|
Related Articles
Is
Israel More Accepted in the Middle East?
A briefing by Efraim Inbar
July 20, 2016
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
Efraim
Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at
Bar-Ilan University and a Shillman/Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle
East Forum, briefed the Middle East Forum in a conference call on June
30, 2016.
Multimedia for this item
Audio Recording
|
Summary account by Marilyn Stern, Middle East Forum Board
of Governors
The Israeli-Turkish renewal of diplomatic relations reflects
Jerusalem's growing regional strength. While the agreement stipulates the
provision of humanitarian Turkish aid to Gaza via the Ashdod port, the
naval blockade of Hamas remains intact despite Ankara's longstanding
insistence on its removal.
The agreement also provides for the supply of Israeli gas to Turkey,
thus strengthening Ankara as an energy bridge to Europe while reducing
its energy dependence on Moscow and Tehran. Jerusalem must nevertheless
strive to avoid excessive dependence on Ankara, should it choose to build
a pipeline to Turkey via Cyprus.
The courtship of the Jewish state by an Islamist regime with
wide-ranging regional ambitions is a direct corollary of the current
geopolitical reality, which makes collaboration with Israel a necessity.
|
Islamist-led
Turkey's courtship of Israel reflects Jerusalem's growing regional
strength.
|
Given the Saudi-Turkish failure to topple the Assad regime, Iran's
regional surge in the wake of the nuclear deal, Egypt's jihadist
predicament in the Sinai Peninsula, and the Obama administration's Middle
Eastern retreat, Israel is increasingly seen as the foremost, perhaps
only bulwark against Tehran's hegemonic ambitions, and a key ally in the
regional anti-jihadist struggle. Hence the reported support of some Arab
states for Israel's first-ever election to chairmanship of a permanent UN
committee, and hence the $1 billion-plus annual purchases of Israeli
goods by the Gulf states.
Israel's greater regional acceptability notwithstanding, one should
not hold too high hopes for further gains. Strategic environments by
their nature are susceptible to vicissitudes, while deeply ingrained
anti-Jewish stereotypes and perceptions among Middle Easterners will take
generations to change. Hence Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's
current predicament is unlikely to lead to the restoration of the
intimate Turkish-Israeli political and military collaboration of the
1990s, just as the Saudi-Israeli collaboration will likely remain covert
for quite some time given the desert kingdom's Wahhabi source of
legitimacy.
Related
Topics: Israel & Zionism,
Turkey and Turks
| Efraim Inbar This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its
author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment