ARUTZ SHEVA
by Dr Mordechai Kedar
May 29, 2014
Israel must change its tactics vis a vis Turkey. Erdogan is not a potential friend.
From the first day on which the Islamic Party gained control of the government of Turkey, Israel has attempted to pacify and reassure Erdogan, despite that leader’s proven antagonism to Jews – in line with his extreme Islamic approach – that was all too evident by the 1980’s. During that period, he wrote a play called “Mas-kum-ya”, an abbreviation of “The Free builders, Communists and Jews” and recently called an anti-Erdogan demonstrator “Jewish seed”, considered a most denigrating and humiliating insult in Turkey.
Israel has tried to be optimistic since his election twelve years ago, in 2002, noting that the army remained basically secular and therefore continued its good relations with Israel.
However, Islamic clouds gradually darkened the relations between the two countries, so that as the trend towards Islamism grew stronger in Turkey, Israel’s value to Ankara lessened appreciably, as did any mutual cooperation. Israel’s official spokesmen tried to minimize the significance of these developments, but the bitter reality struck Israel in the face when Erdogan – under IHH camouflage – organized the Marmara flotilla in order to break the sea embargo that Israel maintains on Gaza.
ArchitectGuy on Israel 