Israeli-Turkish relations

[Guest]

The Turkish-Israeli odd couple

by Raphael Israeli

 

Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs

Volume 45, Issue 1,

 

Pages 65-79 (Winter 2001)

 

Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

 

Turkey and Israel, by all accounts the predominant powers in the Middle

East, have in the past decade forged an unlikely alliance that baffles many

a keen observer of the region. On the face of it, there would seem to be

little historical or contemporary logic to a close relationship between the

two. One is large in size and population, the other comparatively tiny. One

is the well-established successor to a glorious empire, the other an

embattled state whose boundaries and very existence are challenged by

neighbors. One is Muslim, the other Jewish. One is just emerging from Third

World status and aspiring to join the European Union, the other thoroughly

modernized and well entrenched in Western culture. One is notoriously

deficient with regard to international norms of human rights and the rule of

law, the other a respected liberal democracy. One is subject to the whims of

its military, the other supremely civilian in its demeanor.

 

No one would suggest that some sudden love affair suffices to explain the

stunning rapprochement between Turkey and Israel. Nor could one point to new

common interests attracting the two to each other, because their common

borders with Arab states, common stand against terrorism and Islamic

fundamentalism, cooperation in Central Asia, and certain economic interests

all pre-date the current entente and have occasionally caused as much

hostility as amicability. Rather, the origins of this momentous shift, which

is likely to shape the contours of Middle Eastern politics in the

foreseeable future, may be found in a triad of new contingencies: the end of

the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and the technological revolution

in Israel. The new configuration of regional and global forces unleashed by

these three contingencies has enabled Turkey and Israel to pursue a

partnership in military and civil, strategic and economic, institutional and

human affairs - a close relationship founded on shared interests that has

the potential to develop into an intimate and lasting rapport.

 

A telescoped chronology

The amazing development of bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel in

the 1990s stands out against the backdrop of the tenuous connection between

the two countries during the preceding forty years. Turkey recognized Israel

upon its birth in 1948, and in the following year, diplomatic relations

began at the level of legation, meaning that ministers, not ambassadors,

were exchanged. However, in November 1980, when the Knesset's passage of the

Jerusalem Law caused outrage throughout the Islamic world, Turkey recalled

its minister and downgraded relations to the level of second secretary, one

step short of breaking off diplomatic relations completely. It was not until

1985 that they were informally restored to the minister level.

 

Relations between Turkey and Israel began to improve dramatically after the

Gulf War and the announcement of the Madrid conference. The two nations

exchanged ambassadors in November 1991, and soon afterward Israeli president

Chaim Herzog visited Istanbul. When Turkish president Turgut Özal died in

April 1993, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres attended the funeral in

Ankara, whereupon the Turkish foreign minister traveled to Israel in

November to conclude a cultural agreement. In January 1994 the president of

Israel made a state visit to Turkey, followed by another official visit by

the Israeli foreign minister to sign an agreement on the environment. In May

1994 the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish parliament visited Israel.

Six months later, Prime Minister Tansu Çiller went to Israel with seven

ministers to conclude pacts on communications, law enforcement, and drugs,

and apparently also to discuss broader security and strategic concerns. At

least three more high-level visits took place in 1995, including Çiller's

attendance at the funeral of murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

 

The diversity, frequency, and reciprocity of visits during the mid-1990s by

top-level officials - a tempo without parallel even in the links Israel has

maintained with the United States - suggested the importance that both

Turkey and Israel ascribed to their blossoming relationship. Was the frenzy

intended to make up for four decades of lost opportunities, or to catch up

with growing strategic dangers, or was it simply a reaction by Turkey to its

rejection by the European Community and its hope that, via Israel, it could

curry favor with the United States? Whatever the motives, there was a

certain paradox in the fact that from the 1950s through the 1980s, when

Israel was isolated and desperately sought an alliance with "outer ring"

states (including Iran and Ethiopia), Ankara shunned the Israelis, whereas

in the 1990s, when Israel was actively pursuing peace, breaking up the siege

that had enclosed it, and entertaining demarches from many nations, Turkey

should be so eager and forthcoming.

 

In the first half of 1996, further high-level visits and agreements attested

to the growing strength of the relationship. But in July of that year, the

Islamist head of Turkey's Welfare Party (Refah Partisi-RP), Necmettin

Erbakan, became prime minister, sparking apprehension that his commitment to

an Islamic foreign policy might threaten the rapprochement. But those fears

were mitigated by Çiller's retaining oversight of Turkish foreign policy as

deputy prime minister. Israeli president Ezer Weizman also held

consultations with leaders of several Turkish parties in Istanbul shortly

after Erbakan's ascent to power, and in April 1997 Erbakan himself received

Foreign Minister David Levy of Israel. In the succeeding years, reciprocal

visits by leading officials ensured the continued development of the

Turkish-Israeli relationship.

