Category: Israel

Op-Ed: Turkey Has Crossed One More Red Line

Since Israel’s Comptroller has published a critical opinion on the Prime Minister’s decision making processes regarding the flotilla affair (though he did not criticize the outcome), it is a good idea to remember with whom we are dealing.

Dr. Avi Perry

Dr. Avi Perry (Fried), a talk show host at Paltalk News Network (PNN), is the author of “Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering in Wireless Networks,” and more recently, “72 Virgins,” a thriller about the covert war on Islamic terror. He was a VP at NMS Communications, a Bell Laboratories – distinguished staff member and manager, as well as a delegate of the US and Lucent Technologies to the ITU—the UN International Standards body in Geneva, a professor at Northwestern Universit and Intelligence expert for the Israeli Government. He may be reached through his web site www.aviperry.org

A Turkish court, on Monday May 28, 2012, formally pressed criminal charges against Israeli generals. The charges were pressed for the generals’alleged involvement in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals.

These deathsoccurred when these people tried to lynch Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF)personnel who boarded the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, during its attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in 2010.

Consequently, Israel is facing the following choices:

A. Send officers to Turkey to stand trial

B. Retaliate by indicting thoseTurkish officials responsible for blessing the Turkish failed incursion attempt

C. Send defense lawyers to Turkey when the trial begins with the aim of countering the charges

D. Ignore them

E. Go on a public relations blitz, trying to have the trial backfire on Turkey like a boomerang

Only two of the above fall within the set of feasible potential responses, and there is only one option that should be applied.

The idea of sending the IDF officers to Turkey to face trial is downright absurd. Since the IDF Cast Lead campaign, Turkey has been turning more hostile by the day toward Israel and warmer by the hour towards Israel’s arch enemies.

Turkey’s president, Mr. Erdogan, has become the loudest animated voice within the chorus comprising those who try to delegitimize Israel’s right to self-defense.

Sending the Mavi Marmara to Israel’s coast, in an attempt to breach the legal barrier against the Gaza-bound arms-smuggling activity, was an aggressive, malicious act designed to inflict harm on the state of Israel.

The nine Turkish nationals, who died during the Mavi Marmara incident, were the ones who declared war on the Jewish state by attempting to lynch the Israeli soldiers who boarded their ship. The Israeli soldiers had no choice but to defend themselves against their Turkish attackers. The soldiers were only guilty of protecting their own lives in self-defense under the brutal ambush aimed at lynching them—not a crime.

Sending defense lawyers to Turkey to counter the charges will undoubtedly be a futile attempt at countering a political plot, not a legal, legitimate attempt at realizing justice. Furthermore, any Israeli attorney trying to defend Israeli actions (on Turkish soil) concerning the Mavi Marmara, will, in all probability, be subject to intimidation, harassment and even life-threatening assaults. Once again, this option is not feasible.

Although retaliating by indicting those Turkish big shots responsible for blessing the failed incursion attempt will be emotionally satisfying to Israelis, it will be viewed by the rest of the world as an extravagant, rather than a legitimate, legal move. And since Israel takes pride in and is respected by its allies for its fair, objective and balanced legal system, a move to politicize it may jeopardize Israel’s reputation in this venue.

Ignoring the Turkish move has its merits. The subject will fade away from the headlines and will not be the subject of the talk around the water cooler. Still, the Turkish move may attempt to bring Interpol into the picture.This could develop into a dangerous precedent, as emphasized by former ambassador to the US, Dr. Meir Rosen, who claimed that “If Turkey gets an international arrest warrant, it may demand that all Interpol member states issue arrest warrants for Israeli officers, at least in the short term”.

This kind of development, in light of the fact that Interpol is known for its politically motivated role in arrests and deportations, is a dangerous precedent. If it sticks, then not only the indicted Israeli commanders will be unable to travel to most countries outside Israel for fear of being arrested, but future commanders may be less willing to take risks in protecting the state of Israel as a result.

The only logical option left for an Israeli response is to fight the indictment by going on a public relations blitz, trying to have the issue backfire on Turkey like a boomerang. Turkey is vulnerable. Every accusation the Turks have ever laid on Israel can rub on them directly in as significantly more pronounced way, as if the accusations were injected with steroids before reversing course and hitting the Turks in the face.

