Politics - Israel and Turkey

Turkey and Israel: Why everything and everyone’s fucked

It’s been a week since the Rorschach Test on the high sees was broadcast across the world. Some people looked at that ink blot and saw rowdy and violent thugs attacking soldiers dutifully protecting their homeland, and others saw police-state offenders descending from the night sky onto a charity mission, massacring do-gooders in the process. My opinions on this should be uncontroversial, but they unfortunately find themselves floating alone in a sea of recriminations, among people who want to support one side fully and refusing to acknowledge any legitimacy to any opposing view. The cost of empathy is being alone in the wilderness of public opinion. Any intelligent answer to the question “What do you think about all this?” should take at least ten minutes to explain, though very often they can be summed up with glib expressions showing loyalty to one side, as though there were only two rational perspectives. The Israeli government and the Turkish Prime Minister are all acting in a rational manner, given the backgrounds of their positions. Opposition to the Gaza blockade is both moral and rational. The isolation of Gaza by Israel and Egypt is neither rational nor moral. Palestinian support of any opposition group with strong rhetoric is obviously rational. Allegations of Islamophobia, Apartheid or Anti-Semitism are thrown around too lightly, even though there numerous examples of their correct application. History gives the background to an issue and is important for that reason. When discussing the Israeli-Palestinian situation, there is still a tendency for people to try and re-argue 1967 or 1948. Why not put the clock back further to 1095, when the Turks arrived from Central Asia, or 675 when the Arabs wandered out of Arabia? Heck, the Jews only showed up when Moses and his Iron Age settler buddies wandered in. The question of what is to be done is more important, and more rationally moral than what has happened.

Turkey and Israel, BFF
The alliance between two of the three non-Arab natives in the Middle-East (Iran being the third) goes back to the fifties and sixties. For Turkey, they needed political kinship with America, and they perceived Jews as being able to assure their position in the west through influence in America.
Turkey is not and never has been a “Western” country, but “Eastern” isn’t quite accurate either. Simple divisions are never useful unless you’re trying to explain the issues to someone with no background whatsoever in the facts. Turkey was a state bordering the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1989. The Soviet Union governed the (now independent) Soviet Republics of Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The Soviet Union trained and educated Turkic Intellectuals and agents from Central Asia and Azerbaijan, as well as socialist and opposition members from Turkey proper. The huge influence and implied threat of the neighbouring Soviet Empire, as well as Armenian territorial claims on the Anatolian heartland, meant that Turkey needed the support of the western powers; the imperial agents who didn’t have their knives pointed at Turkey’s throat. Once Greece joined NATO, it became even more critical for Turkey to join the western alliance, lest their ancient enemy of Greece pull the west against Turkish influences.
The Turkish alliance with Israel was based on several motivations. Both countries shared a border with regional strongman Syria. Israel needed airspace to train its air-force. Turkey needed the Jewish lobby in the United States to oppose recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Turkey needed a preferred nation status with the US, UK and France: three traditionally staunch allies of Israel. In the 1980s, the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq also emerged as a shared concern. Turkey and Israel are both occupying countries – Israel over the Arab territories from the UN mandate and Turkey in 1/3 of EU member Cyprus. They both required that the United Nations never be able to apply enough pressure to end military occupations, though criticism could be easily tolerated under the sticks and stones rule. Turkey became the fifth largest recipient of US military aid in the 1980s, after Israel, Egypt, Columbia and Saudi Arabia, which was more than enough military might to keep Syria and Iraq at bay, and fight their own dirty war against the Kurds. Israel needed and got a viable ally in the region, adding to her security by sandwiching Syria. While not a terribly romantic pairing, the two found shared interests that coincided for a while.

