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Formula for Stability: Turkey Plus Israel As U.S. policymakers scan the ruins for bits of scaffolding with which to reconstruct a semblance of order, they should consider the Israeli-Turkish relationship. The ties between these two countries–democratic, pro-Western, non-Arab–could provide the Middle East with stabilizing ballast, which is now a vital interest of the West. Yet theirs is a peculiar relationship with a complex history. Its potential may be very great indeed, but realizing it requires that the partnership be promoted and managed with utmost care. Here, then, is a short prospectus on the past, present, and future of the Turkish-Israeli relationship, by a co-author who was one of its Turkish architects, and another co-author, one of its Israeli proponents. In the Beginning In 1949, Turkey was the first majority Muslim nation in the world to recognize Israel, and for three decades, remained the only such country to do so. The establishment of formal ties with Israel sent a strong message about Turkey's international orientation and its desire to align itself with the West. Diplomatic missions were opened in 1950 at the legation level. But until the 1990s, relations were more symbolic than substantive. For the first forty years, Turkey withstood constant Arab diplomatic and economic pressure to cut diplomatic ties with Israel. But those ties did not develop any momentum. This was not for any lack of effort on Israel's part. During Israel's first years of independence, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, worked assiduously to forge a close bond with Turkey. Ben-Gurion (who as a young man studied law in Ottoman Istanbul) was keenly aware of the benefits inherent in Turkey's impressive geophysical, material, and human resources. Relations with Ankara were also in accord with what was then a central pillar of Israel's foreign policy: the "periphery states" doctrine. Israel sought to offset the diplomatic and economic isolation imposed by its near Arab neighbors by "leapfrogging" over the ring of hostility and forging ties with more remote, non-Arab neighbors. In particular, Israeli diplomacy invested immense effort in promoting ties with Iran, Ethiopia, and Turkey. Of the three, Turkey proved to be the most important. For several decades, Iran was of comparable significance–until the Islamic revolution. It then became a major source of threat to Israel. Israel also strengthened its ties to Ethiopia, situated as it was on the Red Sea. But the country was gradually devastated by civil war and famine, and the secession of Eritrea undermined its strategic importance. By contrast, Turkey has remained relatively stable, pro-Western, and prosperous over the entire span of Israel's existence. From the very outset, Israel hoped that ties with Turkey–a Western-aligned, Muslim-populated state–would dilute the religious element of the Arab-Israeli conflict and might even evolve into a strategic relationship, reinforcing Israel's ties to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Europe. Turkey, in contrast, showed little interest in any strategic relationship with Israel. Throughout the Cold War period, Ankara preferred to seek allies in the West rather than in the Middle East, opting for a policy of non-engagement in the region. Even in the 1970s, when several of Turkey's Middle Eastern neighbors started to acquire weapons of mass destruction and ballistic delivery systems, Ankara pointedly turned its back on the region. By Turkey's exclusive reliance on NATO, it ran a considerable risk, since the purpose of the alliance was to counter the Warsaw Pact. Was NATO obliged to come to Turkey's defense if it were attacked from the Middle East? On paper–Article 5 of the 1949 Washington Treaty–the answer seemed to be "no." [1] The end of the Cold War finally brought Turkey to reevaluate its ties with Israel.[2] With the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, NATO's future became unclear. The eastward expansion of the European Union (EU), the surfeit of EU-based security and defense schemes, the moves to set up a European rapid reaction force, all created uncertainty for Ankara. Turkey, located on the edge of the NATO alliance and outside the EU, had good reason to wonder whether its established strategic security doctrines were still valid, and whether it still had a place under any "collective umbrella."[3] At the same time, potential threats to Turkey originating in the Middle East began to grow at an alarming pace. At various times, Syria, Iraq, and Iran have had accelerated programs for chemical and biological weapons, as well as long-range delivery systems. And at various times, Turkey has faced threats from terrorist groups that received aid from one or more of these three states. Although the problem has abated since the 1999 arrest and imprisonment of the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan (PKK) head, Abdullah Öcalan, it has not been totally eradicated. Moreover, the danger of radical Islam, fueled by state-sponsored material aid, operational assistance, and spiritual guidance, continues to menace the secular, Western-oriented fabric of the Turkish state. Two other trends combined in the 1990s to nudge Israel and Turkey together: the failure of democratization in Arab countries and European unification. Turkey and Israel are countries with a pronounced pro-Western, secular-democratic preference–a fact that makes them outsiders to the Arab Middle East. A leading analyst has remarked that Turkey and Israel "share ‘a common sense of otherness' from the non-democratic and Arab regimes that dominate their region."