The Turks accused Israel of genocide during the Cast Lead campaign without having any proof, without looking at the evidence, without taking into account the defensive nature of the war, which attempted to end Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

The Turks never considered how hard Israel had worked to protect the civilian enemy population in Gaza by avoiding shooting at enemy combatants when they surrounded themselves with human shields—has an enemy of any nation ever halted hostilities during a two-hour-lunch to allow the civil population (including the opposing fighting forces) to go out, shop for food, maintain their normal business, so life would not turn to complete hell? No one has ever fought that kind of humane battle other than Israel.

Turkey’s aggression in Cyprus… cleansed half of the island of its Greek population, creating a refugee problem that they have been failing to recognize, while continuing to occupy the cleansed land, building and expanding settlements.
Nevertheless, Erdogan continues to deny Turkey’s role in committing genocide on its own Armenian citizens. He continues to ignoreTurkey’s aggression in Cyprus where the Turks cleansed half of the island of its Greek population, creating a refugee problem that they have been failing to recognize, while continuing to occupy the cleansed land, building and expanding settlements.

It should also be noted that while the Palestinian refugee problem was self-inflicted and should be blamed on the Arabs, the Greek Cypriot refugees were not trying to throw all Turks to the sea when they were forced out of their homes by the invading Turkish army.

And now Turkey is trying to deny Israel’s right to self-defense. Erdogan makes a mockery of international law, claiming that the sea blockade of Gaza is illegal, where in fact; all law-abiding nations including the UN, have clearly recognized the legality of that blockade, just like they did when JFK blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis in the 60s.

Israel must make the case in front of the law-abiding nations of the world that the Turks are the only guilty party in the Mavi Marmara incident, that Erdogan’s refusal to take responsibility for his country’s crimes and reckless actions has made Turkey’s judicial system a joke.

Israel should make the case that the aggressive part of the Mavi Marmara incident was not the IDF soldiers’ act of self-defense, but rather the violent attempt to breach the blockade by theTurkish government.

It was the Turkish government, that knowingly and willingly sent armed IHH members – a known terrorist group – to break Israel’s counter-terrorism blockade. It is the Turkish government whom the world should condemn. It is the Turkish legal system that the world should ridicule.

And it is Israel’s duty to push for that condemnation of Turkey and its legal system.

June 17, 2012
With eye on Turkey, Israel debates Armenia deaths

By ARON HELLER, Associated Press – 11 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli parliament debated Tuesday whether to recognize the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 100 years ago as genocide, a move that would enrage Turkey and further strain already tense ties between the two countries.

For years, Israel has refrained from taking up the issue for fear of angering Turkey, which until recently was its closest ally in the Muslim world. But as ties have frayed under the Islamic-oriented rule of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that has changed.

No vote was taken Tuesday. Parliamentary speaker Reuven Rivlin denied the debate was related to the deteriorating ties with Turkey.

“The Turks will definitely be angry, but there is no intent to provoke, only to remember,” he told Israel’s Army Radio. “The free world must remember, to learn the lessons so it won’t happen again.”

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated, and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, leading to losses on both sides.

The issue is highly sensitive in Turkey, and the country has lashed out angrily at any country that has promoted recognition of the genocide.

The Israeli parliamentary resolution was co-sponsored by opposing lawmakers.

Zahava Galon, chair of the dovish Meretz party, said Israel had a moral obligation to recognize genocides elsewhere, given the history of the Nazi Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during World War II.

“The need to recognize the Armenian genocide and oppose its denial derives first and foremost from what we went through in the Jewish genocide,” she told Army Radio. “I am not comparing, and you can’t compare the two, but this requires us to be sensitive to the suffering of others.”

Her co-sponsor, Arieh Eldad of the ultranationalist National Union faction, dismissed accusations that raising the issue now was ill-timed.

“A few years ago people said we couldn’t talk about it because of our good relations with Turkey. Now people say we can’t talk about it because of our bad relations with Turkey,” he said. “When you don’t want to deal with something moral and ethical, there are always those who will say it is not the right time.”

Israeli-Turkish relations began to unravel as Erdogan embarked on a campaign to make Turkey a regional power. His shift away from the Western camp has put Turkey at odds with Israel.

