The basic distrust that Israel’s diplomatic and security leadership feels toward Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was further exacerbated May 26 when a court in Istanbul issued international arrest warrants against senior officers who served as members of the Israeli army's General Staff when Israel took control of the Mavi Marmara flotilla.

Israeli experts in international law downplayed the significance of this legal procedure; the political leadership called it “a mere political move, one which it is doubtful any respectable country will abide by.”

Turkish diplomatic sources explained that this is part of a long legal process, which will stop the moment Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approves the reconciliation agreement waiting on his desk. Besides the reparations agreement and the approval of facilitating Turkish civilian aid to the people of the Gaza Strip, the agreement also includes a mechanism to rescind all legal claims against the Israel Defense Forces officers and the State of Israel. Jerusalem is now waiting to see how things develop, but sources nevertheless stress that there is room for a significant Turkish gesture to prove that the Turkish government is committed to ending the crisis.

Gabby Levy, Israel’s last ambassador to Ankara, was expelled from Turkey following the Mavi Marmara incident. In a conversation with Al-Monitor, he shares his assessment that the Turkish government will ignore the decree issued by the court in Istanbul, and possibly even take steps to ensure that it is not implemented. This would be part of a process of rebuilding trust, which Ankara now is hard at work to promote while it waits for a dawdling Netanyahu to approve the normalization agreement between the two countries.