Alwaght- The normalization of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Israeli regime in the current circumstances could be brought in spotlight from different aspects. Each of these aspects outstrips the others in terms of preference and significance.
After the Turkish air force’s fighter jets shot down the Russian SU-24 bomber over Syria in November 2015, the Russian President Vladimir Putin officially targeted the Turkish economy through a couple of punitive measures. First step of the Russian President Putin was to pull out of Turkey the Russian nationals. This could be considered as withdrawal of Moscow’s pieces from Turkey’s economy and tourism puzzles. Then Moscow put limits on traveling and then it fully banned traveling from all parts of the Russian Federation to Turkey.
Another card used by the Kremlin was the trade. It put a ban on entry of Turkish businessmen and thus Turkish products to the country. A variety of Turkish items including food, dairy products, grains, and even clothes were banned in Russia. Having this in mind, one of the reasons that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorted to reconciliation with the Israeli regime was that he sought a shortcut to fill part of his country’s economic vacuum. It must be made clear that Ankara during its diplomatic disconnection with Tel Aviv— took place in 2010 after the Israeli military forces attacked the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship carrying human rights activists who aimed at breaking Tel Aviv-imposed Gaza siege and killed 10 of the activists— never challenged its economic bonds with the Israeli regime. The figures even show that the trade volume between the two sides in 2010 was nearly $2 billion; however, it touched $4.5 billion in 2016.
The two sides’ economic relations perhaps have undergone specific ups and downs, but according to the statistics they never experienced any cut-off. The Mavi Marmara ship raid in 2010 only affected Ankara-Tel Aviv’s diplomatic ties. Everybody is aware that diplomatic disconnection between two countries means direct effects on the trade and economic sectors. So, Turkey not only shored up economic relations with the Israeli regime but also it boosted trade with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf Arab states to make up for the harms to its economy coming from the Russian sanctions.
Politically speaking, Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize the Israeli regime as a state in March 1949. At that time, Ankara was slated by the Muslim world for the move. Since then, Ankara and Tel Aviv have been recognized as two strategic regional partners, although following the Israeli raid on the humanitarian Turkish ship the alliance of these two politically hit its lowest level since establishment of their ties. Their diplomatic relations were reduced from ambassadors to chargé d'affaires, but they did not pull out their attachés, and they remained serving in Ankara, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.
But the climax of diplomatic clashes and harming of political Ankara-Tel Aviv’s relations took place during Erdogan’s symbolic speech in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Erdogan in the presence of Shimon Peres, then president of the Israeli regime, described Tel Aviv as child-killing regime, adding that the Israeli troops were prison guards of besieged Gaza.
At that time, many of Muslim and even European officials were overjoyed to hear these words of Erdogan. They lauded Erdogan for the speech. However, not so long after that the truth about Erdogan’s words began to be clear month by month and even day by day. Later many media called Erdogan’s speech as tactical. At that time, Egypt had no good relations with Turkey, and other Muslim countries to some degree lashed out at Erdogan for his fake posing of support for the Palestinians.
These events in a way showed Erdogan’s taking advantage of Palestine's cause as well as raid on Mavi Marmara ship, which was also called “freedom flotilla”. Everybody was sure that the Islamists of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party only strove after their party interests, and didn't consider the national interests. In fact, by highlighting Gaza several-year siege and the Palestinian cause as a whole, Erdogan succeeded in sweeping the Turks’ votes and becoming president of Turkey.
Now after six years after chilled diplomatic relations, the Israeli and Turkish sides have reached a reconciliation agreement. But this time there is a third element in the fresh scenario. It is the backbone of the new reconciliation deal: it is Hamas movement.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s blackmailing game in the course of normalization of diplomatic ties with Ankara made Hamas a gambling piece played with by Turkish and Israeli policies. The game ended in Ankara signing the rapprochement deal with Tel Aviv while undertaking maximum commitments and securing minimum responses for its demands. The Israeli regime asks Turkey that Hamas must continue political activity only on the Turkish soil, aiming to specifically confine the Palestinian movement to a single place and generally contain the Palestinian resistance.
The reason behind Tel Aviv’s demand is clear. The Israelis still believe in efficiency of their old game of creation and distribution of crisis, and so to complete their project they prefer to marginalize their adversaries. Meanwhile, Netanyahu cannot find a contractor better than Erdogan.
In return for rapprochement, Tel Aviv offered building power plants for Ankara. The Turkish side is happy to be offered as such. It showed a green light to the Israeli offer.
In addition to dreaming of reviving the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan seeks to lead the pro-Palestine camp in the Muslim world.
On the other side, Turkey’s Erdogan has apologized to Russia. It made news headlines in the past week and it appears to keep being top new in the days to come. On the one hand Turkey is normalizing ties with the Israeli regime in a bid to use Tel Aviv as a trump card to join the EU, and on the other hand it offered apology to Moscow as it came under strains of isolation due to wrong behavior with the neighbors and as the Syrian situation becomes complicated more and more. Turkey seeks preparing the grounds for later energy negotiations with Russia and to restore its exports to Russia.
It must be taken into consideration that Turkey’s exploitation of Hamas during its normalization process with the Israeli regime not only could be a serious warning sign to the neighboring and Muslim countries but also it is likely that as the time goes by, Ankara shows a shift in positions of the ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkey towards its allies. In other words, because Ankara majorly due to enthusiasm reacted snarlingly in past few years to many regional developments, it is likely to change stances as days pass even in dealing with smallest political cases. It is even expected to ignore all of its pledges. However, the Turkish officials, and Erdogan personally, justify their behavior by copying Moscow model and saying that they are only seeking securing the Turkish national interests and are not making ambitions efforts to forge alliances.