 

The event that lent a human dimension to this diplomacy was the series of

tragic earthquakes that shook western Turkey in the summer of 1999, causing

widespread death and destruction. In an effort out of all proportion to the

size and the resources of the country, and one that strengthened goodwill

far beyond the official level, Israel sent rescue teams, established field

hospitals, and donated great amounts of food, medicine, and money to Turkey.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak himself flew in to dedicate a prefabricated

village erected by Israelis to lodge some of the survivors of the quake.

Israel then maintained its assistance in the wake of another tremor in

November 1999, and it is symbolic that while the first rescue operation was

dubbed "Lifeline Operation," the second was called "Fraternity between

Nations."

 

In 2000, Turkey and Israel kept up the dizzying pace of contacts established

over the previous years. Weizman was invited to Turkey for his fifth visit,

and several Turkish ministers went to Israel to ask for assistance in the

reconstruction of devastated sites and rehabilitation of displaced

populations. Their requests for help indicated the extent to which their

countries' ties had been strengthened throughout the decade. The array of

visits and agreements, which resulted in sales of weapons by Israel and

permission for Israeli pilots to train over Turkish air space, also

engendered institutionalized dialogues. Since July 1999, a forum comprising

the two foreign ministers and other high officials has met regularly for

consultations, a strategic dialogue has brought together the top brass and

defense officials, and an academic dialogue has been established between the

Institute of Foreign Relations in Ankara and the Dayan Center at Tel-Aviv

University. Finally, the two nations' ministries of tourism jointly

published huge advertisements in the New York Times to attract tourists on

combined visits, prompting the Turkish press to run such headlines as

"Turkey-Israel: The Romantic Couple."1

 

Turkey's uneasy identity with the Middle East

Turkey's population of over 60 million people, 60 percent of whom live in

urban areas, is suffering from a severe identity crisis due to domestic and

international developments. For a democratic country that saw three military

takeovers in the last generation before government reverted to civilian

hands, the rise of Islam now presents a paradox. As in Egypt, Pakistan, and

Jordan, where the process of liberalization provoked a countercurrent in the

form of political Islam, Turkey has discovered that allowing all its people

to express themselves freely often results in their choosing Islam as a

focus of individual, communal, and political identity. This was so alarming

to the Turkish military, which regards itself as the guardian of the secular

legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, that it did not hesitate to force out the

democratically elected Erbakan government in 1997, given the latter's eager

and evident tilt toward Islamism and away from Israel.2 But breaking the

thermometer did not cure the fever. Rather, the military coup probably

exacerbated the Islamist challenge by spawning extraparliamentary movements

on the Right and the Left that resort to violence and threaten to undermine

domestic stability.

 

The late Turkish president Turgut Özal was often quoted as saying: "Turkey

is a secular state, I am not; I am a Muslim." This comment reflects the

inherent tension between the identity of most individuals as Muslims who

follow Islamic practice to varying degrees, and their role within a state

that has officially divorced itself from the faith. While in the West the

separation of the sacred and the secular has been effected relatively

painlessly and seems to work, no Islamic country has been able to come to

terms with such a separation, not even modern Turkey. Indeed, after visiting

Turkey in late 1996, the daughter of Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi

Rafsanjani noted similarities between the situation in Turkey and that in

"Iran at the end of the Shah's reign."3 This ominous comparison was perhaps

what prompted the military to install Mesut Yilmaz as prime minister and

send Erbakan packing in June 1997.

 

While the blunt intervention of the army calls into question Turkey's

maturity as a modern liberal state, there is no doubt that it also reflects

Turkey's determination to continue to align itself solidly with the West,

including Israel. It is equally evident, however, that Islam has insinuated

itself into the heart of Turkey's outwardly secular political system.

 

Islam has insinuated itself into the heart of Turkey's secular political

system.

 

It is reasonable to assume that should Islam reemerge as a strong political

force, the question of Turkish identity will again come to the fore and

militate against the present rapprochement with Israel.4

 

As a Muslim country and a member of the Organization of the Islamic

Conference, Turkey has always had to walk a tightrope between its interest

in maintaining a relationship with Israel and its cultural, economic,

historical, and emotional commitment to Islam. For most of the period

preceding the Turkish-Israeli rapprochement, Ankara tilted toward its

Islamic neighbors.5 But the worldwide process of globalization and sustained

development that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Persian

Gulf War drew Jerusalem and Ankara closer together. Many Arab and Islamic

countries and societies, however, remained fearful of such all-encompassing

changes and distanced themselves from their erstwhile Turkish ally. Turkish

president Süleyman Demirel's declaration that "Israel and Turkey have

decided on regional cooperation for increasing the economic welfare of the

region and curbing terrorism" contrasts sharply with the continuous attacks

on Israel by intellectuals and policymakers even in Arab countries that have

signed peace accords with Israel.6

 

