[Rethinking Turkish politics]
Has Turkey gone too far over Gaza?
by
Mehmet Kalyoncu*

The question is: Why did Turkey do what it did? And, has Turkish foreign policy already lost its credibility?

What was Ankara outraged about?

Ankara was naturally outraged by Israel's brutal reaction to the humanitarian aid mission to Gaza. The Israeli commandos' killing of Turkish citizens demanded Ankara's immediate attention to the matter. In his address to the UN Security Council, which convened that day in emergency session, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu did not defend the aid activists' right to break Israel's unlawful blockade on Gaza, nor did he advocate the legitimacy of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH)-organized flotilla, but condemned Israel's killing and injuring of civilians in international waters with total and shameless disregard for international law.

Davutoğlu underlined that “the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] stormed a multinational, civilian endeavor carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza in international waters -- 72 nautical miles off the coast to be exact -- killing and wounding many civilians. This action was uncalled for. [The] Israeli actions constitute a grave breach of international law.” He further condemned the Israeli government's banditry and piracy: “It is murder conducted by a state. It has no excuses, no justification whatsoever. A nation-state that follows this path has lost its legitimacy as a respectful member of the international community.” He also deplored Israel's inappropriate and disproportionate use of force against civilians. Israel's action is also a violation of international law as well as of international humanitarian law, which ensures the protection of civilians even during wartime.

So, in response to Israel's criminal act, Ankara did not seek military action to punish Israel but urged the international community and the United Nations to take appropriate action immediately. In this regard, Turkey was not the sole country, but one of many states within the international community, doing just that. Davutoğlu stressed that: (1) An urgent inquiry must be undertaken; (2) Appropriate international legal action must immediately be taken against the perpetrators of and authorities responsible for this aggression; (3) A strong sense of disappointment and warning must be issued by the United Nations. Israel must be urged to abide by international law and basic human rights; (4) The countries concerned must be allowed to retrieve their deceased and wounded immediately; (5) The ships must be expressly released and allowed to deliver the humanitarian assistance to its destination; (6) The families of the deceased, wounded, NGOs and shipping companies concerned must be compensated to the full extent; (7) The blockade of Gaza must be ended immediately and all humanitarian assistance must be allowed in; and, finally, (8) Gaza must be made an example by swiftly developing it, to make it a region of peace. So, Ankara only sought to exercise its legitimate rights under international law to protect its citizens as well as the citizens of other nationalities harmed by Israel's criminal act.

Ankara should also have been outraged by the fact that out of all six aid ships only the one carrying Turks was raided by Israeli commandos and that the soldiers reportedly killed the Turkish activists while uttering derisive “One minute! One minute!” slogans in mockery of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan's outburst at Israeli President Shimon Peres at the infamous Davos forum.

So Ankara had already had enough reason to be outraged and to do what it did. However, just as the anti-Semites sought to exploit this crisis to incite hatred against Jews and Israel, some inside and outside Israel rushed to exploit Ankara's reaction in order to demonize the current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government in Turkey. In his article titled “Erdoğan and the Decline of the Turks,” Robert Pollock of The Wall Street Journal alleges that the flotilla could not have been organized without the approval of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan, who, Pollock says, cannot “bring himself to condemn a fictional blood libel [that the organs of the dead Iraqis were being shipped to Israel].” At the expense of embarrassing himself, Pollock argues in the same article that Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoğlu calls on Turkey to loosen ties with the West, including with the US, NATO and the European Union. In his article titled “Flotilla raid offers Israel a learning opportunity,” David Ignatius of The Washington Post suggests that Turkey is “a more dangerous foe than Hamas” for Israel, and that Prime Minister Erdoğan is “a Muslim populist with a charismatic message” and “a genuinely tough if erratic rival” whereas Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is “often a buffoon.” In his interview with Pat Robertson on CBN News, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum said, “Turkey is no longer ‘our' [the United States'] ally, but an opponent of the United States.”

Nevertheless, the very fact that many Jews both inside and outside Turkey as well as in the United States joined others to protest the Israeli attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla justifies Ankara's reaction in the aftermath of Israel's terrorist attack in international waters. Yet, understanding the true reasons behind Ankara's reaction is only one part of the assessment as to whether Turkey has gone too far over Gaza, and the answer to this part of the question is that Ankara has not gone too far but only carried out its natural duty to pursue justice and hold Israel accountable for its crime.

What has the flotilla accomplished?

The second part of the assessment is about the original idea of organizing a humanitarian aid flotilla to break the unlawful Israeli blockade of Gaza. The question is whether it was the right thing to do in the first place in order to bring aid to Gaza, or to lift the blockade altogether, for that matter. How reasonable was it for an NGO or for a group of NGOs to defy the authority of a sovereign state, whether or not this is a legitimate authority? What would it accomplish in favor of the Palestinians in Gaza? Would it better highlight the plight of the Palestinians suffering under the Israeli blockade to the world? Or, would it demonstrate how brutal and unlawful Israeli practices were?

There is nothing justifiable about the heinous Israeli attack on the peace activists. The Israeli commandos raiding the Mavi Marmara and did not hesitate to shoot a 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish origin in the head five times. The Israeli commandos did not hesitate to shoot an Indonesian doctor treating one of those commandos injured during the raid four times in the stomach. Nor did they refrain from taking hostage a 1-year-old baby and using him as a means to psychologically torture his parents. Nor did Israel's so-called defense forces refrain from using cluster bombs of phosphorus to burn and kill Palestinian children during Israel's December 2008-January 2009 invasion of Gaza.

No matter how brutal Israel is to the Palestinians, the best way to help the Palestinians in either the West Bank or in Gaza is to work through legitimate means, even if one has to engage with an illegitimate authority to do that. The İHH president stressed that they could not trust the Israeli authorities to distribute the aid in Gaza. They did not have to. They could have delivered the aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for distribution or worked it out with the Red Crescent. Similarly, they could have worked with the Egyptian authorities, if not the Israelis, to find ways to deliver the aid to Gaza. It was not necessary to try to break the unlawful Israeli blockade to deliver the aid. If, however, the only goal was to break the blockade, the flotilla would not do that, either.

The way forward

According to the Lebanese newspaper al-Mustaqbal, the Turkish prime minister has been “weighing the possibility of travelling to the Gaza Strip in order to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza, and even informed the US of his intention to ask the Turkish Navy to accompany another aid flotilla to Gaza.” Though such a plan has not been confirmed by the prime minister, and this could be just another piece of disinformation spread about his government, realizing such a plan would not only be disastrous for stability in the region and for prospects of proximity talks between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority but also political suicide for Prime Minister Erdoğan and his AK Party government. It would eliminate Turkey's prospects for EU membership -- at least with the AK Party government in office. Turkey has not gone too far over Gaza, but if it attempts to fulfill such a wild plan, it will really have gone too far. There is no need to even mention its possible impact on US-Turkish relations because there would be none in existence.