Blessed are the peacemakers: it sounds so nice that Turkey and Israel have decided to be friends again. After a four-year hostile chill in relations has thawed gradually in recent months, the former allies have agreed to restore full diplomatic relations, exchanging ambassadors. Nice? Very nice! Champagne to celebrate the peace? Sloooow down.
It has been more than a decade since Turkey and Israel, once strategic partners, broke up badly, with an angry Ankara vowing to isolate Israel internationally. It has also been more than five years since the two countries decided to “give peace a chance” once more and appointed ambassadors. The envoys had to pack up and leave after 17 months of trying to put things back together again.
Israel is normalizing diplomatic relations with a country whose unchallenged leader for the past two decades once described Zionism as a crime against humanity. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political formation was based on a militant expanse of anti-Zionism as a raison d’être. Erdogan is just as anti-Israeli today as he was 40, 30, 20 and 10 years ago.
Electric Cars But No Chargers…(infographic)
In a 2015 study, the Anti-Defamation League found that 35 million out of an adult population of 49 million Turks, or 71%, harbored antisemitic attitudes, compared to an average 49% in the entire Muslim world. Just 15 months ago, in May 2021, Erdogan, referring to Jewish people, said: “It is in their disposition that they are only satisfied by sucking blood.” Part of Erdogan’s rage has also been directed at U.S. President Joe Biden. “Today we have witnessed Biden’s approval of weapons [sales] to Israel. You [Biden] are writing history with bloody hands.” Erdogan’s remarks came as the Biden administration approved the potential sale of $735 million in precision-guided munitions to Israel.
Read more: Gatestone Institute