The question of counterterrorism is of particular interest in this context,

because Israel and Turkey both found themselves in boundary disputes with

Syria (over the Golan Heights and Alexandrite, respectively) and opposed

Syria's efforts to establish hegemony in Lebanon. What is more, Damascus

also supported and sheltered terrorist groups directed against either Israel

or Turkey.7 Considering that Israel had backed the Kurdish rebellions in

Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s, it must have been difficult to collaborate with

the Turks in their own struggle against Kurdish insurgents. But Israel's

interest in thwarting Syria meshed well with Turkey's campaign against the

Syrian-supported Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan-PKK),

and evidently outweighed points of principle. As for the Turks, their

simultaneous pursuit of relations with Israel and the Arabs was likened to a

man

 

who had both a wife and a mistress: he may feel a special attraction to his

mistress who possesses certain charms his wife lacks, but in public he must

appear a dutiful husband and cannot even officially acknowledge the

existence of the mistress. This is all the more true if the wife comes, as

do the Arabs, from a large and prominent family and has brought a big dowry

to the marriage.8

 

To be sure, Israelis resented this analogy because their country had never

demanded that Turkey divorce itself from its Arab and Muslim neighbors.

Israelis have always sought what the Turks were reluctant to grant them,

namely, a full and openly acknowledged relationship.

 

Turkey's long rebuff of Israel owes much to the treatment of the former by

the West. Turkey realized in the 1960s that in spite of its secularism,

loyalty to NATO, and attempts to emulate the West, its security was ignored

during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the subsequent crisis over Cyprus.

Far from enjoying U.S. support, Ankara watched as the Americans rushed to

support Greece, "going so far as to supply the Greek Cypriots with arms for

their campaign against the Turkish minority and the British in Cyprus."9 The

Turks considered this a stab in the back and therefore pursued Muslim

solidarity in the wake of the OPEC embargo of 1973. Commercial relations

between Turkey and the Arab states picked up, especially with regard to

Turkish oil imports. But after the mid-1980s, the volume of that trade

slacked off, and its character changed as Turkish exports increased and its

oil imports decreased, diminishing considerably Ankara's dependence on those

ties. 10

 

Remarkable in this web of Turkish relations with the Arab world was its

love-hate relationship with Iraq. Both countries struggled against the

Kurds, who constituted about one-fifth of their respective populations.

Moreover, Baghdad's ability to sustain its long war with Iran in the 1980s

depended on the flow of oil across Turkish territory and the importation of

foodstuffs via Turkish ports. On the other hand, debt issues, conflict over

water distribution, and Turkey's support of the United States during

Operation Desert Storm drove Turkish-Iraqi relations to new lows. As a

consequence of that war, Turkey confronted not only vast economic deficits,

but also hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees who streamed across the

border from Iraq to find asylum on its territory. At the same time, however,

Turkey was also instrumental in implementing the oil-for-food program, which

eased Turkey's economic pressures by allowing it to ship oil from and

foodstuffs to Iraq.

 

In sum, Turkey's ties with the Muslim world have been mixed indeed. But

during much of the 1980s, even that equivocal relationship was warm compared

to the chill between Turkey and Israel.11 After passage of the Jerusalem Law

in 1980, the Turkish consulate general in Jerusalem was closed down,

allegedly under the pressure of Erbakan's Islamist party, and Turkish

Airlines and Turkish Maritime Lines ceased transport between Turkey and

Israel. It was not until 1986 that the level of diplomatic representation

was raised again, setting the stage for the entente that blossomed during

the 1990s.

 

The stunning events of 1989-91

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War sharply reduced

the importance of Turkey in the Western defense system and forced Ankara to

reevaluate its standing in the world. It was perhaps no coincidence that it

was in a meeting of Israel's and Turkey's foreign ministers in Moscow that

both sides sought to mend their relationship and exchange ambassadors for

the first time. The immediate causes were the outcome of Desert Storm and

the subsequent Madrid conference on Palestinian-Israeli peace. But the

rapprochement also stemmed from a clear realization by both parties that the

heralded new world order necessitated an upgrading of their relations.

