Israeli-Turkish Reconciliation Deal Offers Lifeline to Both Sides
Close relationship is of supreme strategic importance to Israel and Turkey, and Israel could have ended the crisis six years ago.
Zvi Bar’el Jun 27, 2016
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The Israeli-Turkish reconciliation agreement is six years overdue. It could have been achieved within days of the tragic incident in May 2010, when Israeli soldiers killed nine Turkish activists (a 10th died four years later from their injuries) aboard a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to the Gaza Strip. Immediately afterward, Turkey demanded only an apology and payment of compensation: Its demand for an end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza hadn’t yet become the nonnegotiable condition that caused this multiyear delay.
Israel agreed to pay compensation and later, at the urging of U.S. President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized. This could have been an opportunity for it to remove the Gaza blockade – or at least agree to the terms ultimately included in the current agreement. After all, building a power plant, hospital and desalination facility, and sending aid through Ashdod Port won’t end the blockade or permit freedom of movement to and from Gaza, so Israel wouldn’t have been seen as capitulating.
On this issue, Turkey actually capitulated: It backed down from its ultimatum to end the blockade completely.
Nevertheless, this shouldn’t be seen as an Israeli achievement. Rather, it paints Turkey as the only country that still cares about 1.8 million Gazans who are actually Israel’s responsibility, and Israel as legitimizing Turkey’s ties with Hamas’ leadership in Gaza.
The clause stating that Turkey won’t let Hamas conduct military activity on its territory still enables Hamas to maintain representation there, use Turkey as a base for diplomatic activity and, above all, fundraise there.