As far as I can see, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has resorted to the third method, i.e., attempting to cover up the crisis with Israel by creating a bigger crisis out of it. Is the government right to pursue this kind of method in handling the crisis? To a certain extent, yes.
The deadly Israeli commando raid on May 31 on the Mavi Marmara ship carrying mostly Turkish activists resulted in the deaths of nine Turks and injuries to 20 other people including Turks. This has led to a serious crisis between Turkey and Israel, drawing international attention and raising questions over Israel’s use of disproportionate force in handling the dispute. In addition, a debate has been sparked over whether the activists resisted the Israeli commandos in self-defense or whether they provoked the commandos and triggered the shooting. In either case the Israeli commandos do not have the right to shoot and kill nine activists.
Turkey has rightly been seeking an apology from Israel over the incident and has called on it to cooperate with an international commission to ascertain the circumstances that led to the deaths of nine Turks in international waters. At the time of the incident, the Mavi Marmara, part of a six-ship flotilla, was sailing toward Gaza carrying humanitarian aid to the Gazans, trying to break the three-year Israeli blockade on the Hamas-controlled city.
There is no question over the gravity of the incident and that Israel deserves the strongest possible condemnation.
Both Turkey’s domestic and external political environment at the time of the incident are worth elaborating on to shed some light in particular on the strength of the criticism Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leveled at Israel. This is not to say that Israel did not deserve such severe criticism.
Externally, the AK Party government, successfully pursuing a policy of zero problems with neighbors, has, however, failed to put into force protocols with Armenia on its northwest aimed at normalizing its relations with Yerevan. The Cyprus problem has been at a standstill, creating a serious roadblock to any move over continuing accession talks between Turkey and the European Union. The EU has to take its share of the blame over the stalled talks with Turkey by even declining to open the food chapter, a non-political issue.
Internally, the democratic initiative aimed to find a peaceful solution to the decades-old Kurdish problem. The hope of reducing an almost 30-year-old threat posed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has failed to work at the desired level partly due to the government’s timidity in taking bold reformist steps on the issue. The opposition parties, meanwhile, are partly to blame for the initiative’s partial failure for declining to lend support to the government over this problem -- Turkey’s biggest -- and one that has external dimensions. The PKK’s increased violence is a matter of extreme concern.
The Constitutional Court’s pending decision over whether to cancel the constitutional reform package upon the initiative of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) remains a serious issue, the result of which will either help stability or lead to instability. If the court cancels the reforms passed by Parliament, thus preventing it from being taken to referendum on Sept. 12, it is highly likely that elections may be held in a couple of months rather than in July next year as planned.
Against this background, and in the absence of an opposition playing a constructive role in helping Turkish stability, the government, in frustration both internally and externally, appears to have increased the strength of its criticism of Israel. As the general elections, earlier or as planned, get closer, the government has inclined towards using the crisis with Israel for domestic purposes.
