On Thursday, July 4, 2013, Universidad ORT Uruguay lecture “Israel and Turkey: The Resumption of Diplomatic Relations,” organized by the Department of International Studies, was held in the auditorium of the Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences at Universidad ORT Uruguay . The lecture was delivered by Alberto Spectorowski, who holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. According to the expert, Turkey’s hegemonic ambitions in the region led to a cooling of relations with Israel, although shared strategic interests brought the two countries closer together again. The coup in Egypt, however, is a “wake-up call” for Turkey and its foreign policy, the expert said.
As Spectorowski explained, since 2003, when Recep Erdogan took office as Prime Minister of Turkey for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the military has lost its influence in political life. The AKP is an Islamist party that clashed with a military that, until then, had ensured that politics complied with a secular constitution.
As the political scientist explained, Erdogan won the 2002 elections and then took control of the state, removing the bureaucracy and confining the military to its barracks. These changes were sustained by strategic shifts in the Middle East and the macroeconomic success of his administration. The expert stated that today Erdogan “stands firm” despite an “arrogant and autocratic” style that has fueled the protests that have taken place in recent weeks.
“Erdogan wants to restore the prestige of the former Ottoman Empire. He believes that Turkey must establish itself as a powerful force in the region, going beyond mere economic and social agreements with other countries. He wants to play a key role and envisions a new Middle East led by him,” said Spectorowski.
It was against this backdrop that relations between Turkey and Israel began to cool in 2002, after the two countries had enjoyed an excellent relationship throughout the 1990s. It was a relationship of “political and military brotherhood” that led Israel to invest in the Turkish military, the expert explained. It was a strategic arrangement between Israel and secular Turkey in which both nations opposed an Islamic uprising in the Middle East and undertook a joint fight against terrorism in the region. Israel even lobbied for the European Union (EU) and the United States to open the door to Turkey, the expert explained, although there was always reluctance within the EU to admit a Muslim country.
But since Erdogan came to power in 2002, “Turkey realized that using Israel to build closer ties with the United States and Europe was unnecessary. It had its own economic power, so there was no need to join the EU,” the political scientist explained. “Today, Turkey doesn’t need a European Union in crisis; it’s better off on its own,” Spectorowski stated. According to the expert, Turkey understood that the United States remained a power but was becoming less and less effective, and that “the big money” was not in the West but in Asia. “Without Israel, Turkey can develop its own power, become the dominant force in the region, and thus the United States will ask Turkey for help,” he assessed.
Faced with this strategy, Israel “couldn’t do much.” “It wanted to maintain a relationship with Turkey even when it wasn’t in Turkey’s own interest. Signs of a rift began to appear when Erdogan befriended Hamas, the most radical Palestinian movement, which is separate from the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, Turkey didn’t place much emphasis on curbing Iran’s nuclear program, thereby distancing itself from Israel.
Today, however, there is a rapprochement based on shared strategic interests. The disintegration of Syria could empower separatist Kurds in eastern Turkey, whose situation is currently under control. Turkey also disapproves of Bashar al-Assad’s crimes against Sunnis in Syria, the Islamic sect to which Erdogan belongs. Nor do they welcome the establishment of a Shiite hegemony led by Iran, and in that sense, they are once again drawing closer to Israel. Likewise, an alliance between Turkey and Israel is useful for the United States, which can keep the region under control without military intervention in the short term.
The coup in Egypt serves as a wake-up call for Erdogan’s Turkey. According to Spectorowski’s assessment, the Turkish military is closely watching how the coup in Egypt unfolds and the “nature” of the protests in Turkey, which he believes are being driven by the middle class in a scenario similar to that in Brazil. “If the conditions are right, the Turkish military will stage a coup because Turks are accustomed to coups. An authoritarian regime is neither good nor bad for Israel, as long as it supports them.”