Politics
As Erdogan poised to stay in power, Israel has reason to back its former foe
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have overcome what is probably the most serious challenge to his rule to date. Although Turkey’s economy is in tatters and its politics made February’s massive earthquakes even more deadly, its People’s Alliance has protected its parliamentary majority and it looks set to win a runoff on May 28.
Although Erdogan is not a great friend of Israel and has been one of the Jewish state’s most outspoken critics, there is a big reason why Jerusalem is quietly breathing a sigh of relief in the face of the survival of the Islamist.
“After the elections, normalization will be safer than ever,” insisted Batuhan Takis, editor of the Turkish daily Daily Sabah. “We can see that he is very dedicated to pushing this normalization forward.”
If Erdogan does cling to power, Israel will no longer have to worry about the brewing rapprochement between former rivals that could be derailed by a power transition.
While longtime challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu has little incentive to drastically change Ankara’s recent cooperative stance toward the Jewish state, there are also fears that its foreign policy priorities could unwittingly leave Israel out in the cold.
“We will see more positive ties with the United States, more positive ties with the EU,” Takis said, “but not with the Middle East.”
Kingmaker with 5%
Before the May 14 vote, Erdogan was trailing in the polls compared to pro-Western bureaucrat Kilicdaroglu, and many believed his reign could be coming to an end after 20 years in power.
But those decades in power also mean the president has become a fixture on the Turkish political scene for many. Analysts contacted by The Times of Israel following this week’s inconclusive vote all said they expected Erdogan to be in the lead at the end of the first round and be close to triumph.
“I’m not surprised by the results,” said Yusuf Erim, editor of Turkish network TRT World. “But there are details that surprised me.”
Among the surprising results, candidate Sinan Ogan won 5% of the vote as he rode a nationalist wave. Kept out of the second round, he instead assumed the role of kingmaker, with his constituents likely to have an outsized impact on whether Erdogan or Kilicdaroglu wins.
Ogan had campaigned on an anti-migrant platform, winning votes from nationalists who also oppose the possibility of Kurdish autonomy in the east, are unhappy with Western moves to counter Ankara’s search for natural gas in the Mediterranean and want to see Turkey move forward with its civilian nuclear projects.
He did not say which candidate he would support, if any, but seemed to hint at his thought process when he told the press, “Those who don’t distance themselves from terrorism shouldn’t come to us.”
The 55-year-old was referring to Kurdish parties he sees as linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is listed as a terrorist group by the US, EU and Turkey.
Both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu are allied with Kurdish parties accused of links to extremism. But while Erdogan can probably afford to drop his associations with the Kurdish Islamist Huda Par party, Kilicdaroglu sees the PKK-linked Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) as one of the coalition’s key allies and needs their support. support for a chance to win.
With conservative Ogan voters widely expected to lean heavily towards Erdogan’s camp, Kilicdaroglu’s only real hope of making any gains in the second round is apparently tied to declining pro-government turnout as Erdogan supporters become complacent. But his supporters would still need to seize the rare chance to topple the strongman and turn out in droves at the polls.
It’s long. “Opposition voters are demoralized,” Erim said. “They were shocked by the results of the election.”
Looking west, away from Israel
For Israel, it’s just as well that Erdogan stays in power. Despite his repressive policies, dismal fiscal record and alleged involvement in rampant corruption, Erdogan has been hailed for his navigation of international politics.
“We have problems in the economy, we have problems with the earthquake,” said Turkish journalist Meryem Ilayda Atlas. “Foreign policy is the most successful part.”
In the wake of the Arab Spring, Erdogan has taken a pugnacious posture in the region, sparking fights with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Greece, France and Israel, among others. But as pro-Islamist forces backed by Ankara dwindled, Erdogan faced growing isolation and severe economic challenges. In recent years, he has charted a new course, including overtures to Egypt, the Gulf States and the EU.
Israel was part of this trend. After more than two years of uneven progress, Israel and Turkey finally agreed in August to restore full diplomatic relations, four years after Ankara humiliated the Israeli envoy as he left the country.
On the other hand, if Kilicdaroglu were to win a surprise victory, his pro-Western position will not necessarily be beneficial to Israel.
Many elements of Kilicdaroglu’s six-party alliance oppose improving ties with the Arab world, preferring to steer Turkey toward the secular West rather than an Arab world they see as backward and inferior.
“Although not directed against Israel, negative ties with countries in the Middle East will also affect ties with Israel,” Takis explained.
As Israel strives to deepen cooperation with Gulf states by participating in regional initiatives such as the Negev Forum and I2U2, a Turkey led by Kilicdaroglu could view these alliances as rival power centers. His ability to act on those beliefs will, however, be limited by Turkey’s parliament, which will be led by the Erdogan-allied bloc that won a majority on May 14.
“The government will be very busy with its own political stalemate,” said Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a Turkey researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “I don’t see them making radical decisions vis-à-vis Israel.
Criticism of Israel by a secular-nationalist government will likely sound more like Swedish or French pronouncements about the Palestinians and Jerusalem, and less like Erdogan’s vicious profanity about Israeli terrorism and the killing of babies.
Erdogan has since pushed aside that kind of rhetoric as he pursues healthy ties with Israel. His reaction to the recent fighting in Gaza is further proof that he will stay the course on the strategic decision.
During past violence in Gaza, he lambasted Israel for using anti-Semitic imagery and comparisons to the Nazis. “There is no difference between the atrocities faced by the Jewish people in Europe 75 years ago and the brutality experienced by our brothers in Gaza,” he said following the deadly border clashes in 2018.
However, Erdogan remained silent during the five days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad earlier this month, even though verbal attacks on Israel could have endeared him to some of his bases ahead of the crucial election.
Israel’s emergency aid provided after the February earthquakes also did much to improve its image in the country, Erim said.
But that doesn’t mean all will be well for Israel during Erdogan’s supposed next five years in power. There remain fundamental disagreements on the Palestinian question and Hamas continues to operate in Turkey.
Israel can expect the harshest criticism to come not from the president’s office, but from his allies in parliament.
“I don’t foresee any deterioration, although there will be more radical Islamists in parliament,” Cohen said, pointing to the anti-Zionist New Welfare party in the Erdogan coalition.
This will not prevent the expansion of business and tourism between the two regional powers.
With economic recovery being Erdogan’s pressing concern, he is not about to risk losing any of the more than $6 billion in annual exports to Israel. Nor will it drive away the nearly one million Israeli tourists who come each year, with Ukrainians and Russians showing up in reduced numbers due to the ongoing war.
“I don’t see any difference in normalization after the election,” Erim said. “If anything, they will have much easier terms going forward.”
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