Jerusalem Post
Jan 16 2010

My Word: Turkish dramas
By LIAT COLLINS

The scene was something out of a poorly scripted TV series. The
incident in which Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon tried to show
Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Celikkol that Israel would not take his
country’s latest insult sitting down has itself turned into the bigger
story.

Clearly Jerusalem could not remain quiet in the wake of the Turkish
television series called The Valley of the Wolves, which portrays
Israeli agents and diplomats as bloodthirsty baby-snatchers. Not only
Ayalon lacks subtlety. Just three months ago, a different series,
Ayrilik, portrayed IDF soldiers shooting Palestinian children at
point-blank range.

But Ayalon’s response, dubbed in the Hebrew press "the height of
humiliation," meant attention quickly turned from Jerusalem to Ankara,
where Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was ready and
waiting. Erdogan is no friend of Israel, despite his oft-professed
desire to act as a grand mediator on the Middle East diplomatic scene.
Tellingly, he gets on much better with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Syria’s Bashar Assad and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Hariri,
indeed, was on hand in Ankara last week to hear Erdogan blast Israel
as "a threat to global peace" and question an IDF decision to strike a
terror cell preparing to launch rockets, with a laconic "What’s your
excuse this time?"

Ironically, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was visiting Cyprus as
the diplomatic crisis stepped up. That’s Cyprus, the island split in
two by Turkish occupying forces.

The incident is just the latest in a series of undiplomatic dramas,
perhaps the most memorable being Erdogan’s upbraiding of President
Shimon Peres at last year’s Davos economic summit before walking off
the stage. Talk about public humiliation.

IN 2004, I visited Istanbul on a trip that taught me a lot about
Turkey behind the scenes and was also a lesson in international and
interpersonal relations.

I was invited to cover what I was told was a textile exhibition. I’m
still not sure if it was the result of poor communication or the
warped sense of humor of a colleague that I found myself, less than 24
hours after receiving the invitation, sitting at a table in an
Istanbul hotel staring at a folder containing all the details on a fur
and leather trade show.

As I came to terms with being the only vegetarian and animal rights
activist in the room, the group leaders introduced the journalists to
each other.

Obviously vegetarianism wasn’t the only thing that set me apart. The
rest of the press tour included, among others, members from Iran,
Pakistan and Jordan, as well as Bulgarians, Russians, a Greek and a
Chinese woman.

Nonetheless, we quickly united, as travelers crammed into tour buses
on a set itinerary are apt to do, and slowly I began to appreciate
what a strange sample of the global village we were: The former
Pakistani colonel and a journalist who had made the equivalent of
"aliya" – leaving London where he had grown up for what was meant to
be a better life in Pakistan; two fun-loving Iranians, who
enthusiastically introduced me to compatriots; the Chinese woman who
was six months pregnant with the only child she will be allowed to
have; the Greek who marveled at the similarity of the cuisine and
culture; and the Jordanian whose mother was Turkish.

And then there were the Bulgarians, who swapped stories of ethnic
cleansing with the Turkish tour guide. Having Armenian friends in
Jerusalem, I was aware of the treatment that community had received in
Turkey. What I hadn’t heard were the stories of the Turks expelled
from Greece and the Balkans in a massive tragic swap, so that our tour
guide’s family, while Turkish, had Bulgarian roots. (Later, when I
read Louis de Bernieres’s incredible Birds Without Wings, many missing
pieces of the puzzle fell into place.)

TURKEY’S LOCATION on the crossroads between Europe and Asia affects
every aspect of its commercial and political affairs. During my visit,
the emphasis was on its plans to join the European Union.

More than one local businessman told me how Turkey needed Europe, not
only to improve its economy and lifestyle but also to allow it to
complete its modernization process and remain democratic. Most also
stressed: "Europe needs Turkey, too. Turkey is in an excellent
position to act as a mediator between Europe and the Islamic world."

Several participants at the exhibition envisaged a natural trade route
that would include Iraq and Jordan and, perhaps, Israel.

Throughout the exhibition hall, I met Iranians who assured me: "The
Iranian people has nothing against the Israeli people." One man all
but hugged me. In the days of the shah, his baby sister had required
cardiac surgery and had been flown to Haifa, where doctors at Rambam
Hospital had saved her life.

Of course, it wasn’t all peace and light. I visited one of the two
synagogues hit during an al-Qaida attack in 2003. And the Syrians I
encountered refused to talk to me.

THE WHOLE region is now waiting to see which way Turkey is facing.
With its efforts at joining the EU still stymied, the country now
seems to be looking eastward and weighing its options.

That Erdogan has managed to stay in power since 2002 – periodically
shooting insults at Israel – might mean that Turkey’s proximity to
Syria and Iran is pulling the country toward the hard-line Muslim
world.

As the Pakistani journalist with whom I’m still in touch puts it:
"These are troubling times."

But perhaps the fact that so many years later more than one
participant from my trip still maintains contact means there is some
hope for the global village. It may not make good TV footage, but it
is good news.

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