by RAMZI BAROUD
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
The UN Palmer Report, which largely exonerated Israel for murdering nine unarmed Turkish civilians in international waters on May 31, 2010, seemed in some ways like the last straw. Prior to its publication, the camel’s back had already mostly broken, and a collapse in Turkish-Israeli ties was looming.
Turkey’s sin was seeking an apology for the killing of its citizens – on their way to deliver essential, life-saving supplies to malnourished and besieged Palestinians in Gaza – at the hand of Israeli army commandos.
If the civilians had been Israelis, and the commandos part of a Turkish force, all hell would have broken loose. Israel and the US would have declared Turkey a pariah state. Turkey, however, merely demanded an apology, and it was affronted further for doing so.
Of course, this is not the first time that Israel deliberately provoked and tested Turkish patience. Israel has attempted to infiltrate Turkey’s own political spaces by supporting its regional opponents and arming various rebel groups with the aim of destabilizing Turkey.
Instead of acknowledging the country’s rising significance and accommodating to the rules of the ‘new Middle East’ political game, Israel resorted to intimidation and insults. It repeatedly placed Turkey – a thriving democracy and a proud regional power of 80 million – in a very sensitive standing.
However, the anti-Turkish attitude in Israel was not an outcome of the Mavi Marmara incident last year. “The height of humiliation” is how an Israeli newspaper described a scene in which Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkish ambassador, Ahmet Oguz, last January to humiliate him before Israeli media. Oguz was reprimanded over a fictional Turkish TV show that was critical of Israel. To ensure that the point has been successfully made, Ayalon “urged journalists to make clear that the ambassador was seated on a low sofa, while the Israeli officials were in much higher chairs,” according to the BBC (January 13, 2010). Ayalon noted that is “there is only one flag here” – the Israeli flag – and “we are not smiling”.
TF for more