Netanyahu's Turkish coup: How Erdogan realized he really does 'need Israel'*

Haaretz: Rooted in the AKP's staunchly anti-Israel past, often tainted with blatant anti-Semitism, rooted in internal Turkish politics, Erdogan has always treated Turkey's relations with Israel with disdain. What changed?

Louis Fishman, June 27, 2016

The renewal of ties between Turkey and Israel marks a major turning point in this history of their bilateral relations, frozen since the 2010 Gaza flotilla incident, in which nine Turkish citizens died. Since then, Turkey has demanded an official apology from Israel (that came at President Obama’s urging in 2013), and financial compensation to be given to the families of the victims.

However, the major stumbling block was Turkey’s demand that Israel lift the Gaza blockade, something that Israel insisted was unacceptable, as it was an issue directly related to its security. 

For the last six months Turkey and Israel have worked on reaching a compromise concerning Gaza. Turkey has received guarantees that it will be able to supply humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, and in addition it will also be able to build a hospital, supply much needed electricity and clean water to the Strip, in addition to other steps aimed at improving the lives of Palestinians there.

Netanyahu snatches victory from the jaws of crisis 

While Turkey’s achievements are impressive, Turkey’s acceptance of Israeli monitoring of these goods and services is an achievement for Israel, since it essentially is de facto recognition of the Gaza blockade itself, and something Israel has offered in one way or another since the crisis broke out. Israel received assurances that Hamas would not act against Israel from Turkish territory, allowing Turkey to save face as well, by not having to expel them. Importantly, it also received assurances that IDF soldiers who participated in the Flotilla Raid will be free from criminal charges in Turkish courts.  

Putting aside the details of the agreement, the real story however is how Israel was able to transform the international crisis it found itself in following the raid into a diplomatic victory. It’s one that should be fully credited to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Essentially, this agreement has the potential to create a new regional reality, advancing relations not based on the glory of the once strong Turkish-Israeli military alliance of the 1990s, but a new paradigm in sync with an understanding of Turkey’s current political situation.    

Turkey’s political Islamist: Disdain for Israel – and Jews 

Since the AKP came to power in 2002, its influential leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has always treated his country’s relations with Israel with disdain. This view was tied not only to his party’s staunchly anti-Israel past, often tainted with blatant anti-Semitism,  but was rooted in internal Turkish politics.

During the 1990s, criticism of Turkey’s alliance with Israel was to a great extent taboo. In fact, one of the events that hastened the 1997 military coup, which led to the resignation of Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, was when Turkish military tanks rolled into the Ankara neighborhood of Sincan where an Islamist evening of solidarity with Palestine, the al-Quds (Jerusalem) Night, was taking place; the mayor, among others, was arrested.

However, even after the coup, the secular establishment continued to weed out Islamists from the system. In 1999, Erdogan, who was then Istanbul’s influential young mayor and a member of Erbakan’s party, served a four-month prison term for the public reading of a poem deemed anti-government and was suspended from politics.

Few could imagine that the same jailed politician just five years later would lead the country on a new revolution (much to the dismay of his opponents who in the last few years are experiencing increasingly oppressive measures) Since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan succeeded in ending the days of military tutelage and continues to transform the country into what he defines as the “New Turkey.”

During the first years of power, he did give Israel a grace period, visiting Israel in 2005, but Erdogan never paraded his relations with Israel and from 2007 onwards relations quickly deteriorated.   

The Erdogan about-face on Israel 

Today’s agreement is the first time that Israel has reached an agreement with the “New Turkey,” and it is Erdogan who is for the first time treating Israel as an equal partner. So, what has changed?

Why has Erdogan, the man who never missed an opportunity during the last few years to regularly berate and curse Israel at political rallies, and turned to a cheek to the blatant anti-Semitism filling the pages of Turkey’s pro-government press, suddenly changed to a leader that just last January stated, “Israel is in need of a country like Turkey in the region. We have to admit that we also need Israel”? 

Since the days of the Gaza flotilla, Turkey has found itself more and more isolated in the Middle East. From its failed policy in Egypt, to its miscalculations in Syria, Turkey is desperate not just for friends, but also to regain some of its political clout in the Middle East. Turkey’s potential role in Gaza will bring it a step closer to reaching this goal. More importantly, Turkey’s falling out with Russia only highlighted its deep need to diversify its natural gas resources, and any deal with Israel cannot move forward domestically without dealing once and for all with the flotilla Incident.

