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Ostensibly, Israel had a quite legitimate problem with a Turkish TV show that portrayed the Shin Bet kidnapping babies. The Israeli response was to summon the Turkish ambassador to meet with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, and to televise Ayalon bragging in Hebrew about how the Turkish envoy was seated in a lower chair, with no Turkish flag displayed for the cameras. It’s insult diplomacy, apparently, and unsurprisingly, the Turks are demanding an apology. For good measure, Netanyahu added that the real problem Israel has with Turkey is its increasing closeness with Iran and Syria. Since that isn’t a problem for Turkey, the Turks have absolutely no reason to take that remark seriously, and focus instead on the Israeli insult.
There’s a juvenile strain of conservatism that sees international isolation as a mark of virtue. Since the world is an evil place, a world that rejects Israel just speaks to Israeli goodness, the fairytale goes. But Israel has to live in that world. A good relationship with a Muslim country that clearly accepts Israel’s right to exist is an unqualified diplomatic asset. To squander it through churlishness reflects a foreign policy run by a Moldovan bouncer. It’s like we’re living through the vulgar sequel of the Bush administration. Only Israelis are supposed to be more realistic.
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Wasn’t Barak supposed to be going to Turkey to mend fences? Is this Lieberman screwing with it?
Sounds like Netanyahoo’s the one screwing with it…
To squander it through churlishness reflects a foreign policy run by a Moldovan bouncer. It’s like we’re living through the vulgar sequel of the Bush administration. Only Israelis are supposed to be more realistic.
Well said. I have thought for some time that Israel has been undergoing its own phase of “mugged-by-reality” machtpolitik, owing to the 9/11 attacks, but also and more to the second Intifada, Hezbollah and the ascendancy of Hamas. I’d slightly realign your closing comment by arguing that foreign policy during the Bush years was a tension between the sinister and decidedly non-ideological Rumsfeld/Cheney faction and the Wolfowitz/Perle ideologues. Israel’s foreign policy is more “realistic” in the sense that it lacks this latter ideological dimension, and its liberal democracy is tempered by a considerable etatism that results from its short and violent history.
The Barak visit was scheduled before this whole sorry episode started — he’s meeting with his counterparts to talk security, but he won’t be meeting with Erdogan.
I was thinking that the scheduled visit might have prompted some of the sorry mess as an effort to sour the atmosphere and scuttle the meeting.
Mr. Ayalon is not the cause of the problems, although he doesn’t seem to have helped. Perhaps in his neighborhood that’s how problems are expressed?
Turkey has been moving ever closer to Iran and Syria over the past year, and has been moving away from Israel. The Israelis have been very unhappy about this. The initiative for the breakup has been Turkey. It’s probably just that Erdogan is something of an Islamic radical, at least in the Turkish culture.
By the way, it wasn’t at all clear that the headline, “What Israel Needs Is More International Isolation” was intended as sarcasm. I thought you were calling for more actual isolation. It was sarcasm, right?
Whatever, Israel certainly doesn’t need more isolation.
sometimes you have to read more than the headline.
these here bloggers gets all artsy
Maybe the Israelis shouldn’t have tried to kill the pres. of Turkey. There has been some conflict between them for some time.