so.
deegee…..It is a good question. The Turks have replaced the targeting systems with their own. I doubt it’s anywhere as good as what they had from us.
Israel has weapons not from the US. They also have the technical expertise I’m sure to turn loose anything bought from us.
To see what is going on here, I think we need to stand back and examine things from a broad perspective. I think that events are proceeding toward war. Where the point of no return is, who knows. I think the Iranians want a war, and nukes be dammed. Islamic leaders as they assume power in place of secular leaders may reach that conclusion too. The drums have been getting louder for a while. The mideast’s mob mentality will feed and also draw sustenance from islamic dogma. The mob energizes political leaders and vice versus.
Eventually by design or accident war breaks out. This time, it’s going to be a whirlpool that draws countries outside the mideast into the conflagration. Old emnitites and scores will need to be settled. The Truman Doctrine of battling to a standstill won’t be the conclusion. The dependence on mideast oil will be certain to draw the industrial powers to blows. Expect all nations to participate.
If it’s starts by design, we may have some time to prepare. If it starts by accident, any day now could be the day. The inertia is there. It’s pointed towards war. I see no hint of heading this off.
I had a friend who had a grade seven education who started a business in his early twenties with five hundred dollars of borrowed money. He built a mini conglomerate worth about $60 million in fifteen years before he died of throat cancer at a very early age. His first unit was a service business which employed low grade people who tend to live out soap opera lives and let things get out of hand which becomes damaging to the business. He explained to me once how he kept them in line. Every two-three months or so, he would pick on one of his employees; it wouldn’t matter who, he said, because someone is always doing something wrong. And he would march the poor victim right across the office so that all would see and get him into his own office where he would read the riot act to him, thoroughly scaring the life out of the man – and loudly enough to let all the staff hear him. That would keep the rest of the staff focused on their jobs for the next few months. I thought of this as I read about Erdogan’s new ambitions to perhaps become the big “somebody” in the Muslim world by challenging Israel. This may turn out to become of benefit to the entire world because Erdogan may force Israel to show the world of Islam that they are not to be fooled with. Iran is a bit too far for Israel to effectively hit them as they should be hit for funding all of Israel’s enemies, but Turkey is conveniently near and it will provide Israel with a perfect example of what happens to towel head braggarts when they push too far. I can’t wait to see the action. I hope Israel won’t pull its punches as America has done in conflict after conflict. Turkey may serve as the example that will keep the rest of the s-disturbers more humble for a few years.
Andy H…..While it could be that Erdogen would try it alone, I don’t think he would. The FM of Egypt made the statement that indicates the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel is no longer worth the paper it’s written on. So what else might the FM of Egypt and Turkish officials been discussing?
What alliances will form I cannot say. I will say that history has inertia and the inertia in the mideast is not peacefull. The comment someone made regarding Obama standing aside should anything occur having an impact on the timing is a good one.
IMHO a war is coming. A very bad one. It is one of the reasons we need our guys out of there asap. We cannot logistically support the troops in Afghanistan when this kicks off. It is time to save our powder and harden our defenses.
A complicating factor in Israel’s recognition of Turkey’s emnity is that at lower levels there is still some cooperation between Israel and Turkey. The technical personnel and beaurocrats in the water ministries are still in contact working on projects that antedate Erdogan’s takeover. Ehud Barak and the Israel defense dept.still had contacts with the Tukish military, at least until the recent mass resignations of Turkey’s generals.
How many wars have been waged against Israel by its Muslim neighbors? Four major ones and innumerable smaller skirmishes by my reckoning. How many times has the call gone out from the likes of Iran, Egypt, Libya et al for Israel to be wiped off the face of this earth and the Jews driven into the sea? I have lost count there.
Israel has been more than patient with these murderous villains and owes them nothing, only security for themselves. If that means holding onto the land lost to them in these wars, so be it. There is no guarantee that they will ever have peace despite any treaty signed by any Muslim neighbor. The peace with Egypt was only good while Mubarak was in power. Now it is a worthless piece of paper.
So what happens next? My guess is that with Turkey rattling its saber on the sidelines Egypt amongst others will be emboldened to strike at Israel again. Only this time they will again lose and Israel will take the Sinai and keep it. Forever.
Crowds ‘named [Erdogan] “the new Salah al-Din”.
Saladin, however, was a Kurd.
If you are a doormat, everybody steps on you. Push back hard and strong…everybody respects you!
Perhaps Erdogan has no strategy and has not thought out where this goes. One possibility may be that he wants a cold war with Israel in order to force them to greatly increase their defense spending and ruin their economy. Perhaps he wants to do a further house cleaning in his own military and needs a defeat at the hands of the zionists as a reason? Lastly, putting aside the question of nuclear weapons for the moment, in a conventional war I don’t think Israel would have an easy time of handling the Turks. The numbers just aren’t in Israel’s favor.
Good analysis, although incomplete.
There is Europe with their debt, recession and migrants problems. On one hand, there is a noticeable percentage of ethnic Turks who will go to any length do defend Islamized Turkey at voting booths and on the streets. On the other hand, they have recession, they need to re-start domestic manufacture in debt-ridden countries. Blocking Turkish imports on ethical grounds sounds like the right way to boost Greece, Spain and Italy.
There is Russia, the old, rusty, rotten, but still a superpower. Russia been Turkey’s enemy since 17th Century, and still is, as Turkey blocks Russia’s access to Mediterranean. The latter is the sole reason for Turkey membership in NATO. While Russia will publicly support any pro-”Palestinian” rubbish, one can count on them to do everything they can behind-the-scene to topple Turkey. Any excuse to ship 1000 battle tanks to Kurds? Not yet.
And of cause not to forget Turks themselves, or more specifically educated Turks. Erogan’s reforms empowered provincial small business. they are also likely to make the lives of the “enlightened” Turks unbearable, especially if Erogan follows the Arab recipe on creating a scary alternative (think Islamic Jihad in “Palestine”, MB in Egypt, al-Qs in Saudi Arabia)to blackmail US into support. I will not be surprised if in 5 years we have more Turkish professionals than South African here in Australia.
And the money factor. US & European aid into ME is how much – $10 billion? More? Cant they really afford that?
Erdogen can’t be the new Salah Al Din since as a leader actively working with Iran to destroy democratic Kurds in the Iraq/Iran border area he is murdering the very people to whom Salah Al Din belonged.
Turkey is going on a disturbing path for sure. Erdogan needs a conflict or two to maintain power because the Turkish economy is starting to tank. Although he got into power by a democratic process, he will not be able to maintain power by a legal or legitimate process. Little by little, Turkey is heading towards totalitarianism. Any journalist/media personality who is critical of him has gotten sued or autited. When Turks meet foreign journalists their quotes that are critical of Erdogan are done so anonymously.
Anyways it is only natural that Iran’s population that are by nature progressive and tolerant and pro western will somehow overthrow the pigs running the country and a free and democratic Iran will more than make up for an antiwest dictatorial Turkey. Peace y’all!
I value the blog.Much thanks again.