“Crisis-addicted” Turkey is a growing threat to Israel, columnist says

Regional acts of aggression by Turkey are a threat to Israel and are helping establish closer relations between countries in the Middle East and East Mediterranean, Seth J. Franzman wrote in a column published in the Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) “is angling to

Franzman said hopes for reconciliation between Turkey and Israel, spurred on by a decision by Israeli flag carrier El Al to fly to Turkey for the first time in 10 years and Israel’s “learning” from Turkey’s experience fighting Hezbollah in Syria’s Idlib province, turned out to be unfounded because Ankara continues to court Hamas, a Palestinian militant group.

Hamas is strongly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamist political organisation that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP have thrown their weight behind.

“Turkey is trying to adopt the Palestinian cause and to filter it through an Islamist-extremist lens linked to Hamas,” Franzman said. “It is encouraging a religious conflict against Israel, using rhetoric that has more in common with the last century of anti-Israel policies in the region.”

On Saturday, Erdoğan hosted a large delegation of Hamas leaders in Istanbul, including the group’s political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Ankara “is pushing a new crisis every month”, Franzman said in reference to Turkey’s policies in the wider region.

In recent months, The Turkish army and loyalist militants have started major offensives against Kurdish armed groups in Syria and Iraq, intervened against opposition General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, backed Azerbaijan in its post-Soviet territorial dispute with Armenia and confronted the Greek Navy in disputed waters.

Turkey has also laid claim to offshore gas and oil reserves in the eastern Mediterranean, much to the ire of Israel, Greece, Cyprus and other nations collaborating on a major pipeline project off the Cypriot coast.

Turkey’s regional rivals Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, two of the few Arab countries which recognise Israel’s sovereignty, view the Ankara-backed Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and have shaky relations with Qatar, a Gulf country closely allied with Turkey.

Israeli intelligence chief Yossi Cohen had “been talking secretly with fellow spooks in the Gulf states for years” about Iran but he now sees Israel’s troubles as lying more with Turkey, Franzman said, citing an Aug.18 column in the Times.

“There was one encounter about 20 months ago when he said “Iranian power is fragile, but the real threat is from Turkey””, the Times cited Cohen as reportedly telling spymasters from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

There is a growing consensus that Turkey’s “aggressive actions and challenges are helping to drive increasingly close relations between the UAE, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus and Greece”, Franzman said.

Source: ahvalnews.com

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