Israel, having long pursued closer ties, needed no prodding. But the

prevailing opinion in Ankara was that the turn-about on relations with

Israel constituted one of the most important events in Turkish foreign

policy in the past fifty years.12

 

As a result of the Gulf War and the weakening of the Iraqi army, Turkey felt

secure, especially since the war left in Turkish hands vast amounts of

American weapons, including armored vehicles, fighter aircraft, and

missiles. It also received billions of dollars' worth of export contracts,

oil deliveries, customs concessions, canceled debts, grants, and access to

markets - all as compensation for its immense financial losses during the

war.13 Moreover, Turkey's support for the Western coalition against Iraq,

which was calculated to gain favor with the European Union, paid off at

least in part in 1995, when Ankara concluded a customs agreement with the

EU - far short of the full membership that Turkey covets, but a significant

step in that direction. 14 Hence, the Gulf War reminded the West that, even

in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey remained a

significant strategic asset.

 

The Madrid conference, closely followed by the Oslo accords of September

1993 between Israelis and Palestinians, solved another dilemma for the Turks

and allowed them to draw closer to Israel. For reasons more emotional than

rational, the Palestinian cause enjoyed almost universal support among the

Turkish citizenry. For the Islamists there, the matter was unambiguous:

Muslims must side with their coreligionists anywhere and under all

circumstances. Thus, Turkish foreign minister Mumtaz Soysal insisted in late

1994 that what Israel called Palestinian "terrorism" was merely the

Palestinians' attempt to defend their rights.15 The Israeli ambassador to

Turkey in those days, Zvi Elpeleg, also was of the opinion that no foreign

issue was of more concern to the Turks than the fate of the Palestinians.

Even such a left-wing intellectual as Ilhan Selcuk, a sworn secularist and

advocate of strong ties with Israel, believed that before any rapprochement

could occur, Israel had to "discharge all its obligations to the

Palestinians." 16 It is no wonder, then, that the Oslo accords removed one

of the greatest barriers to closer Turkish relations with Israel.

 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Azerbaijan and

the five republics of Central Asia, a fierce competition for the loyalty of

those countries and their inhabitants developed among Iran, Turkey, the

Arabs, and to a lesser extent Israel.17 The competition was not merely a

conventional struggle for spheres of influence, but (in the case of Iran and

Turkey especially) a sustained effort reminiscent of the Cold War in that

all means short of military confrontation were employed. While Turkey, as a

modernizing and pro-Western state, appealed to the urban elites in those

fledgling republics, Iran seemed to capitalize on popular support in the

countryside. 18 Of course, Islam in Central Asia had been diluted by seventy

years of Communist rule, and the people might have been expected to find the

moderate, secular regime in Turkey appealing. But at the same time, many

Central Asian Muslims were fascinated by the revival of their faith as the

basis for a total political, ethical, and social order, precisely because

they were long deprived of it. 19 This mood may have been further fostered

by the rout of the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover there in

late 1996.

 

Not surprisingly, the rising influence of Islamic fundamentalism was a

source of great concern to both Israel and Turkey, as well as to their joint

ally and benefactor, the United States. Turkey, taking advantage of its

ethno-linguistic affiliation with most of Central Asia (save Iranian

Tajikistan), mounted an orchestrated effort to establish a political,

cultural, and economic foothold there. As Prime Minister (later President)

Demirel put it at that time, those republics regarded Turkey as their "big

brother." Turkey's growing role in Central Asia stemmed not only from the

rapid dismantling of the Soviet empire, but also from the disintegration in

the Balkans and the rejection that Turkey encountered in Europe in spite of

its decades-long attempt to identify as European. Although it was a member

of NATO (an honor it had won thanks to its participation in the Korean War

in the 1950s), Turkey remained on the fringe of the European Union while its

archenemy Greece had gained full admittance. It was natural for the Turks,

therefore, to look eastwards and entertain pan-Turkic dreams. In June 1992,

having established a directorate for relations with the Commonwealth of

Independent States as well as with the nations of the Balkans and the

Caucasus, Turkey hosted a symposium of all Turkic-speaking nations and

minorities and a conference to create a new forum in which Turkey might play

a determining role.20

 

Aware that the future of these countries would hinge on their economic

progress, Demirel signed a series of commercial agreements with the new

republics, and President Özal visited all of them to ensure that Turkish

diplomatic, cultural, and economic influence would be omnipresent. With this

sustained effort (systematically supported by the United States), Turkey

sought to bring Central Asia closer to the West. For Ankara the stakes were,

and remain, high: if it does not respond to the Central Asians' eagerness to

draw close to them, they might be pushed into the arms of radical Iran or

fundamentalist Muslims. But if the Turks themselves go overboard in their

effort to court Central Asian governments, they might only give the European

Union new excuses to block their Westernization. Ankara's motivation for

increased reliance on the United States as a partner in its Central Asian

strategy thus became more apparent: Turkey understands that it could be

abandoned by Europe. And this is precisely where Turkish interests coincide

with those of Israel.

