Turkey and Israel in the Aftermath of the Flotilla Crisis
On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos stormed a passenger ship, the Mavi Marmara, the largest boat of a flotilla of six boats which were carrying 10000 tons of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza, in international high waters. The operation left 9 activists dead and over 30 activists wounded. The flotilla attack started a new trend for Turkish-Israeli relations. For the first time in history, Turkish citizens were directly exposed to Israeli aggression. In this sense, the attack constitutes a break in Turkish-Israeli relations. It is now not only Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians that will shape the nature of Turkish-Israeli relations, more than anything else, but it is Israel’s steps towards salvaging bilateral relations by reassuring the Turkish nation and state.
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The New Middle East: One Year After the First Flotilla
‘What are the implications for the Palestinian problem?’ and discuss the New Middle East a year after the first flotilla and in the wake of the Arab Spring.
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Israel has been living in political déjà vu for some time now. It neither comprehends the transformation in the region, nor does it have the political capacity to analyze the future.
In addition to a big plus in the diplomatic success column of Turkey, for the sake of being realistic however, the structural issues such as the Turkish-Israeli conflict over the regional vision and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc. should be taken into consideration.
Whatever happens, relations between the two countries cannot and will not reach the high level of cooperation between TurkeyÂ’s pro-coup elites and Israel in the late 1990s.