The very fact that Erdogan has at last come to the conclusion that Turkey is in dire need with relations with Israel is what makes this agreement even more agreeable to Israel.

During the last six years, Israel waited patiently for Turkey to come around and bowed its head at regular outbursts of Turkish hate (although some Israeli politicians took the chance to reciprocate by slinging mud at their Turkish counterparts .

Public hostility, private understandings 

However, Israel, like Turkey, was well aware that the public image of Turkey defying Israel stood in stark contrasts to the booming trade between the two countries over the last six years.

It continued its diplomatic work in Istanbul and Ankara, and even in the worst of days, during the 2014 Gaza War, it continued to present a public face; its Consul General even appeared on Turkish television to explain the Israeli side of the conflict.

While it is still too early to see if this new phase in relations will usher in a reformatted strategic alliance between the two countries, it is clear that Israel has succeeded in shifting its relations with Turkey’s former military secular elite on to the new political elite, which despite its historical hostility to the Jewish state is now paving the way for stronger mutual ties. 

*This article appeared in Haaretz on June 27, 2016. Click here for the link

Dirty Deals: What Was the Agenda Behind Turkey's Erdogan Meeting American Jewish Leaders?*

Haaretz: “His government violates human rights on a massive scale, closes down media critical of his actions, and has openly sanctioned anti-Semitism. Is Erdogan trying to co-opt U.S. Jewish leaders to launder his reputation?”

  

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his way to Washington DC to take part in the Nuclear Security Summit. Unlike during the early years of his career, when Erdogan was met with fanfare in the U.S. capital, this time he received at most a lukewarm welcome from the White House and DC’s politicians and pundits alike, which was reflected in the media. Upon his arrival, the New Yorker published an article “Erdogan’s March to Dictatorship in Turkey,” and in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote that Erdogan is converting Turkey from a “democracy into a dictatorship.” 

Despite the bad press, Erdogan and his team struggled to promote an atmosphere of “business as usual.” This perhaps could have been sustained had it not been for the spectacle his security guards made – precisely demonstrating the turn to authoritarianism described by senior American commentators – by attacking journalists and protesters outside the Brookings Institute where he was due to give a speech.

And, after much speculation that U.S. President Barack Obama might snub Erdogan, in the end a private meeting was held, providing Erdogan with an important photo op for domestic consumption. However, just a day later, in a press conference, Obama rained on Erdogan’s parade by publicly voicing his deep concern for the “troubling” path taken by Erdogan for his country. 

Despite all the bad publicity, which also included a scathing open letter presented to Erdogan by U.S. foreign policy experts, the Turkish president received a very warm welcome from a coalition of U.S. Jewish groups and lobbies. Present at the meeting were the Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

In fact, this is the second meeting to take place between Jewish leaders and Erdogan during the last two months, in which they have been discussing renewing ties between Turkey and Israel, in addition to issues related to Turkish Jews, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The first meeting took place on February 9 at Erdogan’s presidential palace in Ankara, also behind closed doors, and present at this one were also AIPAC and the ADL. 

Needless to say, the Jewish leaders showed little discretion in holding such a high-level meeting just as the Turkish leader was being grilled for the authoritarian steps his government is taking. There is no doubt that Jewish organizations have serious issues to bring up with the Turkish government, which until recently openly sanctioned anti-Semitism. However, didn't they talk about these issues just a month ago? Was another meeting that critical?

True, since the first meeting an Israeli tourist group was the subject of an ISIS attack in Istanbul and there are reports that Istanbul’s Jewish community was being specifically targeted by ISIS. However, it is highly unlikely that these American Jewish organizations can contribute much to this conversation. And if the meeting was designed to help smooth the path toward Israeli-Turkish reconciliation – does Israel really need their help in reaching an agreement with Turkey?

By meeting with Erdogan at such a low point, the Jewish organizations put out a strong message that they are willing to take sides in Turkey’s polarized political world and that the major clampdown on Turkish freedoms is not on the top of their agenda.

This comes as a slap in the face to the NGOs and Turkish citizens trying to combat anti-Semitism in Turkey, who – with or without American Jewish solidarity – will continue to wage their battles for freedom and liberalism in Turkey. The struggle against anti-Semitism in Turkey does not exist in isolation: anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with other forms of xenophobia and other acts of hate and that only an open and free society can take real steps to combat.

