TURKEY’S ISLAMIST PM ROCKS ISRAEL TIES
Alexander Murinson

Baltimore Jewish Times
imes/news/jt/international_news/turkeys_islamist_p m_rocks_israel_ties/10388
Feb 5 2009
MD

The diplomatic tragic comedy in relations between Israel and Turkey,
its erstwhile ally in the Middle East and the sister democracy,
has reached its peak.

After an impassioned speech by the octogenarian Israeli head of state
Shimon Peres, in which he explained the Israeli rationale for striking
at Hamas during the Operation Cast Lead – a talk greeted by an applause
of the audience that included many world leaders–Turkish Prime
Minister Recipp Tayip Erdogan blurted out, facing Peres: "You have
the psychology of a culprit … You know how to kill people very well."

After that the Turkish leader, who represents the Islamist ruling
party, stormed from the stage of the Davos World Economic Forum,
probably the most prestigious informal global gathering today.

Such discourse from the leader of the Israel’s alleged friendly
neighbor in the Middle East can hardly be acceptable when Turkey
continues bombing the Kurdish Workers Party’s (PKK) bases and villages
in the Northern Iraq.

This tirade smacks of a recent trend among the European left-wing and
numerous Muslim preachers to equate the Israeli military operations
against armed and ideologically committed Hamas members, a Palestinian
branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the Nazis’ atrocities.

Erdogan’s unrehearsed outburst was captured on tape. The verbal
exchange of fire earned him immediate kudos from the Muslim world;
the Islamist Turkish leader received the congratulations of Hamas,
Iranian government and Lebanese members of parliament. The Turkish
leader received a triumphant welcome at home. Upon his return from
Davos, Edogan was greeted as the Fatih or Savior of the "Turkish honor"
by thousands of supporters at the Istanbul airport.

Meanwhile, most Western media outlets of record, softened the message
in their translation of what Erdogan actually said. BBC’s translation
was: "I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. You killed
people. And I think that it is very wrong."

But before leaving the Swiss resort, the Turkish leader gave a press
conference for the world audience. For the Western, especially
European, consumption (Turkey still holds a hope of joining the
European Union), he explained his precipitous departure by the fact
that he was given only 14 minutes against the 25 minutes allotted
for the Peres’s presentation.

He was presumably peeved by the obvious injustice as the leader of
Turkish Justice and Development party (AKP). He went further explaining
his parting exclamation on the Davos stage: "This is enough of Davos
for me. I will never come back."

He explained that he had been mad at the panel’s moderator, who did
not give him an equal time with the Jewish leader and was angered by
the loud voice of Shimon Peres. (To the Turkish audience, there was
a hint of the anti-Turkish conspiracy formed by the international
Jewry and American Armenians! The panel’s moderator David Ignatius,
of the Washington Post, has Armenian roots.)

This escapade was the crescendo in the Turkish diplomatic campaign
to make the Israeli defensive actions illegitimate in the world’s
opinion. Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, the Islamist
government harshly condemned the anti-terrorist incursion of the
Israeli troops into Gaza.

Shortly, after the panel, Shimon Peres called Erdogan and apologized
to the Turkish leader. The Israel’s President Office denied this fact
on the next day.

In many Israeli media outlets the offensive tirade was softened
for domestic audience. Allegedly, Erdogan said, "You are killing
people." This obviously is a statement of fact, namely that in the
well-documented conflict in Gaza like any other military conflict in
the highly populated area such as Dresden bombed into dust by the
American and British bombardment, and more recent carpet bombings
in Serbia and Afghanistan, where the civilian population suffered
"disproportionately."

The Israeli government was slow and too deliberative in its
reaction. This was especially striking on the background of the
anti-Semitic hysteria that swept Turkey in recent weeks. In fact, the
increasing anti-Semitic discourse became almost a daily occurrence
in Turkey since the AKP (Turkish abbreviation of the party’s name)
since the "moderate" Islamists came to power. In 2005, Mein Kampf, the
Hitler’s manifesto, had a very prominent place on Turkey’s bestseller
list. It was on display in all the major bookstores in Istanbul and
Ankara, when I visited there that year.

Despite Erdogan’s assurance that he is against anti-Semitism, Turkey’s
government remains in denial about the anti-Semitic hysteria that
swept through Turkish streets and more conservative neighborhoods.

There is evidence that vilification of the state of Israel and Jews
in the media, TV and radio networks is manipulated by the rhetoric
of the Turkish leader ands allegations fly from Erdogan’s mouth that
there is an anti-Turkish campaign unleashed by the "Jewish-owned"
international press.

The ultra-conservative dailies such as Yeni Safak, and Vakit spew daily
installments about Jewish crimes against humanity these days. Turkish
Vahdet daily, a mouthpiece of Hizballah, reads like Der Sturmer in
the 1930s. According to the American Jewish Committee there was even
outbreak of violence against Jews and Jewish property, in particular
in the seaport city of Izmir.

The liberal Turkish daily Radikal published an article critical of
the anti-Semitic and racist frenzy that seized the traditionally
Jewish-friendly country. The picture that accompanied the article
shows a group of Turkish men standing next to the restaurant. It
showed men holding slogans such as "Dogs are welcome. The Jews and
Armenians are not allowed."

The Israeli government took a long time to ignore this trend in Turkish
public sphere, but with the Erdogan’s tirade, it literally exploded in
the Israeli president’s face. The Israeli cautious, if not to say muted
reaction, has a lot to do with the reasons of the state. Israel holds
multi-million contracts in military procurement for the Turkish Army
and security forces. Turkey allows Israeli air force pilots to train
and fly over its terrain, which is very similar to the mountainous
terrains of Iran and Syria. But the military cooperation and the
sense of genuine camaraderie between two democracies in the Middle
East could be on the wane.

As the Israeli government ponders the immediate future of the
Israeli-Turkish relations, the Jewish state must give not only a due
weight the fate of military and other bilateral contracts, but the
tolerance, if not active sponsoring, of the anti-Semitic atmosphere
in Turkey reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s.

Under the Islamist government, Turkey has gone a long way toward
aligning itself with the likes of Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal
and Syria President Bashar Assad. As the concomitant of this turn
from its Kemalist foundations, the combination of the government’s
anti-Israeli rhetoric and the growing anti-Semitic campaign in
Turkish media puts in doubt the strategic and military partnership
which flourished in the 1990s.

Dr. Alexander Murinson, who specializes in Israeli-Turkish relations,
writes from Baltimore. He is author of the forthcoming "Turkey’s
Entente with Israel and Azerbaijan: State Identity and Security in
the Middle East and Caucasus." (Routledge)