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By Jay Bushinsky
The Jewish Chronicle
August 2, 2011
JERUSALEM -- The widening rift between Turkey's Islamic-oriented government and its secularist armed forces is liable to undermine diplomatic efforts to end Ankara's dispute with Israel over the death of nine Turks aboard a ship bound for Gaza despite the Israeli naval blockade.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pronounced erdovan) is demanding a formal apology by Israel, monetary compensation for the bereaved families and an end to Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank -- conditions that his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to meet.
These terms conform to Erdogan's AKP party's negative attitude toward the Jewish state, but run counter to the military establishment's view that cooperation with Israel, especially insofar as arms procurement and development are concerned, should take precedence.
Last week's resignation of the Turkish armed forces' commander in chief, Gen. Isik Kosaner, highlights the army's dissatisfaction with Erdogan's regime. It was preceded by the arrest of at least a dozen senior officers on suspicion of plotting a coup d'etat.
Turkey's overall trade with Israel exceeded four billion dollars annually before the current spat erupted. The state-owned Israel Military Industry was awarded lucrative contracts to modernize M-60 tanks and combat helicopters while various Israeli firms that produce sophisticated electronic equipment have been doing big business with Turkey.
Since the Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli naval commandos who were dropped on deck by ropes from a helicpter overhead, Turkey has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and lowered the level of diplomatic relations with Israel.
Secret talks that have been under way for nearly a year produced a carefully-worded text deemed acceptable to both sides insofar as the officials involved were concerned, but the respective governmental leaders have been unwilling to accept it publicly because of domestic political considerations. According to well-informed sources, a United Nations report on the Mavi Marmara's seizure in international waters has been held up until the end of this month lest it render the tentative Turkish-Israeli deal inoperable.
The deterioration of Israel's diplomatic links with Turkey is a major a blow to one of the underlying concepts of Israeli foreign policy, i.e. the forging of close ties with the so-called "Outer Ring" of regional neighbors. This concept, which was forged by the late Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in the 1950's, advocated cordial relations with Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia and Cyprus to offset the enmity that existed at that time with the "Inner Ring," consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
In the interim, peace treaties were concluded with Egypt and Jordan and the once-flourishing political and economic relationship with Iran collapsed due to the Islamic revolution in which the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gained the ascendancy in Teheran.
Erdogan's hostility toward Israel is due, in part, to his belief that Turkey's predominant interest lies in strengthening its ties with the neighboring Arab states (which were part of the pre-World War I Ottoman Turkish Empire), Iran and the predominantly Muslim states of Central Asia.
On the other hand, the military establishment, which upholds the principles advocated by Kemal Ataturk, the flamboyant general who overthrew the empire and established the Republic of Turkey in 1924 as a secularist, Western-oriented state, regards the relationship with Israel as a mutually-beneficial embodiment of this stand.
Prior to Erdogan's rise to the premiership, successive Turkish governments tried in vain to gain entry to the European Union, basing this goal on the fact that Turkish territory extends into southeastern Europe.
But these bids were thwarted by several European states, including France, which were wary of including Turkey's 70 million Muslims in their geographical and political fraternity. This attitude enhanced the prospect that Erdogan's Islamic-oriented party could defeat its secularist rivals. In the meantime, Erdogan systematically eroded the army's longtime ability to overthrow regimes that veered from Ataturk's political philosophy. Since 1960 it staged four coups d'etat to this end.
At the rank and file level, the cooling of Israel's relationship with Turkey has meant a change of direction for vacation travel. No longer do Israelis flock in the hundreds of thousands to Turkey's relatively inexpensive, attractive and well-serviced tourist resorts.
Instead, Greece, especially its Eastern Mediterranean islands, is the current preference.
This trend was bolstered by the Greek navy's action last month and in June as well to prevent a second flotilla of Gaza-bound ships from challenging the Israeli naval blockade. Had Erdogan authorized the Turkish navy to pursue a similar policy and thereby prevent Turkish-owned vessels like the Mavi Marmara from setting sail last year the current impasse in Turkish-Israeli relations might have been avoided.
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