Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place. He has turned his long awaited but as yet unrealized visit to Gaza more or less into a matter of honor. He announced last week that the visit would finally take place at the end of May. Having declared a date, albeit vaguely, he is now under pressure to ensure the visit does not turn into a fiasco and alienate not just Washington and Israel, but also the Palestinian Authority (PA) and President Mahmoud Abbas.
Erdogan’s advisers are no doubt disturbed that the main objection to his Gaza visit is not coming from Israel — which is strongly opposed to the visit — but from Hamas’ rival Fatah, and the PA.