Things Fall Apart
The terms of this marriage of convenience eventually changed. The Soviet Union fell apart, and Turkey started sending experts, investors and agents to the former Soviet Central Asian Republics and not the other way around. Armenia lost their giant backer. Greece stopped being such a feted anti-communist stalwart and became an economic nuisance to the EU and NATO. Syrian strongman Hafez al-Assad died and his son Bashar al-Assad proved to be a weaker version of his father, more concerned about local centralization and Lebanese adventurism than broader regional ambitions. Saddam Hussein was neutered by the first Gulf War and the ensuing sanctions. The alliance with Israel became more of a pre-existing tradition than an active pursuit.
In the Twenty-first Century, things changed even more. Constant rejection by the EU (usually because of an unfailing Greek rejection of their neighbour) and a steady expansion of influence within Turkish communities in Germany, Central Asia and the Middle East gave Turkey frustration at the discrepancy between her real influence and her recognition. The collapse and restructuring of neighbouring Iraq was also a push. The Kurdish territories of Iraq became autonomous and prosperous (the most tangible success story of the American-led war), while across the border in Turkey, Kurds continued in squalor. The Peshmerga (Kurdish Militias) effectively ran their own show and were supported by the United States to keep order in the Iraqi north, and train militias for the Iranian Kurdish territories. This shifting of alliances obviously did not sit well with Turkey.
Domestically, the 2001 election of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was a rejection of the traditional governing elites and a vote for agrarian businessmen with conservative social values and a lean towards populism. Their leader, Recep Tayip Erdogan, built his image as a working-class, religious Turk, unwilling to bend a knee to the authority of the powers that be. When he refused to allow the American army the right to use Eastern Turkey as a staging base for the Iraq War, he scored a major propaganda victory at home, and in many neighbouring countries. An appeal to populism in Turkey means an appeal to local xenophobia and religious mores. In 2008, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, all nations (even Iran!) were on their best behaviour, but Erdogan barred his teeth at Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, telling him “You know how to kill but now you must learn to listen for just one minute!” during a debate. Erdogan’s popularity at home soared, even among secular and modern Turks (not his traditional base.) It also made press across the greater Middle-East and Islamic world. Here was a modern, elected leader in a suit, standing up for Palestinians, rather than a ventriliquating the West, wearing a turban and preaching, or sporting fatigues and ranting like a madman.
Last month, the leader of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) was involved in a sex scandal and forced to resign. The fiery Deniz Baykal was then replaced by the unassuming but admired technocrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Last year, Kilicdaroglu ran for mayor of Istanbul, and lost to Erdogan’s pick, Kadir Topbas, but emerged to national prominence in the process. Kilicdaroglu’s ascension to the reigns of the CHP was met with euphoria (no one ever thought they’d get rid of Baykal) and enthusiasm that there would be a new Kemalist to overturn the charismatic, borderline-Islamist and increasingly despotic Erdogan. Hope and Change were riding high against Erdogan.

The Centre Cannot Hold
When the Mavi Marmara (Blue Marmara) was seized by Israeli commandos, Erdogan was presented with an opportunity to do what he did best, play the role of the populist Mujahid, the unbendable warrior standing up for Turks and Muslims against the foreign, Jewish brutes. That’s not to say that Turks weren’t justifiably angry at their citizens being murdered in international waters, but that righteous anger was funnelled in a contest between the AKP and Sa’adet Partisi (Felicity Party) over who could tap into the rage and champion the cause best. The evocations of Hitler and of Nazi mythos appeared everywhere in the public sphere, this in a country where Mein Kampf is already available at Toys-R-Us.
With regards to the storming of the Mavi Marmara, the Israelis attacked the boat in international waters, which was illegal. The crews on the boats were right to resist the raiders. When commandoes kill civilians during a surprise night-time assault, they’re not allowed to play the victim and complain that they were being roughed up the rowdies with sticks who should have just stood their and taken it. Turkey is one hundred percent right to demand an international inquiry at the United Nations, or preferably NATO.
Despite the just nature of the anger in the Turkish populace, Erdogan is tapping into one of the darkest aspects of humanity for his own political gains. I hope that someday, our capacity for love is greater than that for hate, and our desire for peace outweighs our bloodlust for vengeance, but that day is far away, and for today, Turkey is becoming less safe (especially for Jews and Christians.) The vitriol which is being tapped right now is a horrifying thing to see when it’s unleashed, and more horrifying still when controlled by another. The protests that are going on in Turkey (without the characteristic police intervention) are tapping into something vicious in the human soul, something best kept in check.

Mere Anarchy is Loosed
The underlying problem behind all of this is the spark of the flotilla, on the fuse of the Gaza occupation, on the powder-keg of religious nationalism.
The embargo on Gaza is immoral. By not allowing concrete or metal into the territory, Israel is forbidding the area from restructuring. In the event of sanctions, war, embargos or any form of direct action, the question always needs to be asked “How will this solve the problem?” and I don’t see any way that the embargo will stop the problem of terrorism in Israel proper. It’s a stasis hold that will prolong Palestinian suffering, generation after generation, with no end in sight. Since the best idea that the Israelis can come up with is an indeterminate marathon of suffering, I think that it’s safe to say that they don’t have any good ideas. Likewise, the Palestinians’ inability to speak with a unified voice mutes their position at the table.
Other countries have been sinking into the swamp of the holy land for years. The financial and human cost to Arab states and to Israel, not to mention their sponsors in America, Russia, France and England has been a burden for generations now. Now it’s sucking in Israel’s only proximate allies, Turkey and Cyprus. There needs to be an international investigation of the flotilla raid (through the responsible countries of NATO, not the Rogue’s Gallery of the UN.) There should have been an international peace-keeping force sent to Gaza to rebuild immediately after last year’s Gaza War, but there wasn’t. That doesn’t mean that one is no longer needed. If the blockade of Gaza continues, the situation will continue as is. If the blockade is unilaterally lifted, then Gaza will return to its morose status of terrorist hotbed. The best thing to do would be to put neutral peace-keepers in there to keep the region stable and secure, while a UN force could lead the rebuilding efforts of the city. The Israelis and the Palestinians won’t work towards peace together voluntarily, both peace and reconstruction are going to have to be guaranteed by the international community