theTrumpet.com
Joel HillikerColumnist
Israel’s Alliance With Turkey Is a Trap
January 14, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com
The Gaza war has shown that Turkey is no friend. Will Israel realize it?

Joel Hilliker Among the many truths the war in Gaza has exposed, here is
one: Israel’s alliance with Turkey is a trap.
Israel inked a mutual defense agreement with Turkey in 1996. Among its
benefits, the deal linked the two countries’ militaries in joint training,
provided Israeli arms to Turkey ($2 billion worth as of 2007) and granted
Israel’s air force overflight privileges.
Far more, the deal gave Israel a much-needed, highly respected ally in a
neighborhood full of enemies. Those itching to pick a fight with Israel
simply haven’t been eager to contend with Turkey’s million-man army, the
second-largest force in nato after the United States. This reality helped
stabilize the volatile Middle East for years. The Islamic Affairs Analyst
went so far as to say that Israel’s foes – mostly notably Iran – respected
Turkey enough that the Jewish state’s survival was all but assured as long
as the pact held up.
But there’s the rub. Just a glance at events in the past couple of years
shows that this deterrent effect has weakened. Israel’s enemies have started
to turn loose.
Not coincidentally, over that same period, Turkey has shifted from being a
hedge against those enemies to actually supporting them. This is a grave
loss for Israel.
Nothing makes this clearer than does the Gaza conflict.
There is a clarion warning in recent events about what to expect from Turkey
in the future, if only the Jews would heed it.
`We will kill you’ – thus read a sign posted on one of the largest synagogues
in the Turkish city of Izmir. Public graffiti screams messages like `Kill
Jews’ and `Israel should no longer exist in the Middle East.’ Large, angry
protests fill the streets of cities across the country, including a rally on
Sunday of 200,000 in Istanbul square. Near Istanbul University, a Jewish
shop owner found a sign on his door warning customers not to patronize the
place, `since this shop is owned by a Jew’; other posters went up saying,
`Jews and Armenians are not allowed but dogs are allowed.’
As Israeli forces pound Gaza, this is how the people of Turkey are
responding.
`There haven’t been such widespread and spontaneous anti-Israel sentiments
before,’ says columnist Sami Kohen of the Turkish daily Milliyet. `It’s not
just the Islamic circles. It’s also the secularists and the nationalists.
The protests have been representative of the whole of Turkish society. I don’t
remember seeing such a public reaction on any other issue before.’
Can Israel afford to ignore such realities?
After years of walking a line in allying with the West, Turkey is
increasingly embracing its Muslim identity. An early sign of just how much
came in 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian elections. Where most of the world
turned its back on the terrorist group, Turkey not only recognized it as a
legitimate government, it accepted a Hamas delegation in Ankara led by the
group’s leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.
In the summer of 2007, the Turks elected a former Islamist, Abdullah Gül, as
their president. Under Gül’s leadership, Turkey became one of the few
governments in the Middle East to recognize Hamas’s administration when it
seized the Gaza Strip. Later that year, Turkey became an almost lone voice
protesting Israel’s attack on a Syrian nuclear facility. And in 2008, the
Gül government hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Istanbul and
established political and economic ties with Tehran.
Remarkably, none of this alarming behavior raised much concern within the
Israeli government. When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided he wanted to
secretly pursue a peace deal with Syria last year, he used Turkey as the
mediator, as if Turkey’s respect for Israel’s interests had remained just as
it was in 1996.
Olmert’s blind pursuit of a peace pact with an avowed enemy of
Israel – Syria – drawing on the help of a country that is supporting and
cooperating with more avowed enemies – Hamas and Iran – is deeply revealing, and
prophetically relevant.
The entire peace process, actively pursued since Oslo in 1993, is predicated
on Israel’s wish, unfounded in reality, that its enemies sincerely want
peace. This tendency to invest faith in sources that warrant no faith is a
grievous wound in Israel’s national character. As devastating as it has been
for Israel to this point, it will yet prove to be far more so.
