TURKEY’S ISRAEL PROBLEM
by Daniel Larison

The Week Magazine
7/Turkeys_Israel_problem
Feb 13 2009

One of the most important and least noticed casualties of Israel’s
three-week offensive in Gaza was its alliance with the secular
Muslim nation of Turkey. As in 2006 during the bombardment of
Lebanon, Turkish public reaction to Israel’s operation in Gaza was
extremely negative. But this time the Turkish government was a much
more vociferous critic of its military partner, and Prime Minister
Erdogan went so far as to raise the possibility of Israel’s expulsion
from the United Nations. Erdogan was reportedly livid that Israeli
had launched the Gaza strikes without informing him, which was
particularly humiliating for the Turkish leader since the strikes
effectively sabotaged Erdogan’s efforts to mediate between Israel
and Syria. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Erdogan
delivered a brief, angry rebuke to Israeli President Shimon Peres
and dramatically walked off the stage, winning plaudits in Turkey,
Gaza, and Iran.

The episode summed up the growing frustration in Turkey’s AKP (Justice
and Development Party) government with Israeli policy and showed the
strain that the conflict in Gaza had put on Israel’s only alliance
with a Muslim country. More than that, though, it reflected growing
Turkish disillusionment with all of its Western allies over the last
decade. The greatest danger to Turkey and the West now comes from
failing to recognize how Western policies have alienated the Turks
and misinterpreting their disillusionment as simple rejection.

The disillusionment is real and deep. Surveys of "anti-American"
sentiment reveal that Turkey is now the nation with the worst opinion
of the United States, even though it is one of our most strategically
important allies. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 75
percent of Turks have a very unfavorable view of the United States. The
reasons for this are not hard to fathom. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was
deeply unpopular in Turkey from the beginning, as it was in most other
allied countries. But the war poses unique dangers to Turkey’s security
and territorial integrity, given the potential encouragement to Kurdish
separatism that the example of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq
offers. As the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) rebellion has resumed
inside Turkey, using bases in northern Iraq and prompting Turkish
cross-border raids, Washington’s slow response to Ankara’s concerns
about the PKK in Iraq has infuriated the Turkish public.

Turkish public opinion has likewise turned strongly against the
West over the question of Turkey’s proposed membership in the
European Union. Resistance from France and Germany has indefinitely
delayed Turkey’s admission into the E.U., marking one of the more
significant setbacks for Erdogan’s government, which came to power on
a platform calling for entry into the E.U. Ironically, the Turkish
popular backlash against Israel’s strikes in Gaza now gives Israel
an incentive to want to keep Turkey out of the E.U., where public
opinion already runs quite heavily against Israel.

There are some prospects for improving U.S.-Turkish ties, but this
may hinge on President Obama breaking one of his campaign pledges,
namely his support for the House resolution recognizing the Armenian
genocide of 1915. President Obama has the opportunity to undo some
of the damage to America’s image in Turkey if he follows through on
his promise to end the war in Iraq, and he may be able to use Turkey
as a mediator in negotiations with Iran. But this would be much more
difficult if the resolution passed the House with his support. The
resolution is a purely symbolic and historically valid recognition of
the genocide, but the issue remains highly charged within Turkey. In
2008, Turkey threatened to cut off supply routes to U.S. forces in
Iraq if the resolution passed, and it is likely that the same threat
would be made again this year. Unfortunately, the Obama administration
will first need to repair the substantive policy breaches with Turkey
before it can address that historic injustice as it should.

As for the crisis in Turkish-Israeli relations, Israel’s elections
earlier this week seem likely to only make matters worse. While it
remains unclear which party will ultimately run the next government,
the conservative Likud Party and ultra-nationalist Our Home party
both made big gains, a trend that threatens the Middle East peace
negotiations that Erdogan has been trying to facilitate. While strong
military and institutional ties will keep the Israel-Turkey alliance
from completely fracturing, the diverging directions of the two
electorates are sure to chill relations between their governments
and create many more occasions for diplomatic disputes.

– DANIEL LARISON is a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago and
contributing editor at The American Conservative. He also writes on
the blog Eunomia.