 

The attraction of Israel

Surprisingly enough, the new Central Asian republics and Azerbaijan have all

established diplomatic relations with Israel, although, due to their lack of

funds, not all have resident diplomatic missions yet. This is especially

noteworthy because, apart from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, and

Senegal, the rest of the fifty-odd countries with large Islamic populations

have as yet been reluctant to commit themselves to full diplomatic relations

with Israel (which merely maintains interest offices in North African and

Persian Gulf states). However, the potential appeal of Israel to these new

nations is enormous for at least four reasons. First, most of these emerging

states are small in population if not in territory and are attracted by

Israel's model of how a small but determined state can achieve diplomatic,

economic, industrial, agricultural, technological, and military prowess.

Secondly, the stability of Israel's regime and its democratic nature offer

some hope to these new nations that by adopting similar sociopolitical

institutions, adapting to the technological and scientific environment of

the modern world, and internalizing certain values, even a small country can

thrive in the twenty-first century. Thirdly, Israel is considered by

developing countries, rightly or wrongly, as a conduit to the West in

general and the United States in particular. Emerging nations seeking

development assistance and foreign investment have usually established

diplomatic relations with Israel as soon as they shed their doctrinaire

Third World ideology and adopted pragmatic state-building policies.

Fourthly, Israel has broad experience and know-how to share in the fields of

water conservation, agrotechnology, and development of arid areas.

Uzbekistan and Kazakstan, devastated by years of monoculture that polluted

their land and water, are much in need of Israeli expertise. So, too, are

Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, which stand to benefit immensely

>From Israel's technologies.

 

These points of convergence not only attract Western and Turkish interest,

they also mesh well with Turkey's aspiration to forge a moderate, secular,

and developed Central Asia. Unlike great powers that may make their

assistance to those countries hinge on their global corporate interests or

use their power to exert political pressure, Israel offers aid without

demanding any collateral price. For its part, Turkey recognizes the value of

Israeli cooperation in shaping the future of Central Asia.

 

It is perhaps ironic that a forged anti-Semitic document concocted in

tsarist Russia at the turn of the twentieth century should reemerge again in

the past decades, not as a vicious and mischievous tool to fight the Jews,

but as a naive or benevolent myth to aggrandize Israel beyond measure. It is

true that in some circles, especially Arab and Islamic, the Protocols of the

Elders of Zion are still cited in their old anti-Semitic context.21 But the

new and far less invidious myth of Israel's international power, especially

in developing countries, draws from the same historical sources. For many

countries, including Turkey, Israel is important as a conduit for access to

the only remaining superpower. In short, the road to Washington leads

through Jerusalem.

 

This belief derives in part from the fact that Israel enjoys a privileged

and intimate relationship with the United States, and in part from the myth

of America's "redoubtable" and "omnipotent" Jewish lobby. Occasionally it

still engenders outbursts of anti-Semitic remarks, such as the Malaysian

prime minister's blaming financier George Soros and Jewish bankers for the

collapse of the Asian money markets in the late 1990s. To the allegedly

magical power of Jews in world economics and American domestic politics one

may add the widespread perception that Jews also control the world media,

enabling them to propagate any belief that serves their interests. And yet,

in the assessment of some policymakers in Turkey and throughout the Middle

East, this very belief in Jewish power also underscores the value of good

relations with Israel. Zvi Elpeleg, the former Israeli ambassador in Ankara,

has noted that "it is helpful that Turks believe in the Protocols of the

Elders of Zion, for this leads them to think that Israel has vast powers."22

Ilhan Selcuk, the Turkish intellectual, likewise observed that Muslims,

Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, Armenians, and their respective lobbies in America

would all like to see Kemalism vanish. His conclusion was: "We have nobody

but Israel ... and the Jewish Lobby" to depend on for support. Thus, it was

in the Turks' national interest to collaborate with Israel, because the

latter could relieve their isolation and balance the Greek and Armenian

lobbies in American politics. 23

 

Israeli-Turkish strategic convergence

Of all the complex issues affecting Turkey's relationship with Israel,

security, strategy, and military and technological collaboration are perhaps

the most acute and certainly the most important ones for the Turkish

generals who monitor their country's politics. Not only did the military, as

the guardian of the Kemalist heritage, initiate the rapprochement with

previously alienated Israel, but it also forced Erbakan's government to

accept that bold policy departure and then ousted him as soon as he refused

to pursue it further. The Islamist press went so far as to accuse Elpeleg of

"being the confidant of the generals who were intent on toppling the Erbakan

government."24 It is therefore no wonder that the most striking and rapid

advance in the relations between the two countries has been in the

military-strategic domain. Turkey has purchased advanced Israeli weaponry

and electronics, engaged in joint maneuvers, cooperated in counterterrorism

and intelligence gathering, and exchanged high-level visits with the Israeli

military.

