You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
The Grand Turk
What’s behind Erdogan’s statement that he wants better ties with Israel?
2020-12-29
[Jpost] "If there were no issues at the top level (in Israel), our ties could have been very different."

President Tayyip Erdogan of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...Qatar's satrapy in Asia Minor...
 said on Friday that his country would like better ties with Israel but Israeli policy towards the Paleostinians remains "unacceptable."
Bummer.
"If there were no issues at the top level (in Israel), our ties could have been very different," he said, adding that the two countries continued to share intelligence. "We would have liked to bring our ties to a better point."
Better for whom?
But what is behind that statement?

Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Ottoman Turkish parliament, told The Jerusalem Post that Erdogan has enjoyed good rapport with Trump, "who shielded him from tougher action, including sanctions demanded by both Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress."
True.
According to Erdemir, the Ottoman Turkish president, who is worried that the incoming Biden administration will be tougher on Turkey than the Trump administration has been, hopes to win favors through diplomatic posturing, "including a half-hearted outreach to Israel."
Very half-hearted.
"Erdogan also hopes that the chatter of a Ottoman Turkish-Israeli rapprochement will also disrupt the growing energy cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean, which has deepened Ankara’s diplomatic isolation in the region," he noted. "Erdogan’s consistent anti-Israel track-record and antisemitic outbursts over the years will make it difficult for him to convince his Israeli counterparts that there is real substance to his outreach."
Given that there is no real substance, that would be difficult, yes.
He went on to say that Turkey and Israel have great potential to establish win-win relations in economic, diplomatic, and security fields, "but Erdogan’s Islamist fixations will prevent any trust-based cooperation. As long as Erdogan continues to offer Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede, its most important base outside Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, Israeli officials will remain wary of the Ottoman Turkish president’s overtures."

Soner Cagaptay, author of Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East and senior fellow at the Washington Institute, told the Post that almost 10 years ago, Erdogan launched a new foreign policy, supporting Arab uprisings and also breaking with the US when and if necessary, and turning Turkey’s direction away from Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
to the Middle East. "The ultimate goal was to make Turkey a star power nation in the Middle East. That didn’t happen a decade later," he said.
*Snicker*
"Turkey today has fewer friends in the Middle East ever in recent memory. In fact, with the exception of Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
 and half of Libya, he has no Middle Eastern friends. At the same time, it cannot rely on its traditional allies, Israel, US, or EU."
Related:
Erdogan: 2020-12-28 Turkey Hikes Main Interest Rate to 17%
Erdogan: 2020-12-26 Good afternoon
Erdogan: 2020-12-26 Erdogan: Israel's Palestinian policy still 'red line'
Related:
Foundation for Defense of Democracies : 2020-09-02 For those interested in a deep dive on Lebanon's shattered economy, on August 4th, 2020, the same day of the massive explosion, economist Jim Rickards released a detailed monograph about it, Lebanon in Crisis.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies : 2019-10-16 'Disinformation': Kentucky video ABC said was 'slaughter in Syria' was spread by Turkish politician
Foundation for Defense of Democracies : 2019-08-25 Iran puts US think tank FDD on its target list.
Posted by:trailing wife

#3  Nearly the entire Middle East has made peace with Israel. Perhaps they are afraid of being left out of the trade deals that are likely to follow.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2020-12-29 19:46  

#2  Hmmmm ....Israel to become natural gas-independent for the first time
Posted by: Frank G   2020-12-29 06:46  

#1  
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-12-29 03:19  

00:00