Indeed, if anti-Semitism in Turkey really was a burning issue for those U.S. Jewish groups, it’s ironic they sat down to meet the president who’s shutting down and sanctioning precisely those critical media outlets who speak out against hate crimes, while the pro-government press is still free to spread anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry.

The other question that begs asking: What's the new-found interest by Erdogan and his AKP ruling party toward American Jewish organizations? It seems like the engagement with the Jewish community serves Erdogan's purposes well. The meeting occurred at a point where, for some in the AKP, the time seems ripe to sacrifice the anti-Semitism card (that has played out well domestically from time to time) for the much needed public relations boost such a meeting could provide, not to mention the chance that Erdogan, having absorbed one conspiracy theory too many, may have hoped to impact influential Jewish figures in the hope they might provide a quiet form of pro-Turkish lobbying in the corridors of DC power. There is no evidence to support or refute this contention yet.

Of course, what seems to be a growing bond between American Jewish groups and the Turkish government bears striking resemblance to the 1990s. Turkey then was in desperate need of a friend: a war with the PKK in its southeastern regions led to rampant human rights violations against its civilian population and international criticism. Turkey tacitly appealed to U.S. Jewish organizations, suggesting a kind of immoral tradeoff:  in exchange for Turkey bolstering ties with Israel, those Jewish groups would lobby on behalf of Turkey, one permutation being a pointed silence about the suffering of Turkey's Kurds. Some U.S. Jewish groups went as far as to act behind the scenes against the recognition of the Armenian genocide. 

Now, two decades later, Turkey is once again embroiled in a war with the PKK, and once again we see a tsunami of human rights violations executed by the Turkish government, with whole neighborhoods in the Southeastern cities of Cizre and Sur (among others) being utterly devastated.

I hope I am wrong. I hope that last week's meeting between American Jewish organizations and Erdogan  won't become a repeat of the ethical iniquity of the 1990s which until today this remains a moral stain, when we witnessed how the recognition of acts of genocide was trivialized in the name of Turkish-Israeli arms deals that in the end themselves only led to more death.

Only time will tell if these American Jewish groups soon will be back in the halls of the U.S. Congress lobbying for a government that’s increasingly and justifiably isolated in world opinion.

*This article appeared in Haaretz on April 5, 2016. Click here for the link.

When the state sanctions Turkey’s ugly anti-Semitism* (From Haaretz, July 23, 2014)

During the last two weeks anti-Semitism in Turkey has surged. Many of its citizens blur their criticism of the Israeli attack on Gaza with outright condemnation of Jews. Even if this trend is not unique to Turkey, the level of hate speech directed at Jews has hit dangerous levels, leaving many to even question the future of the 17,000-strong local Jewish community. In fact, open threats have been made against Turkey’s Jews in some of the pro-government media, which leads to only one conclusion: The Turkish government itself is largely responsible for this bleak situation.

The highlighted phrase, referring to the photo of Hitler;
 says (translated in Turkish): We are longing for you.

For over a decade, I have lived on-and-off in Turkey, watching Turkish society diversify along with the new freedoms it enjoyed during the first years of Erdogan’s tenure.

However, over the years, peoples’ comments and the Islamist press reminded me of the latent anti-Semitism there, though rightly brushed off as being largely marginal. However, even on the worst days, such as Israel’s raid on the Turkish-backed Gaza Flotilla, or during the Second Lebanon War, never did anti-Semitism erupt to such extremes as we have seen this week, one that was characterized by widespread praise for Hitler in the press and social media.

Despite this, for many Turkish and non-Turkish Jews, life continues at a near-normal pitch, since the prejudices that have been unleashed are not generally visible in the streets or communities they live or stay in.

This public display of anti-Semitism just did not suddenly reveal itself this week, Rather, it can be traced back to last year’s Gezi protest. The mass civil-society protest was brutally silenced by the Turkish government, but not before “international Jewry” was ‘identified’ as one of its main culprits by Prime Minister Erdogan, who claimed it was the work of the “interest-rate lobby,” a term regularly attributed to Jewish financiers and media moguls. According to the Turkish Prime Minister, the lobby aimed at hitting the Turkish economy and trying to bring down his government. While he was careful never to use the term ‘Jew’, it would not take long for one of his ministers to slip and actually pronounced that, indeed, international Jewry was one of the groups behind the Gezi protests.

