After a harrowing chase across a Syrian border planted with landmines and organic carrots, they get to Tel Aviv. The hapless third secretary is made to sit on a really low chair. When he asks for a 1917 copy of Sir Ernest Satow’s “A Guide to Diplomatic Practice” and a venti frappuccino, he is given short shrift and a tall Americano instead. Once free, the diplomat smuggles a copy of the “Metal Storm” taped to his inside leg, intending to set it alight over Cleveland. Armageddon is only prevented when the stewardess inadvertently spills a diet coke on his lap. They fall in love.”Anyone who thought that diplomacy takes its cues from time-honored rules of protocol rather than the law of a children’s playground need only look at the latest row between Israel and Turkey. One can only feel sympathy for the poor Turkish ambassador who must have felt the lunatics were in charge of the diplomatic asylum when he was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, denied a cup of coffee and made to pose unwittingly for news photographers on a chair low off the ground. This was intended as a “yah boo sucks” protest against the latest installment of the grim adventure on Turkish TV, showing Mossad kidnapping a Turkish baby.
It was intended, too, as a thumbing of the nose to the Turkey’s prime minister. Mr. Erdoğan has been a stern opponent of Israeli militarism, and while his criticism is clearly heartfelt and a luxury which some Western leaders may be envious of, he sometimes appears to enjoy the role just a little too much. He takes off the gloves when dealing with Israel, but in front of world opinion seems unconcerned about the “mere rumors” of Iran’s nuclear capability or Sudan’s behavior in Darfur. He courts Turkish public opinion and the approval of the Arab street (and shopping malls). The Israeli Foreign Ministry is now in the hands of a party which is unashamedly populist and unembarrassed about playing to his own public opinion, and now it would seem not afraid publicly to call Turkey’s bluff.
This would seem to defeat the whole purpose of diplomacy which is to make your points without losing control of the situation. Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Turkish foreign minister and author of the famous doctrine “zero problems with neighbors,” must be pulling his hair out. And while Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has subsequently apologized for the treatment of the Turkish ambassador, his colleague, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, will no doubt be looking under the chairs for whoopee cushions when he visits Ankara on a fence-mending mission at the end of the week.
While the farcical drama of the ambassador’s seat might seem to represent a nadir in international niceties, the truth is that furniture has long been at the center of the diplomatic process and the height of chairs in particular. In 1677, France and the Ottomans nearly came to blows over whether the French envoy, the Marquis de Nointel, was entitled to place his stool or tabouret on the elevated platform (sofa) on which sat the grand vezir, Kara Mustafa Pasha. The Frenchman was physically ejected from the palace and lingered for several days under house arrest. The Venetian bailo caused similar ructions in 1790 (according to the Ottoman protocol registers recently edited by Hakan Karateke) when he demanded not so much a cup of Starbucks but an entire horse. And, of course, Ottoman ambassadors could be equally shirty. In Vienna in 1688, Zülfikar Pasha positively refused to bow three times and kiss the hem of the holy roman emperor’s robe as protocol required.
Modern diplomacy, one hopes is less about the competition for status. It is about respect and getting the tone right.
