Middle East Inside Line: Israel Plays "Rope-a-Dope" with Turkey

It appears that Israel is focusing on maintaining an open channel to Ankara, despite recent tensions. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy has stated that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent criticisms of Israel are merely political manoeuvre:

The impression [in Israel] is that Turkey's prime minister is constantly attacking Israel and working to bring Turkey closer to the extreme wing of the Middle East.

The string of statements [by Erdogan] and the line he has consistently taken bring us to the conclusion that this is a strategic move.

Turkey: Erdogan Denies Airspace for Any Israel Operations Against Iran

However, beyond the Israeli "keep calm" is a warning that Erdogan is undermining Turkey's interests:

Erdogan is trying to have it all - to satisfy the Islamist appetite of his voting bloc and turn extremist, but also to preserve the stature of Turkey as a moderate Western state that resolves regional conflicts. But it's clear that these two goals contradict each other.

Turkey should be as worried as Israel about the dangers of Iranian nuclear weaponization, because it would directly threaten Turkey's regional and international standing in the long term.

So a bit of "rope-a-dope" from Israel: don't turn Erdogan's public statements into an all-out battle but keep jabbing in the hope that Ankara will see the "real" threats and thus mend fences with Tel Aviv.

Comments

[Jonathan]

Why does it matter if Ankara "mend[s] fences with Tel Aviv," when the seat of the Israeli government is Jerusalem? For a website supposedly aimed at foreign policy experts, this is a serious blunder. You can do better than this.

[Scott Lucas]

Jonathan,

The blunder would be to call Jerusalem the capital of Israel when the status of the city is still under discussion and in dispute. Most foreign governments continue to recognise Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel and keep their embassies in that city.

The 2nd blunder would be to ignore the substance of the post on Turkish-Israeli relations to score a polemical point.

S.

[aban]

Isn't it ridiculous how some publications go "Tel-Aviv says ..." whenever some official speaks in Jerusalem?

Scott, the problem with Tel-Aviv as capital is that it's not. The national institutions are simply not there. The ambassadors may reside in Tel-Aviv, but when they want to get any business done, they must make a concession to reality and go to Jerusalem.

[Barry]

Talking about Israel - while there has been many assertions by the west regarding Iran seeking nukes, and an equal number of refutations of this by Iran, there seems now to be a number of newspaper articles around (eg Times Online) basically saying 2 things , one is that some Iranian nuclear Engineer has given information to IAEA (no claims as to what) , second is that some documentation proves that Iran has been working on bomb trigger. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6955351.ece

The Israelis are quiet though - always a dangerous thing.

Barry

[Scott Lucas]

Aban,

I appreciate the point. As readers will know, instead of repeating the name of a country in a story (the US, Britain, Israel), for variety, the name of the capital will be used to represent that country (Washington, London, Tel Aviv/Jerusalem). Given the special issues in the Israel case, I will look for an alternative expression.

S.