Source Nemesis. by Ioasif Kassesian. September 2001. pp. 64-66. Translated by staff. Emphasis added.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
28 July, 2002, Turkish Probe issue 496, Copyright © Turkish Daily News
The Sabbatean myth revived at a political turning point
Are you being watched? How do you know you aren't? The fact that you are paranoid doesn't mean somebody is not watching you. Conspiracies abound at times of turmoil; some of them turn out to be facts, while some truths remain in the dark, some are false and some forgotten. In any case it's an intriguing timing to trigger a new debate on unconfirmed stories of the Sabbateans in Turkey
By Elif Kelebek
Politics never takes the backseat in Turkey. Because of its much-fragmented structure, the political scene is always apt to give way to sensations, including at times when the country least needs it, like the critical phase of an economic program or a turning point for European Union affairs.
As the country now moves fast towards an early election now, it is engulfed by speculations over the plans of key political figures, scenarios on the possible consequences of their actions, prophecy about the possible election outcome and eventually the post-election government structure, but these debates are not the center of concern here.
On the periphery of all this talk, arguments that have faded out sometime ago are once more coming to life. These arguments are of the kind that would fascinate the public like a grand conspiracy theory and have most coincidentally reemerged at a time when election campaigns are set to take off.
Ilgaz Zorlu, the author of the once hype book "Yes, I Am a Salonikan," is the one who raised the allegations in a recent interview with pro-Islamist magazine Gercek Hayat (Real Life). Zorlu has asserted that people of a mystic Jewish sect, already holding very key positions in the state, would come to power in Turkey, naming Ismail Cem, Kemal Dervis, Rahsan Ecevit among the members, none of whom publicly denied the allegations.
Zorlu, who managed to reclaim his Jewish identity a few years back at the end of a toilsome struggle, was a Sabbatean himself and revealed the secrets of this group in Turkey in his book. The reason he wrote the book in the first place, he says, was to win acceptance from the mainstream Jewish community and from Israel both for himself and the Sabbateans in Turkey.
Sabbateans take their name from the self-proclaimed messiah of the 17th century, Shabatai Zvi. Following Zvi, who ultimately chose conversion over death, the Sabbateans converted to Islam but continued to practice Judaism in secret. Salonika has been a major center for the sect until the exchange in 1924 when Zorlu argues that most people (some 25,000) Turkey welcomed as Muslim Turks expelled from Greece were in fact members of this community.
Turkey's Sabbateans have remained secretive as they were somewhat disliked by both Jews and Muslims, but maintained their beliefs and traditions. Until 1950s they only married among themselves and their children would find out about their Sabbatean origin only after the age of 18. Therefore many truths about the sect are still unknown and the veil of secrecy has added to the legends surrounding the community.
Most people who Zorlu claimed in his book to be Sabbateans denied this identity because of historic concerns, mainly the mistreatment of Jews throughout history. The closest example was his grandmother who refused to reveal her beliefs and continued to do her prayers secretly because of, for example, a wealth tax imposed on non-Muslims during the republican era in Turkey and the tendency among the overwhelmingly Muslim populace to isolate non-Muslims from the community.
Zorlu's claims were most interesting because he named the most prominent families, politicians, diplomats, journalists, businessmen among the members of the sect, only a few of whom later on admitted to being Sabbateans. He filed documented evidence at various court cases to prove his allegations and his claims were backed by leading pro-Islamist writers like Mehmet Sevki Eygi and Abdurrahman Dilipak.
Zorlu assets that Sabbateans in Turkey, which he estimates around some 100,000 now, all wealthy and well-educated, are socially, politically and economically supporting each other and also enjoying support from the Jewish lobby in the U.S. Both Zorlu and Eygi have suggested that the members of this sect are very powerful and are holding influential positions in the state and business world.
Despite their extremely different backgrounds, these two sides strangely meet on a common ground when it comes to criticizing the covert Sabbatean community in Turkey: Islamists are worried about the power of and the strong bonds among this group, probably regarding them as a threat to their own existence, while Zorlu criticizes his community for exaggerating secularism in Turkey, which Sabbateans are known to have contributed significantly through organized action under the Union and Progress Party in early 1900s.