Once-flourishing tourism from Israel to Turkey fell off, and Turkey canceled joint military exercises with Israel.

The low point came in 2010 after Israeli naval commandos killed nine Turks in a raid on a flotilla that tried to breach Israel’s Gaza blockade. Israel’s refusal to apologize for the flotilla killings sent relations deteriorating even further.

via The Associated Press: With eye on Turkey, Israel debates Armenia deaths.

June 13, 2012
Could Cyprus pull Turkey and Israel into war?

While Ankara is keen to mend fences with Tel Aviv after recent tensions, the latter appears to be turning the tables, creating sparks over Cyprus, writes Sayed Abdel-Meguid

Perhaps the watchword for developments on the Aegean- Eastern Mediterranean axis, where Turkey and Israel have been engaging in bouts of muscle flexing and squabbles over deep-sea oil, is “posturing”. By no means does this apply to the heir to the Ottoman Empire alone; the Hebrew state is just as obsessed with its image. Yet, contrary to the impression it may seek to convey, Ankara has been the keener of the two to put an end to the deterioration in the relations between it and Tel Aviv.

A steadily escalating dual between the two countries has seethed several years. It first erupted with an angry verbal exchange and has since passed through Turkish condemnation of the blockade on Gaza, the televised spat during the Davos conference, and the Israeli assault against the Mavi Marmara off the shores of Gaza in May two years ago.

For four years, then, Turkey and Israel have growled, taken menacing steps against each other, and then backed off and continued to eye one another warily. Nor does either side appear ready to relax its guard, in spite of numerous efforts to ease tensions between the two. The most recent was reported in the Turkish daily, Sabah, which wrote that, as a gesture towards mending the rift between the two countries, Israel returned four Heron pilotless spy planes to Turkey after a month-long delay. These were four of the five aircraft that Ankara had sent back to Israel last year for repairs after they had technically malfunctioned. The article adds that some friendly European governments have been mediating between the two countries.

Elsewhere in the Turkish press we find reports transmitted from the Israeli press that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent an envoy to his Israeli counterpart, Netanyahu, with the purpose of repairing the rift in their bilateral relations.

Meanwhile, it has also been reported that Israeli officials have contacted families of the Turkish victims who died in the attack on the Turkish ship that was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. According to these reports, the officials were secretly instructed to offer compensation amounting to $6 million along with a letter of apology. However, the gesture falls short of Turkish demands, to which testify the warrants issued by the Turkish public prosecutor for the arrest of four Israeli army commanders. He named former chief-of-staff Gabi Ashkenazi, deputy commander of the navy Admiral Eliazar Maroum, director of military intelligence General Amos Yaldin, and head of Air Force intelligence General Avishai Levi, and called for their life imprisonment for having issued the orders to attack the Mavi Marmara.

For his part, US President Barack Obama urged his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gèl to try to restore a positive climate in Turkish-Israeli relations. In the meeting between the two heads of state, which took place during the NATO summit in Chicago 20-21 May, Obama said that improved relations between the two countries would contribute to promoting stability in the region which has been swept by the revolutions of the Arab Spring. Gèl naturally took the occasion to remind Obama of the need for an official Israeli apology for the Mavi Marmara incident. Referring to the need for an official apology for the Mavi Marmara incident, Gèl responded that Israel is well aware of the steps that have been taken, and that if Israel takes these steps, Turkey will act accordingly.

The evidence, thus, indicates that Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party government, which may have initiated the mounting antagonism between Ankara and Tel Aviv two years ago, is now the more eager of the two to mend fences. Fully aware of this, Israel was quick to take advantage and did so by approaching the Greek-Cyprus duo in order to trigger a new conflict.

News sources have revealed details about a defence treaty between Israel and Cyprus (officially referred to by Turkey as southern or Greek Cyprus, which Turkey does not recognise) which was signed during a visit by Netanyahu to the divided island on 16 February. During that visit, Cypriot President Demitris Kristofias asked the Israeli prime minister to increase Israeli investment in Cyprus. Netanyahu’s response was to insist on permission to establish a naval and air force base there.

