By Arthur Koll
In recent weeks, Turkey has made diplomatic overtures toward Israel, signaling a desire to repair damaged relations between the two countries. But Ankara will need to go significantly further than sending feelers to Jerusalem if it is serious about rebuilding ties.
In the past, close relations between Israel and Turkey formed an important anchor in Israeli foreign policy, spanning diplomatic, political, and military-intelligence cooperation. The ties also included large-scale trade, and hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists visited Turkey annually.
These ties developed gradually, when Turkey was still under the control of a secular government, led by the ideology of its secular founder, Ataturk, and backed by the military, which had a special status.
When Recep Tayyip Erdogan was first elected Prime Minister in 2003 and came to power with his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), security and intelligence cooperation with Israel were not immediately harmed, and neither were trade or tourism, which continued to break records year after year.
Yet with time, the Turkish military’s secular chiefs and civil service were replaced with Islamists, and the relationship with Israel began to deteriorate as Erdogan and the AKP tightened their grip on power.
The 2010 Mavi Marmara incident marked the start of a deep crisis, when Turkish citizens who sought to break Israel’s security restrictions on Gaza sailed to the Strip with Erdogan’s approval, violently clashing with the IDF, resulting in the deaths of Turkish extremists.
Erdogan’s language towards Israel became more extreme, as he attempted, unsuccessfully, to act against Israel through international legal maneuvers. Rounds of conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza saw Erdogan position himself openly and vocally on the side of Hamas, and employ language that bordered on anti-Semitic.
In 2018, Turkey ejected Israel’s ambassador after deadly clashes on the Gaza border, sparked by Hamas’s ‘return marches.’ Since then, the chargé d'affaires at the Israeli embassy in Ankara has managed what is left of the bilateral relationship.
But Ankara seems to have gained little, if anything, by its hostility toward Israel. Jerusalem has found strategic alternatives to Turkey, in the form of important new Mediterranean alliances with Greece and Cyprus, where special relations, joint military training, and shared economic interests, including cooperation on offshore gas reserves, are creating powerful partnerships.
Israel has also nurtured open, strategic cooperation with a number of key Sunni Arab states in the Gulf and North Africa.
Yet Ankara and Jerusalem still find themselves, sometimes, on the same side, with similar strategic interests. The latest example of this could be found in the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Media reports suggested that Turkey and Israel were principal backers of Baku, creating a clear merger of interests.
Still, Israel has been badly burned by Turkey in recent years. Past attempts by Jerusalem to reconcile were only met with hostility, as exemplified by Turkey’s reaction to a decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu to compensate the families of the Mavi Marmara casualties and to express regret over the incident – a decision that did nothing to ameliorate relations.
To make matters worse, Turkey spent years providing asylum for senior Hamas members on its territory, from where they coordinate operations against Israel.
Erdogan ultimately views himself as the leader of the Islamic world, resulting in his decision to create an alliance with Hamas, which is a designated terror organization in many Western states. He has also been attempting to gain a foothold in the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem.
As a result, it has been surprising to see statements by a senior Erdogan advisor on foreign relations about a new desire to restore relations with Israel, including renewed defense cooperation.
It is possible that Turkey came to the conclusion that fixing the damaged ties is in its interest for both geopolitical as well as economic reasons. In this context, Ankara is seeking a way to connect and gain from the large gas reserves found in the eastern Mediterranean, from which it has been left out.
Unlike in the past, so far Jerusalem seems to be reserved in response to Turkey’s overtures. Israel has simply been ‘burned’ too many times by Erdogan’s hostility. Clear confidence building measures are now needed to restore trust.
If Ankara’s intentions are genuine, it would have to shut down Hamas’s activity on its territory to prove it. This would serve as an important confidence building act. At the same time, it is unrealistic to expect that Israel will abandon its new Mediterranean allies for a possible improvement in relations with Ankara.
Ambassador Arthur Koll is the former Deputy Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he concluded his service as the head of the Media and Public Affairs Division. He is a former Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro and served as instructor of the National Defense College. Mr. Koll also served as Consul of the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta, USA and as Director of Projects for the Central Europe & Eurasia Division.