Warmer American relations with Israel help to end its Turkish tiff

Mar 30th 2013 | ANKARA AND JERUSALEM |From the print edition

FOR the first time in years, the whiff of a wind of change is wafting through Israel’s diplomatic air, thanks to Barack Obama’s recent visit. The message the American president imparted was that he is determined in his final term to have another go at making peace between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Though full of the usual bromides, his speech to a gathering of young Israelis percolated down to the undecided centre of Israeli politics, where distrust for Mr Obama—and for Palestinians—has been strong. The American president may have persuaded at least some such Israelis to ponder again the need for a Palestinian state.

The trip’s more tangible result, however, was Mr Obama’s apparent success in persuading Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to apologise at last to Turkey for the death of nine Turks killed by Israeli commandos in 2010 stopping a flotilla of Turkish boats from reaching Gaza.

“Israelis love Turkey,” declares the blurb of an Israeli package-tour operator, hoping to promote the resort of Antalya once again as Israel’s favourite tourist destination. On the strength of Mr Netanyahu’s apology, he may be onto a winner.

Just before Mr Obama flew out of Israel, he handed Mr Netanyahu his telephone to speak to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister. After nearly four years of estrangement, America’s two most powerful and closest allies in the Middle East agreed to co-operate again. Once Israel’s compensation to the Turks has been settled, diplomatic relations will be restored.

Both sides have much to gain. Israel hopes Mr Erdogan will rescue it from its isolation since the downfall of friendly regional autocrats, in particular in Egypt. The two countries may now be able to share copious amounts of natural gas recently found in the eastern Mediterranean. They should resume co-operation in military intelligence. And Israelis may soon again enjoy those tours. Even when relations were at their nadir, military sales continued, as did foreign trade worth $3 billion a year.

All the same, the Israeli-Turkish strategic relationship is unlikely to be wholly restored, not least because of Mr Erdogan’s sharp tongue. A month ago he called Zionism “a crime against humanity”, so threatening to ruin America’s bridge-building. “The 1990s are over,” says Nimrod Goren, an Israeli academic who kept open a discreet channel when even Turkish and Israeli spies refused to exchange words.

And a host of regional issues may yet prise them apart. Mr Netanyahu will turn a deaf ear to Mr Erdogan’s call for Israel to vacate East Jerusalem and the West Bank and to open up Gaza entirely. In his written apology, Mr Netanyahu said he would ease restrictions on supplies to that Palestinian coastal strip ruled by Hamas. But Israel seems bent on keeping up its blockade by air and sea, which first prompted Turkey’s flotilla to try to get there.

Meanwhile Mr Erdogan’s party people hailed the apology as a big victory. “We stood firm and brought them to their knees,” tweeted a young party activist. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, cut short a trip to Poland to bask in credit back home. Turkish newspapers announced that Mr Erdogan was planning a triumphal visit to Gaza, not least to see a new hospital being built by the Turks.

Unless Mr Erdogan softens his rhetoric, a showdown with Israel could easily recur. Moreover, Turkey’s prime minister is likely to rebuff Mr Netanyahu’s request to help persuade Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions. Israel has had to discount hopes that the Turks would let its fighter aircraft fly over its territory. And it has so far failed to convince the Turks that Iran is close to getting a bomb. “Even if it could,” says Alon Liel, an Israeli ex-ambassador to Ankara, “Turkey doesn’t believe it is the target.”

At least over Syria there may be scope for co-operation. After months of hesitation, Israel now agrees with Turkey that President Bashar Assad must go. Both Israel and Turkey agree that al-Qaeda should be prevented from reaping the fruits of Mr Assad’s fall. Israel, says Mr Liel, might even endorse Syria’s takeover by a Western-leaning Islamist government—at any rate, if it were modelled on Turkey’s.

From the print edition: Middle East and Africa

via Israel, America and Turkey: A useful first step | The Economist.

By Jonathan Schanzer and Emanuele Ottolenghi, Special to CNN

U.S. President Barack Obama at the Jerusalem Convention Center on March 21, 2013

From almost the moment President Obama touched down at Ben Gurion International Airport, he began to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make up with Turkey. The previously good relations broke down in 2010 after the Israelis raided a Turkish flotilla taking aid to the Gaza Strip. Nine activists were killed.

Since then, the U.S. has pushed Israel and Turkey — both close allies — to work through their issues. Officials at meetings at nearly every level from the President down brought up rapprochement. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Israel on March 1 on a trip to Ankara.

By day two of Obama’s visit, Netanyahu had agreed to set up a call with Erdogan. Given the two leaders’ busy schedules, it was not until just as Obama and Netanyahu were arriving back at the airport for the President’s departure to Jordan a day later that a call was possible. Obama and Netanyahu ducked into a trailer off of the red carpet set up for the departure ceremony.

JASON REED / REUTERS

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu

For nearly half an hour, Netanyahu and Erdogan spoke through translators. Obama briefly got on the phone to say hello to Erdogan and ask that they follow up with another call soon. Netanyahu offered Turkey an official apology for the flotilla incident and promised compensation to the victims’ families. He said a subsequent Israeli investigation into the incident revealed “several operational errors,” according a statement released by the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Netanyahu also thanked Erdogan for his remarks condemning anti-Semitism to a Danish paper on March 20. Erdogan had been quoted last month calling Zionism “a crime against humanity,” and he told the Danish paper those remarks had been misinterpreted. During his Ankara visit, Kerry had condemned Erdogan’s statement on Zionism, urging the Turkish Prime Minister both publicly and privately to clarify them.