Most recently in an interview to Jerusalem Report Ilgaz Zorlu suggested that Tansu Ciller, leader of the True Path Party (DYP) was a Sabbatean. He claims, on documented evidence, Ismail Cem and Kemal Dervis, the two key figures of the new political formation now called the "New Turkey" party, are also Sabbateans, as well as Rahsan Ecevit, who he says have always had a distance with Husamettin Ozkan, the third key figure of New Turkey, because he wasn't of the same origin.
Zorlu suggests that if it wasn't for his Sabbatean origins, Dervis could never become an independent cabinet minister without political responsibility, a theory which would delight those who have sought a conspiracy behind Dervis's unusual appointment as economy minister from a World Bank post in the U.S. last year. Dervis is now a figure seen as a vote booster for any political party he may choose to join.
Ilgaz Zorlu further claims that Rahsan Ecevit, who actually rules the Democratic Left Party although she's not a deputy and doesn't hold an official post in the government, will become president once Chief of Staff Huseyin Kivrikoglu's term expires on August 30. He argues that there are Sabbateans in senior military ranks to support this turnover, but refuses to name them. Sukru Sina Gurel, who is viewed a potential successor for Bulent Ecevit in the Democratic Left Party, is one of the people Zorlu counts among Sabbateans. Can Paker, chairman of the prominent non-governmental organization Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), is another.
"Rahsan Ecevit is like Golda Meir. Her attitude and ideology is the same. The way Golda Meir was a totalitarian and disrespectful of democracy in defending the elimination of the entire Arab world for the salvation of Israel, Ms. Ecevit accommodates the same thinking for Islamists," Zorlu has told Gercek Hayat.
"Don't underestimate Ms. Ecevit because she's 81 years old. There are people who are younger than 70 and she chewed them like gum," he said, recalling what he described as a famous statement of her after Ismet Inonu was toppled from the Republican People's Party (CHP) leadership in 1972 and Bulent Ecevit took over the post.
"'I took the revenge of the wealth tax,' she said."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Turkey and the Jews
By Daniel Pipes
Turkish Times, September 1, 1994
Jewish communities still extant in Muslim countries tend to be weak and without a future, mere shells of the vital populations that existed half a century ago. Anyone with energy or ambition long ago fled Iran, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, or Tunisia; those who remain barely eke out a living. They have no role to speak of in the business or intellectual life of their countries; politically they count only as potential victims or as hostages to be bartered away. In The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (1991), Norman Stillman accurately described them as "a small, vestigial, and moribund remnant."
How different in Turkey! Here Jews, as in the West, play a disproportionate role in the life of the country. During a visit not long ago to Istanbul (the city where nearly all the Turkish Jews live), I had an opportunity to meet two of the country's tycoons, both Jewish. Jefi I. Kamhi is the flamboyant, jet-setting chairman of Profilo, a company which produces almost everything you can think of (prefabricated construction units, white goods, parts and accessories); in addition, it imports and exports, distributes consumer durables, and invests.
Üzeyir Garih, CEO of Alarco, is a more restrained figure; his company contracts projects, engineers them, and specializes in building big-ticket items such as pipelines, gas storage terminals, refineries, textile factories and office complexes. Both men are active in business associations, are counted among their country's leading philanthropists, and have strong ties to the highest political circles.
Thanks to their knowledge of European languages and foreign contacts, Jewish businessmen have played an important role in the expansion of Turkish companies into international markets. They also have a prominent role in fashion, advertising, and banking; for example, Jews dominate Istanbul's Tahtakale money market and effectively set the dollar exchange rate for Turkey's currency. These Jews are not small, vestigial, or moribund.
And it's not just the businessmen. I didn't get to see Sami Kohen this trip, but he's been for many the foreign affairs columnist for Turkey's largest circulation daily newspaper Milliyet, where he writes a sophisticated analysis of his country's geopoliticals, as well as frequently contributing to such American papers as the The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times. Other Jews teach at the universities and work for the government, where they serve as diplomats and hold other positions of responsibility. In short, unlike the dying Jewish communities in other parts of the Muslim Middle East, the one in Turkey is vibrant and influential.
