IN TURKEY, GAZA FLOTILLA CRISIS HAS STRONG DOMESTIC COMPONENT
World Politics Review
June 7 2010
World Politics Review
One week later, the repercussions of the tragically botched Israeli
commando raid on the Gaza aid flotilla spearheaded by a Turkish NGO
continue to reverberate worldwide.
Much of the raid’s fallout has played out in the realm of foreign
affairs, particularly regarding its impact on the already sorry
state of Turkish-Israeli relations, as well as on Washington’s
plans in the Middle East. But the flotilla incident and Ankara’s
response to it also has a very strong domestic component. The domestic
political context relates to the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
government’s desire to fend off political attacks from both Islamist
and secularist opposition parties over the red-hot Israel/Palestine
issue, as well as to use the event to further consolidate its gains
over the secularist-controlled military, which was historically the
motor behind the strategic partnership that Turkey and Israel enjoyed
until only recently.
In that sense, the current crisis — while helping shape and define
what may turn out to be a new regional role for Ankara — could also
serve to further expose and sharpen domestic political divisions within
Turkey, some of which the AKP may find spinning out of its control.
A clash over Gaza between Turkey and Israel was, in many ways, an event
foretold. Since the Gaza war in early 2009, Turkey has clearly pegged
its relationship with Israel to the Palestinian issue — or, to be
more specific, to the situation in Gaza and the status of Hamas, as
the West Bank and its Fatah leadership are rarely mentioned by Ankara.
The Turkish formula has been simple: An improvement in the situation
in Gaza will lead to an improvement in ties with Israel. Likewise,
any deterioration in the Gazans’ circumstances will lead to a further
scaling-down of relations with Israel.
Although technically not a bilateral issue between the two countries,
the situation in Gaza has in many ways become the defining issue
in their relations. In that sense, although the Gaza aid flotilla
was organized by a Turkish NGO — the Islamist IHH — and was not
sponsored by the Turkish government, it was acting as a proxy for
Turkish policy. Also, because the Turkish government had elevated
the Gazans’ cause to a level of such political importance, there was
little room for it to work out a diplomatic solution to the impending
crisis, lest it be accused by its opposition — particularly on the
Islamist right — of abandoning the Gazans.
With a general election coming up in about a year’s time, the
AKP now faces a resurgent Islamist right that has gained renewed
political clout because of the flotilla incident. Meanwhile,
a reformed secularist opposition with new leadership is promising
to go after the government where it is most vulnerable: over issues
such as unemployment and corruption. As a result, the AKP could find
it expedient to continue turning the heat up on the Israel front,
taking an increasingly more populist line on the issue.
“This is now going to be part and parcel in the internal tug of
war between the AKP and the other political parties in Turkey,” says
Gencer Ozcan, a professor of international relations at Istanbul Bilgi
University. “In this case, [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is
not going to defuse the tension.”
Speaking on Sunday, Erdogan already went after Kemal Kilicdaroglu,
the new leader of the Republican People’s Party, the main secularist
opposition party, for his approach to the flotilla incident. “Some
people speak in the name of Tel Aviv, advocate for Tel Aviv,” Erdogan
said. “They question our way of diplomacy.”
But beyond electioneering, increased tension with Israel could also
help the AKP make further gains in its ongoing effort to reduce the
Turkish military’s control over the state. As Israeli researcher and
Turkey expert Anat Lapidot-Firilla recently put it, such an approach
would emphasize “the support of the defense establishment and the
Kemalist bureaucracy to immoral Israel and the lack of interest in
the fate of their Muslim brethren in Palestine.”
Nevertheless, using the flotilla incident as a domestic political issue
could prove problematic for the AKP government. An increasingly pointed
stance could ultimately allow the AKP to own the issue domestically
and regionally, but at the cost of putting it at odds with Washington
and other traditional allies, who would like to quickly repair the
damage caused by the event.
In a sign that moderate Turkish Islamic circles might themselves be
concerned about a rightward shift in Ankara’s policy, Fethullah Gulen,
a U.S.-based Turkish imam with a strong following in Turkey, criticized
the organizers of the Gaza flotilla in an interview published in
last Friday’s Wall Street Journal. The organizers’ failure to reach
an agreement with Israel “is a sign of defying authority, and will
not lead to fruitful matters,” said Gulen, whose movement in Turkey
controls several media outlets and business groups, and wields a high
level of political influence.
At a time when Turks are being told to that their country has
“zero problems with neighbors” and that it is now time to reconcile
with Kurds, Armenians, Cypriots, Greeks, Arabs and all their other
historical enemies, Israel seems to be emerging as the “replacement
rival” for a country long used to having foes. This, combined with
the long odds on any significant short-term progress on the Gaza
front, will likely make the current tension with Israel a potent —
and volatile — tool in Turkey’s domestic political arena for quite
some time.
Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul, Turkey,
where he works as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor
and the Eurasianet Web site, covering Turkey and the surrounding
region. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post,
Haaretz, the Jerusalem Report, the Times of London, the Walrus and
other publications. He blogs on Turkish politics at Istanbul Calling.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/5719/in-turkey-gaza-flotilla-crisis-has-strong-domestic-component