Last week, Ankara said President Isaac Herzog would soon visit Turkey. As part of propaganda about the visit, Turkey announced it unilaterally, rather than through normal diplomatic channels with Israel, via the far-right pro-government media outlet Daily Sabah. That article was then recycled by reports in Israeli media about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claiming the visit would happen.
The next day, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. It was the first call at the ministerial level in 13 years, reports said.
Meanwhile, Ankara was pushing other types of propaganda to its lobbyists abroad. It wants Jerusalem to know it is celebrating the decision by the US to no longer support an Israel-Greece gas pipeline. The message is that Israel’s natural gas now has nowhere to go and will have to go through Turkey.
Turkey has hosted and backed Hamas terrorists for years. In short, its narrative today is that Israel should route its gas through Turkey so that it can use profits to fund Hamas and other extremist groups in the region, many of which are antisemitic and genocidal.
Ankara’s ruling party, for instance, frequently orders the bombing of minorities in Syria and Iraq, including Kurds, Yazidis and Christian communities. Wherever its forces operate in the region, minorities are generally ethnically cleansed, such as in Afrin in Syria, which Turkey invaded in 2018. This persecution of minorities is not in line with the general consensus of Israel and its friends in the Gulf, who are pushing tolerance, peace and stability.
Turkey’s pitch regarding Israel relations is rooted in a 1950s outlook. In this analysis, Turkey believes Israel is completely isolated in the region and therefore needs it. Turkey can thus benefit from Israel’s isolation while reaping profit. In essence, in all the discussions with Ankara or claims of reconciliation, the only narrative that comes out is that Turkey profits and Israel gets nothing.
Read more: jpost