Interestingly, other Jews -- those of Israel and the United States -- also have a role in Turkey. In extensive talks with officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office, I found a consistent interest in strengthening ties with Israel, and near delight with September's Israel-PLO agreement because it hastens this process. These analysts see Israel in a variety of ways: as a trading partner, a fellow democracy to help stabilize the region, an ally which can help deal with the Iranian and Syrian regimes, and a means of access to Washington. The first-ever visit by Turkey's Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin to Israel last November consolidated these ties and raised high hopes for the future.
Which brings us to American Jews. One Turkish analyst pointed out to me that many of the leading American scholars of Turkey are Jewish (including Bernard Lewis, Stanford Shaw, and Avigdor Levy). A Foreign Ministry official who noted that Turkey's strongest advocates in the United States are Jewish, mentioning specifically Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, concluded with the comment, "We love American Jews." Turkey's government despairs of a Turkish lobby ever emerging in the United States which will be capable of standing up to the Greeks and Armenians; in the meantime, it counts on Jews to make the argument for Turkey in Washington. More effectively than anyone else, these individuals point out Turkey's importance as an ally in an especially turbulent part of the world (for example, vis-à-vis Iraq); its positive influence in the Middle East as an enduring democracy; and its importance as a model of secularism for the Muslim world as a whole.
Of course, Turkey also has its share of fundamentalist Muslims, fascists and other forms of anti-Semite. Like their counterparts elsewhere, these spread conspiracy theories about Jews and fulminate against Israel. But in Turkey, unlike Iran and the Arab countries, these people don't make policy, nor do conspiracy theories dominate political thinking. Perhaps most important, Turks don't engage in violence against Jews. (It was foreigners, not Turks, who carried out the one major act of violence against Turkey's Jews, the 1986 bombing of Neve Shalom Synagogue.)
There's every reason to think the good news will continue in the years ahead -- that Jews of Turkey will flourish; that Ankara's relations with Israel will expand; and that American Jews will play a valuable role explaining Turkey in the United States. With regard to Jews, as is the case in so many other ways, Turkey has successfully removed itself from the paranoia and repression of the Middle East and made itself a part of the West.
Commentary by Radio Islam:
Daniel Pipes is one of chief Zionists acting within the George W. Bush Regime. Thus reading Pipe´s revelations on the disproportionate power of Jews in Turkey ("Jews, as in the West, play a disproportionate role in the life of the country") really should state the fact of the matter and cannot be labelled as "anti-Semitic" propaganda.
---------------------------------------------------
Israeli Military Strategy in Turkey
Ha'aretz, Sept. 27, 1995
By Ze'ev Shiff
The deal between Israel and Turkey for the overhaul of Turkey's Phantom warplanes to the tune of about $600 million is the biggest yet defense project that Israel has had with a Muslim state. It should not be regarded as a mere economic transaction, but as a major development in the strategic cooperation of Israel with an important state in the Middle East. The deal is only the tip of an iceberg of extensive military cooperation. American defense industries may feel hurt as a result of this deal, but it may be assumed that the White House and the State Department view Israeli-Turkish cooperation and the project positively because of its broad strategic value.
Three neighbors are problematic from the Turkish point of view-Iraq, Iran, and Syria. These are states also hostile to Israel. The Turkish government surely wants to convey the signal that, in the regional balance of forces, it has a strong and stable friend like Israel. Both seek stability in the region and conform with U.S. interest in such stability. Turkey also wants to carry out a modernization of its army and Israel can assist in this endeavor.
One should keep in mind the struggle of both Israel and Turkey against terrorism and Turkey's growing fear of an increase of extremist Islamic terror. Here, too, there is room for cooperation, although Israel does not want to be dragged into the bloody struggle with the Kurdish underground which finds shelter in Syria, as the Turkish intelligence knows. Turkey is an important member of NATO and its army is the second largest in the alliance. However, much of the Turkish military equipment is outdated and requires replacement.
The modernization will cost Turkey some $10 billion in the next several years while Turkey is burdened with bad economic conditions and a large foreign debt. The debt burden has grown because of the loss of revenues from the flow of Iraqi oil through the Turkish pipeline.
It is in Israel's interest to extend relations with Turkey. First the level of diplomatic relations was raised, then a military attaché was sent and a document of understanding was signed defining defense relations between the two states. The military security dialogue continues and this week the director of the Defense Ministry, David Ivri, returned from Turkey. One example of the closer diplomatic relationship is the air-fueling maneuver that was carried out in May 1994 when Turkish planes were refueled by an Israeli plane.