 

These initiatives rest on the assumption that Turkey, surrounded by hostile,

authoritarian, unpredictable, and anti-Western regimes, would be foolish not

to cooperate with the only other power in the Middle East that is

democratic, stable, strong, and pro-Western. Israel, for its part, continues

to believe (as it has since the 1950s) that it must forge ties to the

strong, stable, and pro-Western peripheral states surrounding the Arab

world, thereby "leap-frogging" past the hostile ring of front-line Arab

states. Iran and Ethiopia played this role for decades, but by the end of

the 1970s the Islamic revolution in the former and the Marxist takeover of

the latter eliminated those two pillars, leaving Israel to rely on Turkey

alone. After the peace accords between Israel and Egypt in 1979, it became

all the more imperative for Israel to counterbalance its most formidable

enemies in the north and east (Iran, Iraq, and Syria) with Turkish power.

Syria, in particular, has maintained a long-standing territorial conflict

with Turkey, and the latter, merely by deploying troops on the Syrian

frontier, could force Syria to split its military power between two fronts,

thereby paralyzing any military threat emanating from Damascus. This indeed

helps to explain why Syria has kept quiet on the Golan issue for the past

three decades and why Turkey was left free to quash the separatist Kurdish

bases within its own borders. Hafez al-Assad could simply not afford to

provoke Turkish ire so long as he was locked in a struggle with Israel over

the Golan and Lebanon.

 

Economic ties maintain Turkey's balancing act between Israelis and Arabs.

 

The Turks likewise worry about the Kurds in Iraq, whose demands for

autonomy, if realized, could prompt similar agitation among Kurds within

Turkey. Still another concern is Iran's perceived hostility to the current

Turkish regime by dint of the latter's anti-Islamism and competition for

influence in the Central Asian republics.25 Add to that the growing fear in

Israel and Turkey of Iraqi and Iranian development of weapons of mass

destruction and delivery systems, and it is evident that Turkey's and

Israel's respective interests converge along many avenues. It was for that

reason that the resumption of negotiations in 1999 between Israel and Syria,

a close ally of Iran, was a source of deep concern within Turkey. If Syria

achieved peace with Israel and gained control of the Golan, it would become

much freer to challenge Turkey with Iran's support, a menacing prospect for

Ankara. Therefore, although both Israel and Turkey have sought to appease

fears by stating that their alliance is not directed against any third

party, everyone understands that Syria and Iran may be its primary targets.

 

Israeli-Turkish strategic cooperation is most evident in the relationship of

the two militaries,26 but another element of potential strategic value is

cooperation with regard to water supplies. Unlike its Middle Eastern

neighbors, Turkey suffers from no serious shortage of water, thanks to its

control over the headwaters of the Euphrates River (which flows into Syria

and Iraq) and its vast quantities of ground water fed by the rivers of

Anatolia. Thus, Ankara can exert considerable pressure on its enemies

downstream and deploy its surpluses of water to strategic advantage. For

example, Turkey promised Israel virtually unlimited quantities of fresh

water, either by tankers or pipeline, while restricting the supply of water

to some hostile neighbors. Although economic calculations may limit the

feasibility of such enterprises, it is evident that water may become, like

oil, a political weapon as the populations of the Middle East increase

rapidly and water resources dwindle. 27

 

A final arena for Turkish-Israeli cooperation, and one that has been second

only to military collaboration in importance over the past decade, is the

purely civilian domain of economic development, investment, and trade. The

huge volume of Israeli tourism to Turkey has long been acknowledged, but in

areas such as investment, construction, manufacturing, environment, water

and land conservation, technical cooperation, and joint enterprises, ties

have expanded more recently. From a measly $54 million in 1987, trade grew

to more than $1 billion by the end of the 1990s and was expected to reach $2

billion by 2001 - the largest flow of commerce between any two countries in

the Middle East - thanks to a 1997 free-trade agreement that opened new

vistas for business in both countries.28

 

To be sure, the political détente between Turkey and Israel initially

prompted the intensification and diversification of economic activity, but

the process seems to have acquired a dynamic of its own. The vast and

growing markets of Turkey are a powerful lure to Israeli investors and

exporters, and Turkey's low labor costs (at about one-third of Israel's)

encourage the flow of Turkish goods into Israel. However, due to the

limitations of Israel's tiny market, Turkey's aggregate trade with Arab

countries still surpasses by far the volume of bilateral Israeli-Turkish

exchanges. Moreover, remittances from millions of Turkish workers employed

in other Middle Eastern countries ensure the continuation of a balancing act

by Ankara between its Israeli and Arab partners.

