WHAT TURKEY RISKS WHEN IT COURTS THE ‘STREET’
by David A. Harris
New Jersey Jewish News
pedWhatTurkeyRisks.html
Feb 4 2009
NJ
I have long admired Turkey. Yet with the outburst of animosity for
Israel and the anxiety awakened in the Turkish-Jewish community,
I wonder what’s going on and what the future holds.
If this only emanated from the "street" or from an extremist fringe,
it would be worrisome enough. But it starts at the top. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the loudest, attacking Israel in a
manner both vicious and disconnected from facts.
He has described Israeli policy in Gaza as a "massacre" and a "crime
against humanity" that would bring about Israel’s "self-destruction"
through divine punishment. These words are inflammatory — and wrong.
Israel yearns for a secure and lasting peace. No one has more fully
embodied that vision, or worked more tirelessly to achieve a new
start for the Middle East, than Shimon Peres, Israel’s president,
a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Erdogan’s fellow panelist at the World
Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
Yet Erdogan essentially called Peres a child killer before storming off
the stage at Davos last week. Maybe he gained popularity in the Turkish
street, where anger against Israel and Jews has been stoked in recent
weeks, but Erdogan’s unstatesmanlike behavior did Turkey no service.
What would Turkey do if its population were targeted, day after day,
by merciless enemies? Actually, we know the answer. When Turkey has
deemed its national interests in jeopardy, it has acted, irrespective
of the views of the international community.
Fearing union between Greece and Cyprus, Turkey rushed troops to
the northern part of the island in 1974, where much of the Turkish
community lived. A new breakaway government was declared. The United
Nations Security Council deplored the move. Only Turkey recognized
the new state. Then came, observers insisted, a deliberate policy of
settlement from Turkey to create facts on the ground.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has targeted Turkey for years,
initially seeking an independent Kurdish state that included part of
Turkey. Now it claims to seek greater autonomy for the millions of
Kurds in Turkey. As the PKK has apparently lowered its demands, has
Turkey pursued talks with that murderous group? Absolutely not! And
it has urged other nations to avoid any contact, either.
Indeed, in the late 1990s, Ankara threatened to send its army
into neighboring Syria if the PKK continued to receive protection
there. Luckily for Turkey, Syria was smarter than Hamas. Damascus
got the message loud and clear.
Since 1993, Turkey has sealed its border with landlocked Armenia
because it objects to Armenian policy toward Azerbaijan. But, Erdogan
now accuses Israel of creating "an open-air prison" by sealing its own
frontier with a hostile territory, even while humanitarian assistance
continues to cross from Israel to Gaza.
Erdogan even contends that Hamas is a reasonable negotiating
partner. He invited its leaders to Ankara, though Hamas had not met the
Quartet’s demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence, and abide
by previous agreements. It still has not and repeatedly declares its
goal of Israel’s destruction, assisted by weapons from Iran.
It’s so easy to tell another country what it should or shouldn’t do
in the face of threats, especially when one’s own country is 10 times
more populous and 38 times larger in size. But ultimately, Israel, like
its friend Turkey, must make tough choices to protect its citizens.
The Turkey I know and admire would recoil from partners like Iran
and Hamas. Their central beliefs are antithetical to everything that
modern, democratic Turkey ought to stand for.
I have long valued Turkey’s increasingly important role in regional and
global affairs. Turkey’s growing link to Europe, its long-standing NATO
membership, its strong ties with the United States, its historic place
as a haven for Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, its contributions
to UN peacekeeping operations — including in southern Lebanon —
and its mutually beneficial ties with Israel have all served it well.
In that spirit, I have acted on the assumption that friends help
friends. When Ankara needed assistance in Washington, or in European
capitals, Turkish officials often turned to Jewish groups, the American
Jewish Committee among them, and whenever we could, we have helped. And
when a major earthquake devastated Adapazari in 1999, the AJC built
a school for 400 children as a gesture of solidarity and friendship.
Only Erdogan knows how far he wants to take his increasingly
belligerent posture. It certainly has resulted in joy in Iran and
Hamas’ radical circles. Iranian leaders now talk of him as a Nobel
Peace Prize candidate. But with friends like that, who needs enemies?
Without an ounce of hyperbole, Turkey’s future direction has enormous
geopolitical consequences for its neighborhood and beyond. It bears
very close watching.