If the Israeli government still felt it could trust Turkey, that nation’s
response to Israel’s counterattack on Hamas should have corrected the
misconception. Despite its supposedly being the Jews’ strongest ally in the
region, Turkey’s reaction – not just in the street but also by the
government – was on par with Iran’s.
`What Israel has done is nothing but atrocity,’ President Gül said. `Allah
will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents,’
said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, amid volley after volley of
reproach. Of Olmert, with whom he had been working on the Syria peace deal,
he said, `He betrayed me and harmed the honor of Turkey.’ To Olmert and
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, he said, `History will judge you with what you
have done as having painted a black stain on the history of humanity.’
The prime minister has been speaking with leaders all over the Middle East
and Europe pushing for an end to the fighting – and 100 percent of his demands
fall on Israel. In Ankara’s view, Israel bears all the blame for the Gaza
war. `Hamas abided by the truce. But Israel failed to lift embargoes,’
Erdogan said – a ridiculous lie. He has refused to take calls from Olmert
unless Israel stops the war. When Livni offered to visit Ankara, the
official response she received was, `If she doesn’t want to talk about a
ceasefire, she shouldn’t come.’
Meanwhile, Turkey is more than happy to meet with Hamas and its terrorist
sponsors. The president and prime minister met with Iranian envoy Saeed
Jalili a week ago. Turkish and Hamas officials, including Khaled Meshal,
have directly met in Damascus at least twice since the start of the Gaza
war. Having just joined the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member,
Turkey has pledged to be Hamas’s mouthpiece in the United Nations. `Hamas
officials have full confidence in Turkey,’ Erdogan said on Al Jazeera
television last Sunday. This week Turkey called on the UN to impose
sanctions on Israel.
Hold these actions up against what I wrote last week: the fact that many
Arab leaders are siding more with Israel than with Hamas. They are more
concerned about Iran’s ascendancy than they are about angering their own
people by failing to condemn Israel. By stunning contrast, Turkish leaders
clearly feel they have more to gain from attacking Israel than they have to
lose in allowing Iran a victory in Gaza.
This is no friend of Israel! That is the patent truth.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Olmert’s office has dismissed questions about
whether the Turkish-Israeli alliance is fracturing. `Our relations won’t be
hurt,’ his staff have said, `they will remain strategic.’ They explain that
the leaders are simply posturing for the people in order to position
themselves for coming elections.
Even if that were true – and it’s almost laughable to assume so – shouldn’t the
fact that the Turks hate Israel and that their leaders must denounce the
Jews in order to retain popular legitimacy – be of supreme concern to Israel
regarding the value of this alliance?
What is it about Israel that causes it to brush aside such reality? To
continue searching for and believing and seeing only good intentions in its
most stubborn enemies? Under circumstances such as Israel is in today, this
is no virtue. It contains the seeds of the death of the state!
Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, Gaby Levy, requested an urgent appointment
with Prime Minister Erdogan last week. He was rebuffed – told that a meeting
was impossible as long as attacks on Gaza continued. So what did Israel do?
Ehud Olmert asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Middle East envoy Tony
Blair to mediate between Israel and Turkey!
That’s right: Israel asked Germany for help to try to preserve an alliance
with a country actively working with Israel’s enemies against Israel’s
interests.
The problem with Turkey is not simply a matter of Turkish leaders needing to
appear to snub Israel in order to appease their people. The problem is far
deeper and is ignored at Israel’s peril.
And Israel’s problem is not a lack of enough mediation and diplomacy!
Israel’s problem is that it continues to seek help from nations that do not
have its interests at heart.
If Israel would look honestly at the situation, it would recognize that
about Turkey.
And it would also recognize it about Germany.
Biblical prophecy reveals the inevitable outcome of these relationships.
They are visible already in embryo. They will come as no shock to those
attuned to the prophetic truth as it unfolds in geopolitical reality. But
Israel – credulous, vulnerable, trusting and blind to the very end – will be
absolutely shocked by the monstrous betrayals that will result from its
alliances with both Turkey and Germany.
Read `Why Turkey Matters’ and Jerusalem in Prophecy to learn from your own
Bible the truth about how this tinderbox situation will end. –