According to a news analysis in a Turkish newspaper, Israel wants to deploy 20,000 commandos in Southern Cyprus in order to protect the crude oil pipeline that Israel plans to construct in the Eastern Mediterranean and to ensure the security of the natural gas station at Vasiliko in Limasol. The article, appearing in Vatan, cited unidentified sources as saying that these measures are part of a greater plan to build a second Israel in the Middle East. It adds that Jewish businessmen have bought large areas of land in northern Cyprus (referred to as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, which only Ankara recognises) through bogus companies in that part of Cyprus. “They have already inaugurated a Jewish temple in one of the villages, affixed a sign in Hebrew and appointed a rabbi for it,” the source is quoted as saying.

Decision-makers in Turkey are aware that European governments and the US are not unconnected with these ambitions and, indeed, have been encouraging Israel to take hostile steps against their country. That Israel has been building partnerships with countries in the Balkans and in the Caucasus has heightened suspicions that it is constructing a web around Anatolia. “These moves are indicative of carefully studied plans that are being implemented if not in order to dominate then at the very least in order to capitalise on the energy sources along the old Silk Road,” a source said.

Returning to the question of Cyprus, could it indeed propel Turkey to clash with Tel Aviv? There is no doubt that Turkish opinion at the official and popular level feels strongly about the issue, so the answer could be yes. But a central problem is the balance of military might between the two countries, which weighs against Ankara and which would give Israel the preponderance in a military clash.

It would seem in Turkey’s interest not to escalate, but rather to show more flexibility in order to turn over a page that it is keener than others to put behind it. Therefore, threatening to annex northern Cyprus to Turkey, as Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagis did, is bound to backfire. Wavering to act on this threat would only diminish the credibility of the Turkish government before the Turkish people and the rest of the world. The same would apply with the regard to the threat to freeze relations with the EU in the event that Cyprus assumes the presidency of the EU parliament 1 July.

June 2, 2012
Turkey, Israel: Potential for a fresh start?

Turkey, Israel: Potential for a fresh start?

Editor’s Note: Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a GPS contributor. You can find all his blog posts here. Tyler Evans is a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Soner Cagaptay and Tyler Evans.

By Soner Cagaptay and Tyler Evans, Special to CNN

Soner Cagaptay

Thursday marks the two-year anniversary of the 2010 flotilla incident, a crisis on the high seas that triggered a tailspin in Turkish-Israeli relations.

In the aftermath of the incident, Turkey recalled its ambassador and demanded an apology from Israel as well as reparations for the nine slain activists. Ankara even announced that its warships would escort future missions to Gaza.

Attempts to mend fences have stalled over the issue of an Israeli apology. With Turkey willing to accept nothing less than a full apology, and Israel for the moment unwilling to accommodate this demand, the two sides seem to be at an impasse.

Yet below the surface, not all is grim in Turkish-Israeli relations. Remarkably, economic ties have been flourishing between the two countries.

Turkish-Israeli economic ties took off in the late-1990s as part of a growing strategic convergence. Deepening trade was underpinned by a series of bilateral agreements opening Turkish and Israeli markets to each other. Notable agreements included a free trade agreement (1996), a double-taxation prevention treaty (1997), and a bilateral investment treaty (1998). These agreements ushered in an era of improving political and economic ties. Trade jumped from $449 million in 1996 to more than $2.1 billion in 2002. This remarkable acceleration continued with bilateral trade increasing 14.6% per year, on average, from 2002 to 2008.

Surprisingly, the diplomatic crisis has not translated into an economic crisis. Take for instance, a boycott announced by several Israeli grocery chains in the wake of the flotilla incident. Despite the assertions on the part of these retailers, Turkish export of vegetable products has remained steady since 2007, and exports of prepared foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco doubled between 2007 and 2011. From 2010 to 2011, trade increased by 30.7%, far surpassing the growth that occurred during the heyday of Turkish-Israeli ties.

Still, defense ties have been hard-hit. Following the flotilla incident, Turkey froze at least a dozen defense projects with Israel, including a $5 billion deal for tanks and an $800 million sale for patrol aircraft and an early-warning radar plane.

Despite these bruises, economic ties seem destined to deepen even further in the long term.

