Nothing To Apologize For

Turkey is a strategic NATO ally, and before Ankara was represented by Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist party, the country was a secular-ruled Islamic state, with religion a backdrop, not the foreground motivating character of state decision-making that is now so evident. The warmly reciprocated relationship between the State of Israel and that of the Republic of Turkey stood apart from the historically strained relations between Arab and Muslim countries of the Middle East, and Israel.

Once the Islamist Justice and Development party of Mr. Erdogan gained the confidence of the Turkish electorate, the new government steadily eroded the power of the Turkish armed forces which had always fiercely resisted a return to Islamic rule, and away from secularism, in honour of the forward-looking vision of one of their own, Kemal Ataturk, the early 20th Century Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer; first president of Turkey.

The first pretext seen by President Erdogan to erode the relationship between his country and Israel was the occasion of the IDF's incursion into Gaza to stop the ongoing bombardment of rockets over the border, when Erdogan accusing Israel of "killing Palestinians", walking out of the Davos meeting in 2009 of the World Economic Forum. Ankara was grooming itself to become more Islamist than the fundamentalist Islamists.

It initiated relations with Iran, with Syria, and declared the terrorist group Hamas, whose mandate is the destruction of Israel, as representing a responsible government. And went on to criticize Israel at every opportunity. Cooling the military co-operation that had traditionally taken place, deliberately snubbing and leaving Israel's military out of the new equation. So there is nothing particularly new about Turkey's vigorous distancing itself from Israel.

Turkey hasn't taken kindly to the Palmer Report's conclusions that some of the Turkish IHH members on board the Mavi Marmara were planning violent action, that they precipitated the events that resulted in the deaths of 9 Turks. Ankara's furious reaction to the report exonerating Israel, declaring the Gaza blockade an internationally legal move under the circumstances present, betrays its agenda to sever relations with Israel while portraying itself as justifiably irate.

The downgrading of diplomatic ties was foreseeable and unfortunate, not of Israel's doing, but of Turkey's leadership machinations. Turkey wants to have its cake and eat the icing as well. It wants to remain a member of NATO, continues to aspire to membership in the EU, but also relishes a reversal in the world of Islam, to be recognized once again as a powerhouse in the Middle East, a leader among leaders.

Its new actions spurning relations with Israel is being celebrated in Egypt, and Turkey is encouraging that country too, though it hardly seems necessary under its new leadership, to sever ties with Israel as well. Isolating Israel even further, making it all the more vulnerable to decertification as a Jewish state, a legitimate sovereign state, and preparing the region for a potential mass military movement against a Jewish state in the midst of Arab/Muslim states is the obvious name of the game.

Insisting that Israel must cravenly apologize for defending itself from attack, that it must withdraw its blockade of Gaza and thereby humbly and self-destructively allow a greater influx of weapons to reach Hamas, is obviously tantamount to insisting that Israel commit itself to the dustbin of history as a state that could not, must not exist among those who would not accept it.

Jews returned to their heritage and their geographic home when no other place on Earth gave them safe haven, when the world was complicit in allowing a mendacious, malevolent anti-Semitism to evolve into a fascist-led death march for Europe's Jews. The State of Israel and its people have no intention of meekly accepting the world's censure of it as a Jewish State.

They will endure.