By Barçın Yinanç

June 18, 2024

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan missed the opportunity to play a constructive role in the Gaza conflict. Unabashedly siding with Hamas, Erdoğan has repeated the mistake that his government committed when the Arab revolts broke out in 2011. Promoting the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East proved to be a diplomatic disaster from which Turkey still struggles to recover. Yet ideological optics has once again blinded Turkey’s ruling party, with AKP officials failing to see that neither Western countries nor the Arab countries are prepared to concede a role for the Islamist Hamas in any future settlement. The relentless insistence on siding with Hamas while displaying open hostility to Israel diminishes Turkey’s chances to be an active player in any negotiations. Being sidelined makes Turkey more aggressive and thus consolidates its image as an untrustworthy actor.

By Reuben Silverman

January 12, 2024

On the eve of Turkey’s centennial anniversary celebrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a mass rally in support of Palestine. He reminded his audience that, only a century earlier, Gaza had been part of the Ottoman Empire. He condemned Israel’s government and criticized the West for remaining silent in the face of Israel’s retaliatory killing of civilians, wondering if it wanted to encourage conflict between “crescent and cross.” Yet, while this heated rhetoric positions Turkey as the ultimate opponent of Israeli expansionism and protector of Palestinians, it obscures on-going Turkish-Israeli relations and the strategic interests that may limit Erdoğan’s actual diplomatic options.

By Nathan Shachar

July 8, 2016

Whatever dividends the fresh Turkish-Israeli rapprochement will bring, it reveals something fundamental about the new Middle East: the number of unknown variables in this ever less predictable environment is steadily growing, and even the most arrogant and unrepentant leaders will have to eat crow from time to time in order to salvage their national interests. Leaders who stand by their words and their principles will be severely handicapped.