For starters, all the aforementioned trade and investment treaties remain solidly in effect. Secondly, neither side seems eager to disrupt the trend of booming bilateral trade. In the aftermath of the flotilla incident, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his intention to cut all relations with Israel, including trade. But Ankara rapidly corrected the statement, adding that commercial ties would not be downgraded. Similarly, when an Israeli investment house announced its plans to divest in Turkey, the head of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce urged firms to refrain from any actions that might hurt Turkish-Israeli business ties.

Q&A: Explaining the tension between Turkey, Israel

The mutual reluctance to rupture trade ties is understandable, especially in light of the global economic climate. After all, both countries owe much of their growth in recent years to buoyant exports, a large portion of which were sold in European markets. This means that both countries are vulnerable to a sluggish European recovery. Greater bilateral trade could pick up some of the slack, especially on the Israeli side, where Turkey constituted Israel’s sixth-largest export market in 2011 and could climb the ranks as Israel’s traditional markets remain anemic.

Israel is important for Turkey as well. In terms of volume, the Israeli market is small, but it presents significant opportunities for Turkish producers to move up the value chain. In March, the Turkish Industry and Business Association identified Israel as a priority investment partner, underlining the advantages of coupling Turkey’s land and labor with Israel’s innovation economy. A telling example of this potential can be found in Bursa, where Turkish manufacturers are assembling electric cars as part of a venture with the Israeli company Better Place. Thanks to this venture, Turkey is now producing its first electric car with technology that would not have been easy for the Turks to develop on their own.

There is also a political angle that could bode well for bilateral ties. Faced with an increasingly volatile Middle East, some Israelis are concluding that they are better off rebuilding ties with Turkey, even if this does not mean going back to the honeymoon years of the 1990s. Meanwhile, Turkey faces a popular uprising in Syria that holds the potential of spilling over its borders. Along with downward-spiraling ties with Iraq, not to mention regional competition against Iran, this suggests that Israel is perhaps not the biggest fish to fry.

Turkey and Israel seem to have potential for a fresh start. Even if the pair continues to diverge on certain core political issues, both seem to secretly prepare for the day they can make up again. As always, the flag follows the money.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Soner Cagaptay and Tyler Evans.

Post by: Soner Cagaptay

via Turkey, Israel: Potential for a fresh start? – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

June 1, 2012
Israel offers compensation to Mavi Marmara flotilla raid victims

£4m paid to Jewish foundation in Turkey, which will distribute the money to the victims and their families

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 May 2012 23.13 BST

Mavi Marmara flotilla raid

The familis of activists who were killed in the raid on the Mavi Marmara have been offered compensation. Photograph: Kate Geraghty/Sydney Morning Herald/Getty

The Israeli government has offered £4m in compensation to the families of Turkish activists killed by Israeli commandos who stormed a ship taking part in an aid flotilla in May 2010, according to a lawyer representing the victims.

Ramzan Ariturk said the money would have been paid to a Jewish foundation in Turkey for distribution and would be followed by a statement of “regret” for the raid by the Israeli government on the Mavi Marmara, which was bound for the Gaza Strip.

The lawyer, one of several representing 465 victims and relatives of the dead and injured on board the Mavi Marmara, said that the Israeli government had made a proposal to him through an intermediary foreign ambassador in Ankara.

Turkey cooled diplomatic relations with Israel after nine of its citizens were shot dead by Israeli commandos who landed on the Mavi Marmara to prevent its passage to Gaza. Protesters on the ship repelled the first wave of lightly armed commandos, but then the Israeli soldiers used lethal force against the unarmed passengers to end their resistance.

Ariturk said he told the ambassador a month ago that he did not think the offer was appropriate or moral. “I also discussed the issue with the victims and their friends and they also stated that they could not accept this,” he said.

He declined to disclose the nationality of the intermediary or the name of the Jewish organisation that would distribute the compensation but said the Turkish foreign ministry agreed with his decision, saying Israel should have contacted it directly.

According to sources in the Turkish foreign ministry who spoke to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Israel had not presented the offer to them directly. The source said that the principle of damages was accepted by Turkey but the obstacle was Israel’s admission of guilt which Turkey insists upon.

“Israel is opposed to declaring publicly that it apologises and Turkey is not prepared to accept a wording of regret that does not include taking responsibility, that is required in an expression of apology,” the sources said.

Mark Regev, the spokesman for Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, declined to comment.

