by CEYDA KARAN
A lot has changed since Erdogan’s ‘one minute’ moment at Davos in 2009. Once celebrated for championing pro-Palestinian rhetoric and action in the region, Turkiye today, at best, aims for a backroom mediation role.
Turkiye has long since lost its ‘championship of the Palestinian cause’ under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While globally, and from the very start, there has been an outpouring of horrified outrage over Israel’s indiscriminate air bombing of Gaza, it took the Turkish president 20 days to ‘get tough’ on Tel Aviv.
Despite strong reactions from his public, and especially his Islamist base, Erdogan waited an inexplicably long time before delivering a message at his party’s parliamentary group meeting this week:
“Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a group of mujahideen fighting to protect its citizens”, he said. Reminding the crowd of ‘the good old’ Ottomans, he added, “When the powers on whose backs Israel leans today are gone tomorrow, the first place the Israeli people will look for reassurance will be Turkiye, as it was 500 years ago.” Erdogan said that contrary to the west, Turkiye owed Israel nothing.
And then he balanced his stance by saying, “We have no problem with Israel, but we have never and will never approve of the way it acts like an organization instead of a state.”
If anything, his message can be interpreted as a direct embrace of Hamas, rather than criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Importantly, while underlining the ‘guarantor’ offer that Ankara has been offering both sides for more than two weeks, he stated that Turkiye is not seeking this role alone but ‘with other participants’.
But even this relatively balanced exit drew a reaction from the markets. The Turkish stock market dropped by 5 percent, forcing a halt in trading. This announcement is sure to complicate the job of Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, who is busy trying to attract western capital to Turkiye.
From Davos to Mavi Marmara
Turkiye’s behavior in the recent Gaza crisis provides a peek into its West Asian policies, vis a vis its post-election pivot to the west.
On 29 January, 2009, at the Davos Summit of the World Economic Forum, then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan interrupted Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ speech with a stern: “One minute,” stating, “You know very well how to kill. I know very well how you kill children on the beaches,” before abruptly storming off stage.
This unexpected outburst, contravening Ankara’s decades-long amicable stance towards the occupation state, sent shockwaves through the audience and beyond. It was seen as a watershed moment that thrust Erdogan into the global spotlight, instantly making him a pro-Palestinian icon not only in the Arab and Islamic world but also at home in Turkiye, where he received a hero’s welcome.
At the time, Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) were widely viewed as a symbol of “moderate Islam” and enjoyed the backing of the US and its western allies. As a result, the “One minute” crisis in Davos was quickly defused. However, tensions reached a boiling point a year later when the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla aiming to deliver aid to besieged Palestinians, attempted to break through Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
On 31 May, 2010 Israeli commandos conducted a lethal raid on the Mavi Marmara, whose journey was sponsored by the Turkish charity IHH Relief Foundation and the Free Gaza Movement. This infamous operation resulted in the deaths of 10 Turkish citizens, injuries to 50 others, and the detention of the remaining passengers.
This time, the rift could not be resolved amicably. Diplomatic ties between Israel and Turkiye were downgraded, military relations were suspended, and trade relations suffered a temporary disruption.
Legal cases against four Israelis, including Israel’s then-Chief of Staff Gabriel Ashkenazi, were initiated in Turkish courts, but were dropped in 2016 when Tel Aviv agreed to a $20 million victim compensation payout, three years after an official apology was issued.
Nevertheless, Erdogan continued to emerge as a prominent advocate for the Palestinian cause and a vocal figure in the Arab and Islamic world, just as West Asia was undergoing a seismic transformation. Turkiye found itself playing a pivotal role during and after the Arab Spring, throwing its weight behind Islamist parties and factions.
Turkish-Israeli trade surge
Yet as the unrest spilled into neighboring Syria – the strongest Arab state supporter of the Palestinian cause – many were surprised at Erdogan’s “regime change” posture, particularly given the strength of Damascus’ ties with Ankara and the Turkish government’s “zero problem with neighbors” policy.
Erdogan’s Arab romance came to a screeching halt when he made a startling sectarian accusation, calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule a “Nusayri dictatorship” (a derogatory term for followers of the Alawi sect, to which the Assad family, along with political and military elites belong), and claiming the state was persecuting Syria’s Sunni-majority populace.
When Syria descended into war and chaos, sharp divisions emerged among sponsors of the armed opposition groups, including Turkiye, Persian Gulf states, the US, and Europe. Erdogan soon found himself increasingly isolated in the region – with the notable exception of Qatar, a staunch Arab ally similarly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Cradle for more