 

Conclusions and prospects

On the eve of the Jewish Passover and Festival of Freedom in April 2000,

Israeli newspapers stressed the need for a greater humanitarian thrust to

international politics. The Israeli government and public responded to the

famine in Ethiopia with the same energy they showed at the time of the

earthquakes in Turkey. But when the successful and popular minister of

education, Yossi Sarid, announced in a ceremony commemorating the Armenian

genocide that the Israeli school system would henceforth include that

Turkish atrocity as part of its curriculum, protests poured in at once from

the Turks, for whom the Armenian massacres have been a most sensitive issue.

Only a few years before, Ankara had refused to accredit a respected Israeli

scholar, Ehud Toledano, as ambassador because of an allegation that he had

voiced accusations against the Turks and sympathized with the Armenians'

plight.

 

Predictably, all elements of Turkish society, not just the Islamists, viewed

the Armenian affair as proof of the unreliable Jewish state's tendency to

side with Christians against Muslims. Die-hard nationalists also seized upon

the on-again, off-again negotiations between Israel and Syria as a sign that

Israel would always subordinate Turkey's strategic interests to its own.

Israel's explanations to the effect that it could maintain its growing

relationship with Turkey even as it evoked the Armenian massacre (just as it

does with Germany despite recurrent references to the Shoah) fell on deaf

ears in Ankara. For unlike Germany, which has recognized its past and

accepted responsibility, Turkey continues to treat the Armenian massacre as

taboo and does not acknowledge any guilt. Disputes over Armenia and the

prospect of Israeli peace with Syria will continue to strain the

relationship between Turkish and Israeli governments, their strategic and

economic cooperation notwithstanding.

 

Another element of incongruity has crept in recently in the shape of a

nascent détente between Israel and Greece. The nature of this relationship

appears to be reminiscent of what occurred between Israel and Turkey a

decade ago: military coordination, sales of Israeli weaponry, upgrading of

outdated Greek equipment, visits of high officials, full diplomatic

relations, and a growing degree of intimacy between the governments. Ten

years ago it was unthinkable that either the Turks or the Greeks would have

countenanced a "courtship" involving Israel and both of them at the same

time. But now, as the old enmities between those archrivals seem to be

easing, they may be able to tolerate that arrangement, just as they have

learned to live with their joint membership in NATO and their prospective

partnership in the European Union. But it remains certain that each of them

would prefer to be the only bride under the wedding canopy, and that any

failure by Israel to take into consideration the sensibilities involved may

spoil its relations with both.

 

A further development with potentially serious consequences for Turkey and

Israel is Syria's slow turn back toward Iraq. Prior to the 1980s, tensions

already existed between the two "sister states" due to the competition for

hegemony between the two rival branches of the Baath Party to which both

claimed allegiance. The rivalry was also a matter of personal one-upmanship

between Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad. But in August 1980, just prior to

the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, when Syria sided with Iran, the two

countries cut off their diplomatic relations. When Syria then joined (at

least nominally) the U.S.-led coalition during Desert Storm, the ties

between them deteriorated even further. In 1997, however, Syria was

desperate for cash, and so Assad swallowed his pride and approached the

Iraqis for contacts under the U.N. oil-for-food deal. By the spring of 2000,

the first signs of improvement emerged as Syrian goods found their way to

Iraqi markets and Iraqi oil was illicitly ferried via Syrian (and Turkish)

territory. Diplomatic negotiations aiming at normalization between the two

have been taking place through third parties, and there is even talk of

growing economic exchanges.29 Those two besieged and isolated states may be

forging a united front against the Americans, a joint defense against the

Turkish-Israeli alliance, and a fallback position should the Syrian-Israeli

talks over the Golan come to naught.

 

There is no doubt, however, that the most menacing issue in the

Turkish-Israeli partnership in the long term is the prospect that

ultra-nationalist or ultra-religious factions in Turkey may agitate to

return their country to its Anatolian-Asian or even Islamic roots, undoing

the Kemalist heritage so jealously guarded by the military. An insoluble

dilemma would then confront Israel and the West. Is the partnership with

Turkey so important that it is worth maintaining even under the bayonets of

the Turkish military? Or is it preferable to allow "democracy" to triumph

even at the cost of Turkey's slipping - as Iran did two decades ago and

Algeria almost did less than a decade ago - into the anti-Western Islamic

camp? The stepped-up activity of the Turkish Hizbullah in the eastern

confines of the country at the beginning of 2000, which generated killings

and arrests on a massive scale, and the gains of the Hizbullah in Lebanon

against Israel in summer 2000 do not augur well. For if the strategic

partnership between Israel and Turkey is perceived as resting on the

coercive power of their arms rather than on the democratic principles they

claim to uphold, its longevity will be anyone's guess.

