Turkey and Solving the Palestinian Cause

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Whenever a Turkish official makes a diplomatic move in the Arab-Islamic region, the media becomes active analyzing it, beginning to speak of an anticipated Turkish role in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and finding a way out for the Palestinian cause. Many pens then rise to analyze the existing or anticipated Turkish role, and to craft new concepts for developing relations between the region’s states, Israel included.

It is also noteworthy that Turkish media outlets loyal to the current government or to the Justice and Development Party go to great lengths portraying and praising the Turkish role and its anticipated virtues.

It seems there is a complex among the leaders of the Arab and Islamic region’s states: they love praise and commendation regarding their roles at the regional and global levels, as though something were lacking for them domestically, so they find an external outlet for a glory they long for, or search for a means to reinforce their internal standing by clinging to external activity.

One can easily notice this in official media outlets, which try hard to portray the leadership as possessing genius and internationally influential prestige, enjoying others’ respect as a result of what they call its wisdom and strong presence.

This complex is vented for a period of time, then fades before the difficult reality that the region’s states need diligent, sustained work to reach a level of genuine influence on the global and regional stage.

Monopolizing the Solution to the Palestinian Cause

America and Israel have coordinated their efforts in searching for a solution to the Palestinian cause in a monopolistic manner since 1967. The two states decided that any proposed solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict must gain the approval of both states together, and that neither would accept it alone, leaving the other exposed to criticism or pressure from other states or global bodies.

This is why the two states saw a necessity in removing the Palestinian cause from the corridors of international organizations or bodies like the United Nations, keeping it within their reach and direct oversight — that is, keeping the Palestinian cause far from resolutions that might form an international reference point, or international legitimacy, placing the two states in an awkward legal position.

The two states have no objection to raising the cause’s margins and offshoots in international corridors, and no objection to involving other states in the diplomacy of searching for peace, provided the conflict’s essence remains under the American-Israeli umbrella. There is no objection, for example, to discussing the matter of Jerusalem’s Judaization in the UN General Assembly, but every resolution issued is non-binding on Israel and causes no concern, while America stands ready to use its veto if the matter is raised in the Security Council. Nor do the two states object to allowing European diplomatic activity in the region, provided it remains subordinate rather than independent, unsupported by measures pressuring Israel.

America and Israel view other states’ efforts regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict as marginal efforts giving these other states a sense of participation, a kind of self-pride and boasting, and they have no objection to cooperation within the bounds of this marginality.

The greatest evidence of this is the role the two states grant Egypt, which justifies the Egyptian regime’s continued boasting that it is a fundamental player in arranging conditions in the Arab-Islamic region, while the two states did not bother discussing the 2002 Arab Summit initiative, contenting themselves with flirting with it from a distance.

Turkey’s Role in the Region

Turkey can play a central, vital role in the Arab-Islamic region, because it possesses the latent foundations necessary for this. It has a vast geographic area linking Asia and Europe, a large population (about 70 million people), and possesses great natural resources, water foremost among them. Turkey can play the role of the region’s great water reservoir, establishing a massive network of water pipelines to supply the Arab countries suffering from water scarcity, thereby securing itself a large income.

Turkey enjoys good industrial capacity and can export many of its products to the region’s countries, and constitutes a tourist attraction at costs that draw tourists from the region’s states.

Turkey is an Eastern, Islamic country, and could easily return to the Arab region, finding wide welcome, especially in Arab countries, and would find a warmer embrace than the European embrace. Arab markets are now filled with Turkish products, and matters could develop further so that popular interaction and social and economic relations between people develop as well.

From here, Turkey can take on a prominent role in the Arab-Islamic region, carrying great weight in addressing the region’s concerns and pushing it toward development and progress, which would benefit everyone.

The economic, social, and cultural role Turkey could play is largely absent from the media, with focus placed only on the diplomatic role it could play in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, as though Turkey gains importance only through Israel, or through its ability to convince Arabs to accept Israeli and Western political proposals regarding the conflict.

Turkey is very active, every day, in raising the level of its relations with its Arab and Islamic surroundings, but the media is only stirred when it becomes active in the diplomatic field, regarding the negotiations between Syria and Israel especially.

Diminishing Turkey’s Role

America and the Western states generally were not comfortable with the government headed by Abdullah Gül because of its development of relations with Syria and Iran after 2002, because these two states were out of step with the Western desire to arrange the region’s conditions.

Discomfort increased when Turkey refused to grant the United States logistical facilities for the invasion of Iraq. Turkey faced broad campaigns of criticism in Western political, media, and intellectual circles, and some began saying Turkey was shifting away from secularism in favor of the Islamic idea, and a number of media outlets began speaking of Gül and Erdoğan as supporters of the fundamentalist current.

