15 October 2009 / ,
It's long been among the most durable, strategic relationships in the Near East -- perhaps because it was the most unlikely. For decades, the two regional superpowers, Turkey and Israel, have quietly stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the common strategic challenges facing them.
For the past 20 years, the intriguing involvement between Jewish Israel and Muslim Turkey has been increasingly out in the open, impervious to demands from the Arab world and from hardline elements in Turkey -- both Muslim and left-wing -- that Turkey should rather distance itself from its elaborate military and intelligence dealings with Israel. Now it's all changing. Or, is it just a temporary blip? On Sunday, Israel disclosed that joint North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air force exercises, codenamed "Anatolian Eagle," had been postponed because Turkey was excluding the Israeli air force.