[4] This sense of "otherness" deepened in the 1990s when the Arab Middle East failed to undergo the democratizing transition experienced by the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. During the same decade, the accelerated movement toward European unification intensified Turkey and Israel's sense of marginality. Both countries aspired to membership in the European club. But both countries, systematically assailed by adversarial human rights and political lobbies in European capitals, could not count on a European consensus in favor of their inclusion. As the train of European unification accelerated, both Turkey and Israel felt dangerously isolated and marginalized–and the partnership between them became a convenient fallback. However, the liaison between Ankara and Jerusalem would not have gone far had it only been a club for the isolated. Each side had very tangible needs that could be fulfilled by the other. For Turkey, Israel represented a much-needed source of technologically advanced military equipment, which other Western sources denied it. For Israel, with its narrow territorial dimensions, Turkey offered geostrategic depth. In sum, the 1990s provided ample incentive for Israel and Turkey to forge a new relationship. They did not miss the opportunity. The Warming Until early 1996, Ankara seemed to favor economic, technical, and cultural ties with Israel rather than military cooperation.[7] But in 1996, the two countries signed a far-reaching military coordination agreement. The accord provided, among other things, for Israeli air force planes to utilize Turkish air space for training purposes. In August of the same year, the two governments concluded an additional agreement for the exchange of technical knowledge and expertise, paving the way for Israeli upgrading of over fifty Turkish air force F-4 Phantoms. The 1996 accords were followed by a flurry of mutual visits and declarations as to the far-reaching importance each country attached to the relationship. The Turkish army's chief of staff, Ismail Hakki Karadayi, visited Israel in early 1997. This was followed by a visit by Israel's foreign minister David Levy to Ankara. Then Turkey's defense minister Turhan Tayan paid a visit to Israel, as did Çevik Bir (co-author of this piece) in early May 1997. In October of the same year, Israel's chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak visited Turkey. In each case, these visitors brought sizeable entourages in tow, so that by the latter part of 1997 significant numbers of commanding officers from both militaries had met each other.[8] Political pronouncements from the highest echelons openly stressed the strategic importance of the relationship. For example, in August 1997, Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz stated that Turkish-Israeli cooperation "is necessary to the balance of power" in the region.[9] In 1998, Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, likewise argued that the relationship would "induce stability where instability prevails."[10] Yitzhak Mordechai, then Israel's defense minister, portrayed the significance of the ties in the following terms: "When we lock hands, we form a powerful fist ... our relationship is a strategic one."[11] Bilateral trade has also been an important factor in the bond between the two nations. Virtually negligible a decade ago, Israeli-Turkish trade increased steadily through the 1990s, reaching almost a billion dollars in 1999. Israel is today Turkey's chief Middle Eastern export market. The volume of civilian exchanges (tourist, academic, professional, sporting, and cultural) has also expanded dramatically, and Turkey became Israel's most popular tourist destination by the mid-1990s. The new ties weathered several difficult tests, the most severe of which was the rise to power of Necmettin Erbakan, head of the anti-Israel and Islamist Welfare Party, in 1996. From his first days in office, Erbakan embarked on an Islamic agenda, on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts. This included a drive for the Islamicization of the educational system, a promise to bring Turkey closer to the Arab world, and a vision of the creation of a "NATO-like" alliance of Islamic states. Erbakan's anti-Israel rhetoric was rife with traditional anti-Jewish motifs and myths. For him, Israel was a "timeless enemy" and "a cancer in the heart of the Arab and Muslim world." He accused Israel of seeking to undermine the Islamic faith, warned of the specter of a "greater Israel" stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and alleged that a "Zionist conspiracy" was to blame for Turkey's economic difficulties.