Sure enough, not even a month had passed before Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a coup d’etat, a major blow to Erdogan, who saw himself as a type of mentor for the Muslim Brotherhood leader. On social media, as the massacres in Egypt were taking place, I was astonished to see the number of tweets in Turkish attributing the overthrow of Morsi as a Jewish conspiracy; in fact, some even claimed that the people shooting the protesters were not even Muslims, but really Jews.

It took no time at all for Erdogan to come out and accuse Israel as masterminding the coup; the problem was however he was blaming a French Jewish intellectual, Bernard-Henri Lévy, who merely participated in a 2011 conference on the Arab Spring alongside then-Knesset Member Tzipi Livni. Even if this was a strangely concocted story, Erdogan seemingly believed it, along with many of his followers.

The turning point in the story of Turkish anti-Semitism was last December’s corruption scandal, which targeted high-government members and was perceived by Erdogan as an attempted judicial coup masterminded by his once staunch ally, the religious leader Fethullah Gulen, self-exiled to the United States, who has a substantial following in Turkey and other parts of the world.

While most of Erdogan’s focus was purging thousands of police and judicial officials believed to be have ties with the Gulen movement, or what Erdogan coined the “parallel state,” it took no time at all for the PM and his supporters to remember that Gulen had been critical of the Turkish government’s role in the Gaza Flotilla – thus, of course, he too must have been under the wing of Israel.

Throughout all of this, Erdogan has had to work to retain a wide front of support, incorporating and rewarding numerous groups, including the once-marginal anti-Semitic newspapers, which are now much closer to the ruling circles of power. All of these changes also led to a transformation in Turkey’s political culture, which has become extremely polarized. Over the last year, Erdogan has regularly lashed out against his opponents in crude and offensive language.

There is no doubt that through these polarizing politics he has been able to consolidate his already strong conservative base – but at the cost of alienating many other sectors of Turkish society.

It would be erroneous to think that ‘world Jewry’ was the only target of his attacks. During the Gezi campaigns, protesters were falsely accused of attacking a religious woman and desecrating a mosque, allegations that despite being disproven were reproduced in all the major pro-government papers and repeated numerous times by Erdogan. Following the break with the Gulen movement, Erdogan’s language hit new levels when he declared a witch hunt against them, stating that “in order to sterilize this dirty water that contaminated the milk, we will either boil or vaporize it.”

When a group representing Alevis, Turkey’s largest religious minority, voiced opposition to Erdogan, he offensively questioned their religious beliefs as Muslims. Erdogan then caused anger among Turkey’s very small Shiite community when he explained that the Gulenists were even worse than Shiites in sedition and malice. In fact, in a similar way, MP Zafer Caglayan, in reference to the Gulen movement, said that he would have understood their (treacherous) actions had they been Jews, Zoroastrians, or Atheists; this lead to a harsh state of condemnation by Turkey’s Chief Rabbinate. 

If things were not polarized enough, Turkey for the first time will go to the polls in August to vote in a president, with Erdogan as one of the main candidates, providing fertile ground for this latest wave of anti-Semitism. However, it seems that rather dictating a moderating path, Erdogan took the cues of radical voices, leading to him making even harsher statements than in the past. Further, we must remember that anti-Semitism and praise for Hitler - and protests against Israel – have provided a sense of unity and joint purpose among some divided parts of Turkish society.

During the last two weeks, Turkish Jews have been subjected to the ugliest of campaigns, with blatant threats lodged against the community, and even against foreign Jewish tourists. One author demanded that the Jews publicly condemn Israel, or else they could be subjected to pogroms such as that faced by Turkey’s Greek community in 1955. In the same newspaper, Yeni Akit, there was a cross-word-type game with Hitler’s portrait adorning the central panel with the slogan: “We are longing for you.” Many Turks reacted with shock, but this was by no means an isolated incident. One pro-government news source tweeted the dangerously inciteful words of IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, Bulent Yildirim, who declared: “If the Turkish Jewish community does not put an end to Israel’s actions, very bad things will happen.” He explained in a succeeding tweet that it was getting hard to constrain ‘our youth’,  in effect suggesting that violence against Turkish Jews was imminent.

If such statements by the pro-government press were not enough, a ruling party AKP MP, Samil Tayyar, tweeted a message to Jews: Let your race be finished off, and may Hitler never be too far away. Further, Erdogan loyalist and mayor of Ankara, Melih Gokcek, came out in support of singer Yildiz Tilbe who praised Hitler on Twitter.