 

 

Raphael Israeli is professor of Islamic, Middle Eastern, and Chinese affairs

at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a senior fellow at its Harry Truman

Research Institute. He is author of some fifteen books and one hundred

articles on Islamic, Middle Eastern, and Chinese history

 

 

1 Dispatch from the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul to Foreign Ministry in

Jerusalem, Feb. 2000.

 

2 See A. Shmuelevitz, "The Attitude of the Islamic Press in Turkey Towards

Israel" (in Hebrew), in Hamizrah Hehadash (The New East), 1997-98, pp.

114-24.

 

3 Ha'aretz, Dec. 22, 1996.

 

4 See Hakan Yavuz, "Turkish-Israeli Relations through the Lens of the

Turkish Identity Debate," Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 27, no. 1

(1997), pp. 22¯37.

 

5 Walter Weiker, "Turkey, the Middle East and Islam," Middle East Review,

Spring 1985, pp. 27-32.

 

6 Quotation from Meltem Müftüler-Bac, "Turkey and Israel: An Evolving

Partnership," Ariel Center For Policy Research, Policy Paper no. 47 (1998),

p. 5. See also Raphael Israeli, "Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism," Ariel

Center For Policy Research (Apr. 2000).

 

7 George Gruen, "Turkey's Relations with Israel and Its Arab Neighbors: The

Impact of Basic Interests and Changing Circumstances," Middle East Review,

Spring 1985, pp. 33-43.

 

8 Ibid., p. 35. Also cited in Amikam Nachmani, Israel, Turkey and Greece:

Uneasy Relations in the Eastern Mediterranean (London: Frank Cass, 1987), p.

75.

 

9 Amikam Nachmani, Turkey and the Middle East (Ramat Gan: BESA Center for

Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, May 1999), p. 3.

 

10 Ibid., pp. 4-5.

 

11 See Ekrem Guvendiren, A Concise Report on Turkish-Israeli Relations

(Istanbul: Foreign Economic Relations Board, Apr. 1999), p. 9.

 

12 Amikam Nachmani, "The Remarkable Turkish-Israeli Ties," Middle East

Quarterly, June 1998, p. 22.

 

13 Nachmani, Turkey and the Middle East, p. 15.

 

14 Ibid., pp. 15-16.

 

15 Nachmani, "The Remarkable Turkish-Israeli Ties," p. 22.

 

16 Ibid., p. 21.

 

17 This item is based mainly on R. Israeli, "The Islamic Republics of

Central Asia and the Middle East," International Journal of Group Rights,

vol. 3 (1995), pp. 31-46.

 

18 See Amalia Gent, "Turkish Claim to Leadership in Central Asia," Swiss

Review of World Affairs, May 1992, pp. 21-22.

 

19 "Central Asia: The Silk Road Catches Fire," Economist, Dec. 26, 1992.

 

20 "Turkey Spreads Its Wings," Economist, Aug. 6, 1992, pp. 4-5.

 

21 The charter of Hamas contains references to the Protocols, and some Arab

media currently resort to "citations" from them. In this regard, see "The

Charter of Allah: The Platform of Hamas," in The 1988-89 Annual of

Terrorism, ed. Yonah Alexander (Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1990); and Israeli, Arab

and Muslim Anti-Semitism.

 

22 Ha'aretz, Sept. 30, 1997, cited in Nachmani, "The Remarkable

Turkish-Israeli Ties," p. 21.

 

23 Cumhuriyet, Nov. 5, 1994, cited in Nachmani, "The Remarkable

Turkish-Israeli Ties," p. 21.

 

24 Ha'aretz, Sept. 30, 1997, cited in Nachmani, "The Remarkable

Turkish-Israeli Ties," p. 22.

 

25 During Erbakan's tenure, Ankara and Tehran even achieved a brief

rapprochement. See Müftüler-Bac, Turkey and Israel: An Evolving Partnership,

pp. 10-11.

 

26 See Nachmani, "The Remarkable Turkish-Israeli Ties," pp. 24-26.

 

27 See Müftüler-Bac, Turkey and Israel: An Evolving Partnership, pp. 3¯5;

and Amikam Nachmani, Water Jitters in the Middle East (Ramat Gan: BESA

Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, June 1997).

 

28 See Nachmani, "The Remarkable Turkish-Israeli Ties," pp. 26-27; and Gil

Feiler, "Economic Relations between Turkey and Israel" (in Hebrew), in

Turkey and Israel in a Changing Middle East, ed. A. Shmuelevitz (Ramat Gan:

BESA Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, 1996).

 

29 Leon Barkho, "Iraq Betting on Oil Wealth to End Isolation," Associated

Press, Mar. 1, 2000.

 

 

Copyright © 2001 Foreign Policy Research Institute