[12] Before his election, Erbakan pledged to freeze Ankara's relations with Israel and to annul the bilateral agreements between the two countries. Some analysts thought Erbakan's election would constitute a fatal blow to the relationship. It didn't. Under the provisions of Turkey's constitutional system, the military is charged with protecting the secular republican legacy of Kemal Atäturk, the founder of modern Turkey. The army made it clear to Erbakan that it would not sit idly by and watch Turkey turn toward Islam or allow Israeli-Turkish military relations to be jeopardized. In a reaffirmation of secularist supremacy, the secretary general of the powerful National Security Council (MGK)–a body made up of both military and political leaders–declared that Turkey's secular society and educational system formed basic tenets of the country's national security. Erbakan was kept in check. Turkey and Israel concluded their most important military cooperation agreements during Erbakan's tenure, which ended in June 1997, when the Islamist prime minister tendered his resignation under pressure from the MGK. Another test arose from the vehemence of the criticism leveled by those who saw themselves as adversaries (or potential adversaries) of Turkey or Israel (or both). For example, Vice-President ‘Abd al-Halim Khaddam of Syria, the country perhaps most affected by the Israeli-Turkish partnership, warned that it was "the greatest threat to the Arabs since 1948," and that U.S.-Turkish-Israeli ties were "the most dangerous alliance … witnessed since the Second World War."[13] The Iraqi foreign minister Muhammad Sa‘id as-Sahaf termed the joint naval maneuvers in January 1998 "a provocative act."[14] Iranian president Muhammad Khatami also declared that the Turkish-Israeli entente "provokes the feelings of the Islamic world."[15] Egypt, although constrained by its reliance on the United States, also criticized the Israeli-Turkish partnership. Presidential advisor Usama al-Baz warned that military cooperation between Ankara and Jerusalem "would lead to instability and possibly war in the Middle East," and that it "threatens the interests of the Arab states."[16] Egypt's hostility towards the agreement has since abated somewhat, but Cairo still views the Ankara-Jerusalem entente as a formidable obstacle to its aspirations for regional leadership. Most of the criticism, especially from Arab quarters, was intended to persuade Turkey to back out of the relationship. It, too, failed. Since September 2000, the Turkish-Israeli relationship has faced another test. The war of attrition between Israel and the Palestinians has reverberated through much of the Muslim world, including Turkey. Turkish voices have been raised in criticism of Israeli policies.[17] Once again, speculation swirled about the possibility that agreements might be suspended or cancelled. Yet, once again they have stood firm. Certainly, the events of the past two years have dispelled some of the hyperbole surrounding Israeli-Turkish ties. But the partnership did not arise from the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process," and the demise of the process has not stopped cooperation. In fact, the recent criticism of Israel provided an opportunity for many in Turkey to reaffirm the crucial importance of the Israeli-Turkish relationship to Ankara's own national interests. (to continue in March 1 issue…) Çevik Bir was deputy chief of staff of the Turkish armed forces from 1995 to 1998 and negotiated several landmark Turkish-Israeli military agreements. Martin Sherman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya and lectures in political science at Tel Aviv University. [1] Mustafa Kibaroglu, "Turkey and Israel Strategize," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2001, pp. 62. According to Article 5, NATO members "agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America [authors' emphasis] shall be considered an attack against them all." [2] Meltem Müftüler Baç, "Turkey and
Israel: An Evolving Partnership," [3] Kibaroglu, "Turkey and Israel Strategize," p. 63. [4] Daniel Pipes, "A New Axis: The Emerging Turkish-Israeli
Entente," [5] Aysegul Sever, "Turkey and the Syrian-Israeli Peace Talks in the 1990s," Sept. 2001, at www.biu.ac.il [6] Efraim Inbar, "Regional Implications of the Israeli-Turkish
Strategic Partnership," [7] Sever, "Turkey and the Syrian-Israeli Peace Talks." [8] Pipes, "A New Axis." [9] Inbar, "Regional Implications." [10] Ibid. [11] Ibid. [12] Pipes, "A New Axis"; Alan M. Schneider, "Turkey
and Israel: Shared Enemies, [13] Ha'aretz, Apr. 30, 1996, and June 3, 1997. [14] Quoted in Inbar, "Regional Implications." [15] Quoted in ibid. [16] Quoted in ibid. [17] British Broadcasting Corporation, at news.bbc.co.uk. To subscribe to the MEF News list, go to www.meforum.org/subscribe.php. To receive television and media appearance alerts from the Middle East Forum, please sign up for the MEF Alerts mailing list at: www.meforum.org |