It was following these expressions of hate towards Jews that Erdogan, in an election campaign speech, positioned Israeli barbarism as even worse than Hitler’s, a claim would clearly cause grave offense to any Jew regardless of their affiliation with Israel. He followed this up by hedging his position, stating: “I don't approve of any (bad) attitude towards our Jewish citizens in Turkey, despite all this. Why? They are the citizens of this country.” These words, at least nominally upholding the right to safety of the Jewish citizens of Turkey, seem far too little and also too late. He has still made no public condemnation of his own party members’ praise of Hitler and their anti-Semitic statements, nor has he condemned the threats made against members of the Turkey’s Jewish community in the pro-government press.

On the bright side of this darkening picture, if social media in Turkey has provided a breeding-ground for anti-Semitic statements, it also has brought to light the condemnation of anti-Semitism by numerous Turkish columnists and appalled individuals, with voices even emerging in the more moderate pro-government press. However, it seems safe to say that in the wake of the current atmosphere of blatant anti-Semitism, more Jewish families will be convinced that the time has come to leave, a decision already made by many of the Jewish members over the last decade. If they stay, they are choosing to survive within their own psychological and physical bubble, or to carry on by ignoring the fact that many of their compatriots see them as the enemy.

*This article appeared originally in Haaretz; I am placing the entire text here since due to the paywall sometimes the link is blocked. 

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.606820

Some Initial Thoughts on the Israeli Apology

Here is an excerpt of my latest in Today's Zaman (24 March 2013):

Almost three years have passed since the Israeli operation on the Gaza flotilla in which nine Turkish citizens (one possessing both US and Turkish citizenship) were killed. From the outset, it was clear that this was a botched operation and that the Israeli government and forces had made a major miscalculation; in place of working for a diplomatic solution, they opted to board the ship in which a group of passengers from among the Turkish contingent were clearly set on provoking the Israeli forces, resulting in tragedy. Without a doubt, this event marked the lowest point in the history of Turkish-Israeli relations, as Turkey demanded from Israel an apology, compensation and the end of the Gaza blockade.

As the price of strained relations became evident, support for issuing an apology started to emerge in Israel -- not only among the opposition, but also among members of the Israeli government. However, with time it became clear that as long as Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose hard core politics managed to isolate Israel worldwide on numerous issues, was in office that this would not be possible, as he staunchly objected to any Turkish demand. The fact that Lieberman has temporarily relieved himself of ministerial duties due to an ongoing court case, which could find him guilty of corruption, opened the way for the apology; not surprisingly, just hours after the apology Lieberman vented his anger calling it a grave mistake.

To continue reading, here is the link

A Brief look at January: Israeli Elections and Turkish media

Due to a very tiring January writing two policy articles (both will be posted here once published), and a post-election op-ed article (see below), unfortunately I am only now able to submit a post-election update with links to interviews I took part in. 

Israeli Elections covered in Milliyet

In addition to the articles, I also was overwhelmed by the intensive election coverage in Turkey, being interviewed on three Turkish television channels. The evening of the elections, I was interviewed on Cuneyt Ozdemir's 5N1K evening program, the next day on T24, and the following evening, I was on SkyTurk's evening news program with Korcan Karar. In addition, I also gave three newspaper interviews, with the newspapers Milliyet, Agos, and Zaman. 

In addition to this, I participated in a fascinating symposium on the Israeli elections and its regional's implications, at Kadir Has University, together with professors Salih Bicakci, Ufuk Ulutas (SETA), and Karel Valansi, a columnist at Shalom (Turkish Jewish newspaper) and moderated by Professor Mitat Celikpala.  Due to the fact that we were speaking the morning after the elections, we spent the most time speculating how Yair Lapid's surprise success in elections, raking in 19 seats, would change the political map. Further, we talked about prospects for renewed Turkish-Israeli relations, and the future of the region in the wake of the ongoing war in Syria.  

Sreen shot of my interview on CNN TURK

In the above talk and interviews, I stressed my hope that Israeli will apologize for the Gaza Flotilla incident, which led to the death of nine Turkish citizens, almost three years ago (see Haaretz article below).

All of the attention the Israeli elections was receiving in Turkey led me to the conclusion that what was actually missing was Israeli coverage of how the elections were being covered in Turkey. Therefore, I wrote an article for Haaretz, which was entitled Cheering then Cursing: Israel and Turkey's Volaitle Relations should be a Priority, and focuses on a history of the relations between the two states, especially during the last decade. Further, it looked at the elections as a chance for Israel to patch up its bad relations with Turkey.