The deal was a coup for Obama, on his first foreign visit of his second term. It re-established diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey at a time when the region around them is in turmoil. Both Turkey and Israel border Syria, which is entering its third year of civil war. “We have regretted for a couple of years now the absence of normal relations between those two countries,” a senior Administration official told reporters on Air Force One en route to Jordan. “And we have worked with them and urged them both to reach out and try to put their differences between them.”

Netanyahu on Saturday said the deteriorating situation in Syria and both countries’ concerns about its regime’s chemical and biological weapons prompted the reconciliation. Still, Erdogan warned on Sunday that normalization of relations would not be immediate. Turkey will wait for Israel to pay the families compensation before embassies in either country reopen. Netanyahu told Erdogan that Obama had spent the past two days convincing him of “the importance of regional relations, the importance of Turkey-Israel cooperation, and that is what led him to take this initiative now,” the Administration official said. Up until the flotilla incident, Turkey and Israel had enjoyed close relations. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel, though tensions began to fray in 2003 after Erdogan, who has Islamist ties, was elected Prime Minister of Turkey.

via How Obama Is Reuniting Turkey and Israel | TIME.com.

President Obama’s visit in Israel was a resounding PR success, judging by various indicators of Israeli public opinion, but as the dust settles, it becomes very clear that the visit was also an impressive diplomatic achievement. All the president’s men can feel satisfied by the decision of PM Netanyahu to terminate the crisis with Turkey, caused by the initial provocation of an Islamic organization and the disproportionate Israeli reaction, leading to the death of nine Islamic radicals.

The apology was long overdue, but better late than never. This blog called on the PM on September 21, 2012 to do just that, bearing in mind the overall strategic interest of Israel, particularly with regard to the deteriorating Syrian situation and its potential damaging implications.

Netanyahu, to his credit, chose his timing to do that — the Obama visit — thus responding to a long-held American expectation from Israel, providing the president with the ability to show actual positive results for the visit. Netanyahu acted in a way which is typical for Israeli governments, though not necessarily to his own, and that is to do what is in the best interest of Israel, but to present it as a gesture towards the U.S.

There are those who argue that he could and should do more of the kind also in the past, and in this way prevent some of the tensions which have become an all too familiar and undesirable feature of the relations between him and President Obama. Yet, what he did was gutsy, considering the Israeli political environment, and the deep-seated resistance there to admit any wrongdoing on the part of the IDF, which rightly continues to be revered by the vast majority of the Israeli people.

PM Erdoghan of Turkey has made his own political calculus, chief among them the fact that the enmity towards Israel being so much in display after the tragic Mavi Marmara incident, did not really pay dividends to Turkey — not in the U.S., not in the E.U., not even in the Arab world. Erdoghan learned that the Arabs are much more preoccupied with the implications of the Arab Spring, in particular the Syrian situation. The Turkish leader realized, while not admitting in public, that there still is a volume of Arab suspicions towards the Turks, a legacy of the centuries of Ottoman rule.

Whatever is the reason, the Turkish PM demonstrated yet again that he possesses qualities of real leadership, among them the ability to sense an opportunity for a change of diplomatic course and take advantage of it.

He is engaged now in a PR campaign in Turkey, designed to maximize the effects of what is presented as an Israeli defeat, whereas PM Netanyahu is engaged in his own campaign, designed to minimize the domestic ill effects of the apology, which for so long he regarded as a non-starter. But, it is in Washington where the White House can really claim a big victory. Two of the U.S.’ main regional allies were at each other’s throats, not a good situation for the U.S., particularly at a time of major regional instability, exactly the type of situation which requires closing of the ranks among the U.S. allies. The Administration was often criticized for what seemed to be a “come from behind” policy, leading to a considerable diminution of the U.S.’ stature in the region.

Well, not so fast. The U.S. proved again that it is the only power capable of bringing hostile parties together, and doing that in a patient way and exactly at the right time. And timing, as Winston Churchill once said, is 50 % of good diplomacy. Here is where the public announcements of the Americans, Turks and Israelis may give just part of the picture. The Israelis were more open to the former two, acknowledging in public that it was the situation in Syria which led to an Israeli adjustment, and made the apology inevitable. Turkish commentators are suggesting likewise, that Erdoghan’s main priority now is Syria, and certain moves by the Obama administration indicate that also the U.S. view the situation in Syria as a regional time bomb that needs to be dealt with and now, rather than on an unspecified date in the future. So is also the position of King Abdallah of Jordan, another valued American ally. The Saudis have already shown for a long while, that they want to see Bashar Assad out, and the soonest the best.

So, now, with the Israeli-Turkish rapprochement, the U.S. can finally cement a strategy about Syria, which can and will be supported by all its regional allies. Not good news for Bashar Assad, whose whereabouts are shredded with growing mystery. Yesterday there was buzz on Arabic Internet sites, according to which the besieged president was critically wounded in an attempt on his life.

The Al Shami hospital in Damascus was under siege, but as yet, these are unconfirmed reports. But the end is near and the regional implications could be devastating, clearly a potential nightmare for the U.S. and its allies. This is why the U.S. needed the Israelis and Turks to reconcile. The bad guys, the Iranians, so aware of their impending likely debacle once Assad is out, were quick to denounce the Israeli-Turkish new deal as another American machination, aimed at Syria.

Put aside their terminology, they may not be wrong. It is indeed the case, that the Syrian situation requires a coordinated American-led action. President Obama’s visit and diplomacy seem to have done exactly that.

via Dr. Josef Olmert: Obama, Turkey and Israel — More Than Meets the Eye.