"Gas-driven peace" between Turkey and Israel
Il Giornale, May 21st 2013
Pressured by Obama Ankara’s leader gears his strategy towards the Jewish State
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is an acrobat: he is capable at the same time of walking on the tightrope, of turning a double somersault and falling back on his feet in order to get applauded. His goal is to make Turkey a country able to use its fame of Country between Islam and the West to hegemony purposes, and strengthen its regime, very close to the Muslim Brothers, while he comes across as a moderate. He has no moral qualms: he is Assad’s worst enemy today, whereas he was his best ally at the time of the Lebanese revolt meant to drive him out of Syria. He used to be a very close friend of Gaddafi’s, who awarded him his “Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights”. Europe however still keeps its hopeful memories of Kemal Ataturk, and a sense of guilt for having kept Turkey out of the EU. Meanwhile things have changed: Islamization is domineering, freedom dropped, foreign policy is aggressive. Turkey’s action is also driven by the need to resist the Syrian earthquake, which is flooding it with refugees and is putting it at risk of a chemical war. Beyond this possible event, Erdogan’s Ottoman ambition is looming. He considers himself as the great Reformer of an Empire which absorbed Europe and the Middle East almost entirely for centuries until 1918.
Erdogan behaved with utmost nonchalance in the past few weeks. On March 22nd upon explicit request of President Obama, he gracefully accepted Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s apologies for the May 2010 incident. Nine Turkish activists were then killed on the Mavi Marmara, while heading to Gaza on the anti-Israeli flotilla. This ship was also carrying members of the para-terrorist organization IHH. After this incident, Erdogan went further the road which led him to yell against Shimon Peres in Davos “You know well how to kill”. Among other, he recently stated that Zionism is “a crime against humanity”.
He invited Khaled Mashaal, the leader of the terror organization Hamas, to Ankara. He reserved him a standing ovation, while declaring that his men are “resistance combatants who protect their own land”. The hatred towards Israel grants him much appreciation in the Middle East. Exactly what he is looking for, considered that meanwhile he was striking plenty of agreements with Assad. But on March 15th he accepted the proposal to make peace with Israel in exchange for compensations to the victims’ families. That’s what Obama wanted, and it is a moral victory. Political analysts, meanwhile digging into the talks on the sideline of the agreement, found out a veiled interest of Turkey not related to honor: the natural gas discovered in huge quantities off the coasts of Haifa is what Erdogan is attracted to. Turkey is reportedly interested in participating in the construction of the undersea pipeline with a two billion dollars investment. Such pipeline is meant to carry gas to its coasts and then perhaps to Europe. A big business indeed. Today Europe is highly dependent on Russia for its gas supplies, and it is at odds with Putin regarding Syria, which makes Israel a much more reliable partner. But is Turkey also a reliable business partner though? Why should the Jewish State run the risk of running its gas in a pipeline that runs parallel to the Lebanese and Syrian coasts, after that the Muslim Brothers’ Egypt abruptly terminated the deal and also blew the pipelines few times after the takeover? Why should it ditch Cyprus, which is one of Turkey’s enemies?
Erdogan paid Obama a visit in Washington less than a week ago, where he pushed for the ousting of Assad. Obama, for sure, in exchange for a determined stance asked him to abandon the hardline policy towards Israel. But Erdogan confirmed, hugging and patting him on the shoulder, that he will pay a visit to Gaza at the end of the month, probably with Egyptian Prime Minister Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brothers. He also reiterated he supported a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation. Hamas - whose institutional purpose is not only Israel’s destruction but also the killing of all Jews (just take a look at its Charter or at its leaders’ speeches, or think of the terror which slaughtered thousands of innocent victims) - can’t be reasonably considered a partner of one of Israel’s friends or of any democratic country. In other words: no common sense can possibly push whomever to a viable agreement with Erdogan’s Turkey.