On Wednesday an Istanbul prosecutor submitted an indictment seeking life sentences for four former Israeli military commanders in connection with the raid, including the chief of general staff at the time.

The United Nations report on the raid last September concluded that Israel had used unreasonable force but that its blockade of Gaza was legal.

via Israel offers compensation to Mavi Marmara flotilla raid victims | World news | guardian.co.uk.

May 28, 2012
Rescue of Everest climber helps Israel-Turkey thaw

By Jonathan Head BBC News, Istanbul

View of Everest – file pic

It isn’t often these days that you see two men, arms round each other, holding Israeli and Turkish flags.

But an extraordinary rescue on the world’s highest mountain has bonded two climbers, one from Israel and one a Turk.

By his own account Nadav Ben-Yehuda was only 300 metres from the summit of Mount Everest, and on course to become the youngest Israeli to conquer it, when he spotted someone lying in the snow, clearly in trouble.

He recognised Aydin Irmak as a Turkish climber he had befriended down at base camp. Other climbers, set on reaching the summit, or just too exhausted by the altitude, had passed by without helping.

Irmak had no gloves, no oxygen and no shelter, according to Ben-Yehuda, and was unconscious.

Climbers Nadav Ben-Yehuda (left) and Aydin Irmak after descent (pic: Israeli embassy, Kathmandu) Ben-Yehuda (left) saved a life – and had to abandon his summit bid

So the Israeli abandoned the goal he had been preparing for over many months, and helped to carry Irmak down the tough, nine-hour descent to base camp, from where both men were evacuated by helicopter for medical treatment. Both are suffering from frostbite. Irmak would certainly have died without help.

The story has inevitably been widely covered in the Israeli media, but it is also being reported in some Turkish newspapers – a rare piece of positive news about a country many Turks only ever see in the most negative light.

Pro-Palestinian mood

Turkish-Israeli inter-state relations have been deteriorating for many years, driven by a Turkish government which feels outrage over Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, and an Israeli government which has refused to soften that policy to accommodate the sensibilities of the only ally it had in the region.

Relations hit an all-time low in May 2010, when Israeli commandos stormed a ship full of activists trying to break the blockade of Gaza, killing nine Turkish citizens.

Attitudes in Turkish society have also hardened towards Israel. Rising Islamic piety in much of the country has led to a stronger sense of solidarity with perceived Islamic grievances elsewhere, the Palestinian issue foremost until the dramatic Arab uprisings of the past year. That hostility has also been fuelled by Turkish television dramas, which often portray Israel as a brutal military oppressor.

Nadav Ben-Yehuda (pic: Israeli embassy, Kathmandu) Ben-Yehuda got frostbite in his fingers because he had to take his gloves off

The story of Nadav Ben-Yehuda and Aydin Irmak contradicts that narrative.

So could it help break the ice between Turkey and Israel?

There have been other “ice-breaking” episodes: the time Turkey sent water-bombing aircraft to help Israel combat deadly forest fires in December 2010, and the aid Israel sent to Turkey after the earthquake that struck Van last year. But neither prompted a breakthrough in restoring relations.

Turkey is still adamant that there can be no real improvement until Israel apologises and pays compensation for the nine people killed on board the Gaza flotilla. A Turkish prosecutor has asked a court in Istanbul to accept an indictment of murder against senior Israeli military commanders over the incident.

The two countries are at odds over other issues, in particular Israel’s involvement in the exploitation of oil and gas off the coast of Cyprus, a project Turkey opposes because it does not recognise the Cypriot government.

Regional realpolitik

Trade between Israel and Turkey, though, has been largely unaffected – it actually grew last year to well over $3bn (£2bn). Israeli tourist numbers have dropped sharply, but those who come receive the same hospitality given to other visitors in Turkey’s more liberal-minded coastal resorts.

The turmoil in the Arab world, especially Turkey’s strife-torn neighbour Syria, means that Ankara is once again relying more on its alliance with the US, and co-operation with staunch US allies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

And the US is telling Turkey to fix the row with Israel, saying it is an unnecessary distraction from the more serious challenges confronting Ankara in the Middle East. It is still is not clear how that thaw can happen.

But the tale of a good deed high in the Himalayas can only help.

via BBC News – Rescue of Everest climber helps Israel-Turkey thaw.

May 28, 2012