Is Erdogan changing his tune on Israel?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's silence during the recent Israeli election campaign, despite controversial remarks about the Palestinians, and the reopening of a synagogue in Edrine might signal a change in Ankara's policy toward Israel.
We cannot accept Iran’s efforts to exert its hegemony over the Middle East. Iran is only taking action against the Islamic State to advance its interests in the region and to wrest control of Iraq and Syria.
That was the message delivered March 26 by none other than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in expressing his support for Saudi Arabia's military actions in Yemen to prevent the Houthis from seizing control of the country. The Shiite Houthis are considered by many to be the “long arm of Tehran.” In that sense, Erdogan’s remarks were practically a reiteration of an assertion made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his March 3 speech to the US Congress: “Your enemy’s enemy is your enemy.” Netanyahu's comment was intended to convince the Americans that Iran poses an existential threat not only to Israel but also to the entire region, if not the world.
Erdogan made his remarks on the same day he held a long phone conversation with US President Barack Obama, after a lengthy and troublesome disconnect between the two men, similar to the Netanyahu-Obama relationship. The White House news release said that Erdogan and Obama discussed pressing issues in the Middle East, including Iran’s nuclear program. It did not say whether they touched on Netanyahu’s remarks that Arabs were flocking to the polls “in droves” or his disavowal of the two-state solution during the recent Israeli elections. Netanyahu’s remarks troubled Obama, who neither hid nor tempered his criticism of them.
In contrast, the forceful way in which Obama has expressed himself lately in regard to Netanyahu magnifies Erdogan’s reticence toward the Israeli prime minister’s remarks. Over the past few years, Erdogan has not missed an opportunity to attack the Israeli government over its treatment of the Palestinians. During his election campaign for the presidency in summer 2014, he crossed certain red lines in the language and images he used, calling Israeli politicians “worse than Hitler” and accusing them of attempted genocide in the Gaza Strip.
