Time not right for Turkish-Israeli reconciliation
Neither Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are ready to do what is necessary to begin to normalize relations.
That Israel-Turkey relations closely affect the tone of Turkey-US relations and how they have progressed are a “dogma” that is recognized by Turkey, as well as by the foreign policy community of our ally across the Atlantic.
For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his associates, the influence of these relations on domestic politics is a major perception issue. For example, behind every move labeled as an effort to remove Erdogan from power it is imperative to look for US-Israeli “involvement.”
It became a habit to search for Israel behind every tremor the government experienced after the harsh polemic of January 2009 at Davos between Erdogan and Israeli President Shimon Peres, and particularly after the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident of May 2010, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish citizens and sent bilateral relations crashing down.
Although not said in so many words in public, the corruption investigation that began on Dec. 17, 2013 — and became the biggest challenge Erdogan faced in 12 years of his rule — was branded as a “coup attempt” and rumors spread that Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania for the past 15 years, and his supporters were actually “Israeli operational elements.”
