Israel treads carefully as Turkey teeters
THE FAILED coup in Turkey against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday night caught the Israeli leadership by surprise. For hours, while the drama unfolded in Ankara and Istanbul, Jerusalem remained silent, awaiting developments.
All Israeli officials and diplomats were issued clear instructions not to make any comments. Only 15 hours after the coup began, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a sterile statement saying that “Israel respects the democratic process in Turkey and looks forward to the continuation of the reconciliation process between Turkey and Israel”. What made the statement extraordinary was the fact that the government very rarely issues official statements on Shabbat.
The decision to release a statement seven hours before the end of Shabbat was presumably Erdogan taken because Israel’s silence seemed inappropriate by that point. It is hard to argue that the Israeli leadershipwouldbesorrytoseeMrErdogan go.Theconsensusamongdiplomatsand intelligence officials is that the Turkish president is single-handedly responsible for the crisis in ties between the two countries over the past decade. The strategic alliance that used to exist between Israel and Turkey was based mainly on close co-operation between the two countries’ armies. The swift removal of Mr Erdogan, followed by a period of military rule, would not have been unattractive to Israel’s leaders, or to those of other Western nations for that matter. As it quickly became clear that the coup had failed and Mr Erdogan remained firmly in control — perhaps more so than ever —themainconcernbecamethe official rapprochement deal, signed only two weeks earlier. The expectation on both sides is that the short-lived coup will not have any implications for the reconciliation as both the Netanyahu and Erdogan governments still have a clear interest in restoring ties to bolster their countries’ regional position in a period of chaos across the Middle East. For Mr Erdogan, the need to shore up local alliances has now become even more acute. The coup is expected to sorely test his relations with the US, where Fethullah Gulen, the Islamic preacher accused by the government of guiding the coup, is currently in exile; and with the EU, which has already expressed its misgivings over the purges taking place in Turkey since the uprising.
Mr Erdogan also remains eager to appear the patron of the Palestinians through the new deal, whereby Turkey will transfer aid to Gaza and fund building projects in the Strip.
Israel is sceptical about how strong the ties can get while Mr Erdogan is still in power, but is anxious to restore at least some of the security links with the largest non-Arab country in the region and Nato’s second-largest military power.Whatevertheirprivatethoughts about each other, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Erdogan are pragmatic men and they realise they are both here to stay — for the time being.