Turkey’s stock rose among Western states when it took the initiative to host indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel, and hope rose that Turkey might achieve a breakthrough distancing Syria from Iran and bringing it into the fold of states the West calls “moderate.” In other words, Western cheering for Turkey was not because Turkey was playing a new role in the region so much as because of the possibility of moving Syria from one trench to another.

This reason was reinforced when Erdoğan protested at the Davos conference against the debate’s organizers by angrily leaving the hall, and was received as a hero in Turkey. No Western statements were issued praising Erdoğan’s pride and dignity — instead, statements were issued criticizing him, to the point that some media figures described him as an antisemite hostile to Jews.

Recently, the campaign of praise and glorification returned because Erdoğan visited Syria and met with President Assad, aiming to reactivate the indirect negotiations with Israel. The unspoken hope among Western politicians was also to distance Syria from Iran and Hezbollah.

Israel trusts no one, and I do not think it trusts Turkey, but it is not prepared to boycott Turkey or leave it to its Arab and Islamic surroundings. Turkey is a large state and could play an important role in rearranging the balance of power in the region if it decisively sided with Iran and Syria, and I do not think Israel and America would risk antagonizing Turkey or adopting policies that might push Turkey away from the West. They want to keep relations good, even if only formally, and continue pushing Turkey toward further attempts with Syria.

In other words, the West does not celebrate Turkey because of its visible and latent capabilities, but because of what it can do in Israel’s favor, and the view does not go beyond using Turkey as a tool to weaken the other side in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The recent Turkish-Israeli-American maneuvers (in August 2009) can be understood from this angle. America and Israel hold to their diplomatic goodwill toward Turkey, trying to keep it within the existing international equation led by the United States. The maneuvers are limited in scope and range, but capable of returning Turkey to a circle of suspicion among some of the Arab and Muslim public, and keeping it within the Western alliance. Many Arabs and Muslims will reconsider the enthusiasm that flowed when Turkey’s prime minister rebelled at the Davos conference, and will regret their own reaction.

Between the Turkish and Iranian Roles

Media figures actively compare the Turkish and Iranian roles whenever Turkey makes a diplomatic move in the region, saying the Turkish role feeds on the Iranian role, and that Iran will find its role shrinking, in the Gulf region especially, the closer Turkey gets to the region.

These are claims I see no truth in, for two reasons: Iran works from outside the system while Turkey works from within the system, and Iran’s influence is not diplomatic but material, developmental, and self-generated. Iran is a rebel against the so-called existing world order, which is rather a gang of states led by the United States, and does not want to work through it, seeing in it injustice, oppression, and the exploitation of peoples, and prepares to confront it; Turkey, meanwhile, is one of the satellites of this order, despite the whiffs of rebellion that appear in its leaders from time to time, and does not prepare to confront it.

Perhaps Turkey harbors independent aspirations to break free of this order’s or gang’s will, but it is hesitant and cannot settle its own affairs, at least within the currently prevailing military and economic circumstances. Turkey rebelled and refused to participate in the war on Iraq, and Erdoğan rebelled in the face of Peres, but it still maintains friendly relations with Israel, normalizes with it, cooperates with it militarily, and tries to gain EU membership, and has not stepped outside the circle of American-Israeli standards.

The Turkish role is not out of control regarding the American-Israeli vision, and there are no tendencies within it toward breaking out, and consequently it will not feed on anyone’s role, remaining classified within the currently prevailing power equation and alliances, even though Turkey does not belong to either of the two implicit axes existing in the region: the Arab-Israeli-American axis, and the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis. Turkey’s role differs, in its essence, methods, means, and aspirations, from the Iranian role, and will not be a rival to the Iranian role as long as it remains within American-Israeli approval.

A Role of Its Own Versus a Role of Delegation

Turkey can compete with Egypt for its role in searching for a solution to the Palestinian cause, because the Egyptian role is disciplined by the standards of the existing international order — it is not a role of its own but one bound by these standards. Egypt’s role is one of delegation, marginal, summarized as participating in and hosting international activities in Sharm el-Sheikh, never breaking from its integration into, or dependence on, whoever commits to financial and military support. This is why, no matter how hard the Egyptian regime tries to shed its skin, it cannot, because it is disciplined according to what are called “international” standards. The same applies to Turkey.

If Turkey wants to play an effective role, it must be keen on its independence in crystallizing a vision for a solution in the region, and then set out to convince the various parties of it.

But if it decides to remain where it stands globally, it will find nothing before it but adopting a language of persuasion with Syria and Hamas to accept the American-Israeli proposal, and will find itself merely rehashing the Egyptian role.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تركيا وحل القضية الفلسطينية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.