What Erdogan’s win means for Israel
With Turkey’s elections now decided and the unsurprising victory of the longtime ruling AKP Party and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israel will once again be dealing with the same government in Ankara as it has in the past.
Turkey and Israel have patched up relations over the last two years after an acrimonious era of tensions between 2009 and 2020 and ties have warmed.
Indeed, President Isaac Herzog called his Turkish counterpart on Monday night to congratulate him on his reelection.
Ties may superficially appear close, however, because significant challenges remain, and Ankara’s
media often hint at conspiracies and other scandals that could upset the apple cart. Israel’s leadership today is also cautious and not prone to naïve thinking. It understands Israel’s growing power and position.
Both Israel and Turkey are growing in their strategic power, and they recognize
how this new politics, which is not just post-Cold War but also part of a shifting world order, works.
The outcome of the Turkish election isn’t a major surprise in Israel. Israeli politics also has had its moments over the last decade and a half, when it appeared that a large coalition of centrist, left- and right-wing parties might push longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu aside.
While it’s true that Netanyahu did leave office in May 2021 after a large coalition barely managed to come together to unseat him, the overall trend is that Netanyahu rules a center-right political bloc that is not likely to quickly change.
Turkey and Israel are not similar, but there are commonalities between the historic trajectories of the countries. Among these trajectories is that early Zionist leaders such as David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi studied in Istanbul in the early 20th century. There they saw firsthand the modern Turkish nationalist movement, which has commonalities
or even illicit about the ties. Countries – like people – only keep their meetings private if they are embarrassed to be seen with the other party in public.
This is one of the reasons why Azerbaijan only recently opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, even though Israel has had one in Baku since 1993: Baku did not want to draw too much attention to the relationship, because it would cause problems for Azerbaijan in its efforts to gain a leadership role in the Islamic world.
That has now changed. Herzog’s visit – by its very nature – is a high-profile one. Azerbaijan is not trying to hide its ties with Israel, but is now willing to highlight them.
Cohen’s visit to Croatia also signals how Israel’s foreign policy has shifted its emphasis. While Cohen met last month with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Brussels, the visit to Croatia, and from there to Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, is a signal that Israel understands the EU is much more than just Western Europe.
“Strengthening the ties with Israel’s friends in the EU is an important step in furthering Israel’s interests,” Cohen said in Zagreb.
This is a continuation of a policy that Netanyahu put into practice before he was turned out of office in 2021: developing ties – sub-alliances – with countries inside the EU to offset the anti-Israel sentiment of its bureaucracy in Brussels and some of its other member countries, such as Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal.
This meant cozying up with some of Europe’s illiberal democracies, such as Hungary and – until Holocaust-related issues drove a wedge in the ties – with Poland.
When Yair Lapid became foreign minister in 2021, he tried to recalibrate Israel’s ties with the EU, deemphasize relations with the 11 Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU since 2004, and focus more on improving ties with the EU bureaucracy in Brussels and the Western European countries.
Cohen’s current trip to Croatia and Central Europe is a sign that Israel is once again trying to forge close relations with sub-alliances inside the EU more sympathetic to its concerns and which can then have some influence on the EU’s overall Middle East posibig move that we worked on at the President’s Residence.”
“According to the agreement that was coalescing, the coalition would put up for a vote only one candidate and hold the vote on schedule on June 14,” the statement said. “The Knesset speaker has not yet announced the date of the election nor the final day to put forward candidates to fulfill the agreements, but Lapid found it necessary to ‘steal horses’ and announce his candidate without coordinating with the rest of the opposition, all while the election on June 14 is not certain.”
“This is a magnificent owngoal against the efforts we have been investing in for weeks and is a prize for the coalition. We recommend to him [Lapid] and to us all to focus our efforts on what is important: to ensure that a date is set and to ensure that the coalition puts forward one candidate, as was agreed to, so that the opposition’s representation will be assured,” the statement said.
Later on Monday, Gantz said his party had not yet made a decision about whether it would propose its own candidate.
The opposition still had not received proof that the coalition will give it a spot on the committee, he said, reiterating his threat that if the coalition decides to occupy both spots on the Judicial Selection Committee, his party would leave the negotiations.
“We will not hold talks at the President’s Residence while the legislature is advancing a coup d’état,” he said.
Gantz said there would be no agreements with the coalition on the judicial reforms without a “guaranteed and clear promise that there will be no more legislation” on disputed issues without broad agreement.
A source in Likud on Monday said the negotiation teams from the coalition and opposition would resume talks at the President’s Residence on Tuesday after a brief hiatus due to marathon budget debates and votes last week.
Labor also weighed in on the argument over the Judicial Selection Committee on Monday. Labor MK Efrat Rayten said she would submit her candidacy for the Judicial Selection Committee.
Michaeli called on her fellow opposition party leaders to meet and reach a joint agreement over the opposition’s lead candidate.
Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman on Monday criticized Lapid and Gantz. Delaying the judicial reform would damage the economy because it will lead to a prolonged period of uncertainty, he said. The talks were a “mistake,” and Gantz and Lapid should exit them immediately, he added.
According to law, MKs in the Judicial Selection Committee are chosen in a confidential vote, and the Knesset speaker must announce the vote two weeks in advance. This means that if the vote is held on June 14, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana will need to announce it by this Wednesday, and MKs will have until June 7 to file their candidacy.
Therefore, by June 7 the opposition should know the coalition’s intentions. If the coalition puts forward just one candidate, the second candidate will come from the opposition. But if the coalition puts forward two candidates, then it likely means it intends to appoint both to the committee and leave out the opposition.
Since the vote is confidential, the coalition cannot ensure ahead of time that it will succeed in doing this.
According to the coalition agreement between the Likud and Otzma Yehudit, the latter will receive a slot on the committee. Since the second minister on the committee must be a woman (the first automatically being Levin), and Otzma Yehudit’s three ministers are all men, the representative will likely come from the Knesset. This means that if the coalition puts forward one candidate, it will likely come from Otzma Yehudit.
The Israel Bar Association representatives are unknown because it is in the midst of an election for its new chairperson.
Even assuming that the Judicial Selection Committee is formed on time, the law says it only convenes at the justice minister’s behest. Levin could refrain from convening the committee to argue later that since it has not begun its work, its makeup can still be changed, according to a Likud source.
Two Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice Esther Hayut and Justice Anat Baron, are scheduled to retire in October. A delay in convening the committee could lead to a delay in appointing new justices to replace them on the 15-member court.