His name came to Turkey’s agenda with his not-so-hidden threat that Israel may “recognize the Armenian-related events as genocide” if Erdoğan says that genocide is taking place in Gaza. In our interview, Whbee claimed that this was a misquotation of what he said. What he said can be summarized as: “We saw in Turkey a strategic partner, an ally in the region, and I hope that this will continue so. But if the Turkish prime minister continues to attack Israel and to send signals that he is not interested in cooperating with Israel, this is not the end of the world. We managed for 61 years without Turkey, and we will continue to do so.”Whbee thinks that the anger on the Israeli side about Erdoğan’s remarks stems, to a certain extent, from the trust and reliance the Israelis placed on the Turkish people and their prime minister. “We gave to the Turkish prime minister a role we didn’t entrust to any other world leader: mediating between us and Syria. That is to say, we saw a reliable office in Turkey, a neutral mediator,” he told me.
Whbee does not want to see that the precondition of reliability is necessary for all the participants of an international give-and-take negotiation. It was not Turkey that lost its “reliability” first. The visit of Ehud Olmert to Ankara could have served Israeli-Syrian normalization and the upgrading of Turkish-Israeli relations at the same time if it had not been followed by the Israeli operations in Gaza. Whbee does not accept any fault on the side of Israel: “Israel wouldn’t come and ask for permission from Turkey, of course!” he said to me.
Well, Turkey wouldn’t come and ask for permission while broadcasting the TV series that hurt the Israelis, then. Israelis should understand that the Israeli oppression in Gaza is as disturbing to Turkey as the “Ayrılık” series is to Israel.
That is not to say that it was a wise decision to broadcast “Ayrılık.” What is done in Palestine is already wrong enough. It doesn’t need any exaggeration in order to attract public attention. I do not recall hearing of any occasion where an Israeli soldier shot a newborn baby being held in its father’s arms. But we all remember Waad, the 10-day-old baby who died under the ruins of a building in south Lebanon bombed Israeli fighting planes. We all remember the awful fate of Muhammad al-Durra, who was shot at the side of his father. We all remember the baby with the blue pacifier who died under a building in Gaza. We all remember Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death under an Israeli bulldozer. As the Turkish foreign minister said, “We cannot behave as if all this didn’t happen.” But we didn’t need a TV series that agitated the feelings of the general public with what seems to be a symbolic story of brutality composed of elements taken from different tragedies.
Even if we conceive of “Ayrılık” as dirty propaganda, that does not justify what Israel did in Gaza.
But Whbee thinks that everything done in Gaza is justified and if somebody is to be blamed for the occasional civilian casualties, it is Hamas, which opts to launch Qassam rockets from amidst the civilian population.
It is only natural that a politician justifies the acts of his or her national army. I wouldn’t expect an Israeli politician to come out and endorse the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel, together with Hamas, of war crimes. But it is to the good of Turkish-Israeli relations that Israel should realize the new realities of Turkish foreign policy, which is becoming more and more European and more and more conditioned on the domestic politics of the country.
Turkey is becoming more audible in its foreign policy positions. It is not the so-called “rage episodes” of the Turkish prime minister that end with crescendos of Turkish-Israeli bickering. That is a “fringe benefit” of becoming a regional superpower that needs to have a position on regional political issues, all of which have global implications.
There is no chance for Israel to “manage another 61 years” without Turkey. Israel should learn how to manage with this new Turkish reality.
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