The once-vital relationship between Turkey and Israel is going
through a distinctly frosty period. The chill began after the invasion
of Gaza earlier this year, which Ankara criticized harshly. But now
ties between the two Middle East allies are diving further and some
experts are wondering if the relationship is coming to end.
Concern
was first raised in mid-October after Turkey indefinitely postponed
annual military exercises, reportedly because of Israel’s planned
involvement. The exercises -- air force maneuvers dubbed Anatolian
Eagle -- were also to have included the United States, Italy and other
NATO countries. The other participating states reportedly pulled out of
the exercise after learning of Israel’s exclusion.
Israeli
officials also have expressed outrage over a new dramatic series being
screened on Turkish state television that shows Israeli soldiers
mercilessly killing Palestinians, including one scene of a soldier
shooting a young girl at point blank range.
Observers suggest
the postponement of the military exercises and the ensuing tension
reflect shifts in Turkey’s domestic politics and its foreign policy
outlook. "I think the timing [of the cancellation] has more to do with
Turkey’s internal and foreign politics," says Lale Kemal, a military
analyst based in Ankara.
"We should bear in mind that the balance
of power [in Turkey] is shifting toward civilian authority," Kemal
continued. "Despite the military’s plans for the exercise, which
included Israel, the government asked them [military planners] to
exclude it."
Turkey’s Islamist press has strongly criticized
Israel’s involvement in previous military exercises, and Kemal believes
the liberal Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) government was
worried about the domestic fallout of this year’s drill. "Had it been
up to the military, the exercise would have continued as planned, but
the military can’t dictate its policies on the government the way it
used to. The equation is changing. We see this in other areas and in
the Turkish-Israeli relationship also. The military cannot dictate its
positions all the time right now," she said.
On the foreign
policy front, Ankara, for the last few years, has actively sought to
establish itself as a kind of regional soft-power broker, working to
strengthen relations with neighbors that it has previously kept at an
arm’s length, most notably Syria and Iran. Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu -- the main architect of this new foreign policy -- and
10 other ministers recently visited Syria for the first meeting of a
newly created Strategic Cooperation Council, and to sign an agreement
doing away with visa requirements between the two countries.
In
many ways, this change reflects a fundamental shift from the period
when Turkey and Israel began developing their strategic relationship.
At the time, both countries looked at countries like Syria as a common
threat. Turkey and Syria almost went to war in the late 1990’s after
Ankara accused Damascus of supporting the separatist Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK).
"In Davutoglu’s ideological framework, Israel
doesn’t play a central role. Things have changed," says Ofra Bengio, an
expert on Turkey at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Says Suat Kiniklioglu, a
member of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and
spokesman of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee: "We need to be
clear: the strategic relationship between Turkey and Israel is no
longer what it was in the late 1990s."
Bengio believes that the
postponed air force exercises may also be the victim of the continuing
fallout from the January invasion of Gaza. Davutoglu recently cancelled
an upcoming visit to Israel after he learned he was not going to be
allowed to visit Gaza. Excluding Israel from the Anatolian Eagle
maneuvers might well have been Turkey’s response to that, Bengio says.
"I think Turkey is doing this to punish Israel for everything that has
happened since Gaza, not because it might hurt its relations with Syria
or Iran. The situation is starting to look more like a game of
ping-pong," she said.
During the Gaza fighting, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of "perpetrating inhuman
actions that would bring it to self-destruction" and of committing a
"crime against humanity." More recently, Erdogan charged the country
with being a "persecutor."
Ankara initially said that no
political meaning should be derived from the postponement of the
military exercises, but Turkish officials later altered their tune.
"Turkey cannot be seen as being in military relations with Israel at
such a sensitive time, when there are no peace efforts, when peace has
not gained momentum," Davutoglu told reporters in a recent news
conference. "We cannot ignore what is going on in Gaza."
Some
critics believe that altering the old balance in bilateral relations
could damage Turkey’s overall foreign policy interests. "Turkey’s
relations with Israel . . . are very vital and should not be a tool for
playing domestic games," political analyst Mehmet Ali Birand recently
wrote in a column in the English-language Hurriyet Daily News. "We need
to protect the balance as we used to do."
Israeli officials
have already voiced skepticism about Ankara’s ability to serve as an
"honest broker," if talks between Jerusalem and Damascus were to be
renewed.
"They are forcing the limits of their ability to
maintain relations with both sides," says Bulent Aliriza, an expert on
Turkey at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
Washington-based think tank. "Turkey has every right to open up to the
Middle East and to criticize Israel, but the impression is being
developed that Turkey is developing its relationships in the Middle
East at the expense of Israel."