Israel and Turkey have been close to normalizing ties before. In April 2014, Erdogan stated that a deal for “normalization” would be signed within a few weeks. But shortly afterward, Israel’s Operation Protective Edge was launched in Gaza, leading to scathing condemnations by Turkish leaders.
The two sides were close to normalization again late last year, when reports indicated that Turkish and Israeli officials had agreed on a compensation fund to pay the families of the nine Turks killed on the flotilla. Under that arrangement, which to date has not been finalized, all Turkish legal claims against Israel would be dropped and ambassadors would return to both countries.
“Every six months or so, there are reports that the two sides are on the verge of a deal, but there is still lots of wariness and distrust between the two sides. The biggest sticking point is the Gaza blockade, and it isn’t one that is easy to resolve,” said Michael Koplow, an expert on Turkey and the policy director for the Israel Policy Forum think tank.
“Turkey has maintained its three conditions for reconciliation – apology, compensation, and a lifting of the blockade – since 2010, and while the first two have already been hammered out, the Gaza issue will remain thorny,” Koplow added.
At the same time, Israel has serious issues with Turkey’s support for the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
“Jerusalem views this policy as extremely unhelpful, as actively damaging to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and there is conjecture that Hamas would have collapsed by now in Gaza were it not for Turkish patronage,” Koplow said.
During the flurry of reports of Turkish-Israeli rapprochement late last year, Turkey did expel a top Hamas operative, Saleh al-Arouri, from the country last December. Al-Arouri was one of the founders of Hamas’s “armed wing” and is considered to have masterminded Hamas’s kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in Gush Etzion in June 2014.
“The situation in Turkey is highly unstable. Turkey is simultaneously dealing with terrorist attacks from the Islamic State and the PKK, and there isn’t an obvious end in sight to either,” said Koplow.
Recent attacks in Turkey haven’t been limited to Istanbul. There were two deadly bombings in the capital of Ankara, one on March 13 that killed 37 people and another on Feb. 17 that killed 30. Both attacks were blamed on Kurdish militants.
Another attack, on Jan. 12, was carried out by Islamic State and killed 13 visitors to Istanbul, a similar situation to the latest attack.
The instability in Turkey might play to Israel’s advantage, Brooklyn College’s Fishman believes.
“With the instability in Turkey right now, [the Turks] need to score points, especially with the United States. The best way to get that is through Israel,” he said.
“Turkey is also nowhere the regional power it was in 2010, when relations broke off [with Israel],” he added. “Turkey needs Israel because the region has changed. You have a divided region, a war in Syria, and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”
JNS