The negotiations on the Phantom agreement continued for a long time. The Turkish air force has six squadrons with 165 Phantom planes. Israel has experience in renovating and transforming this plane into the Kurnas 2000. The overhaul prolongs the operational life of the Phantom by 15 to 20 years. A modern American radar and an advanced computerized aeronautical system were introduced into the Phantom, including an improved electronic combat and navigation system. The capability of the plane to participate in a ground battle has also been improved. U.S. and German companies also competed for the deal in Turkey. In the beginning, Israel took part in the bid of the American radar producer Norden, whose system is installed in the new Israeli Phantoms. But this bid failed. Norden asked for $5 million for each radar system. So as not to lose the deal, Israel, through the Elta Company, proposed to produce a similar radar for only about $3 million and won the bid. Elta has now to prove to the Turks that the performance of its radar is adequate. In August an agreement was signed that included a technical and financial framework for the overhaul of 54 Phantoms, 30 of them to be overhauled in Israel.
As expected, the success of Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) angered Norden and other U.S. companies. Norden has accused Israel and Turkey of unfair practices in testimony before the U.S. Congress. The main accusation is against IAI, a former partner of Norden, blamed for giving Turkey misleading information. Norden will ask the U.S. administration to take steps for cancellation of the deal with Israel. Probably Norden will be prepared now to offer lower prices and will turn to circles in Turkey who oppose making any contacts with Israel.
For our part, the problem of the Turkish deal is financial. The Turks demand that payments begin only after two years in the five-year deal. Thus, interim financing is needed by IAI, putting heavy pressure on the company. It owes the banks about $300 million. An ugly struggle has been going on between the company and the banks about this debt. It is little wonder that the banks do not want to finance the deal with Turkey and they are not interested in the strategic importance of the deal.
The finances thus become a matter for the finance minister and the prime minister to act upon. The finance minister has already committed himself to not allow the Phantoms deal to be lost. What also bothers him is how to make sure that, on Jan. 1, 1997, when the IAI wage agreements expire, the company does not collapse financially.
--------------------------------------------
The fourth Nordic conference on Middle Eastern Studies:
The Middle East in globalizing world
Oslo, 13-16 August 1998
The new alliance: Turkey and Israel
Is it a course towards new division of the Middle East?
By Akram T. HawasAalborg University
In April 1996, Turkey and Israel had 'surprisingly' recognized that they have actually concluded a military agreement which gives both countries the right to use each other's atmospheres to air force training. As usual some of the countries in the Middle East reacted quickly to express suspicions about the real goals behind this new 'military bloc'. Most of the reactions were emotional, but Iran and Syria expressed unease, and Egypt expressed skepticism. Later on Jordan declared that it was joining the new bloc, whereas nothing practical seemed done by the other countries to face this alliance. Neither USA [1] nor any other Western country expressed any immediate position, which perhaps could be conceived as an acceptance. Nor was there any reaction from Russia.
Questions should be raised: Considering that the peace process was somehow far-reaching and the efforts of the USA seemed to be on the right course to set up a new and peaceful Middle East; why was such a new military bloc established then? What were Turkey's and Israel's purposes and objectives? Why did the Western countries not express any posture; did they actually not care about it? [2]
In fact, the agreement was originally concluded on March 23, 1996, and it was declared officially in the beginning of April. As both the Israeli and the Turkish officials have asserted that the agreement was not a military bloc, nor was it directed against any countries, an explanation tended to see the agreement not as a mere outcome of the Al-Sharm el-Shaikh Summit, [3] but as a part of a larger strategy towards Syria, Greece, and Iran.. The active Turkish participation in that summit and Demirel's following trip to Israel were two evidences of a new and hard Turkish policy based on national and economic security considerations, where the Kurdish crisis, which was estimated to cost the country about 8 billion dollars annually, [4] was seen as one of the most serious challenge to the Turkish government's efforts to transform Turkey to be an economic superpower in the Middle East. Another explanation indicated that the agreement was perhaps responding to the renewed military agreement between Syria and Greece; the traditional enemies of Turkey, thus, the Turkish-Greek confrontation would then exceed the low-level of disputes and would be accentuated projecting historical conflicts: Hellenic-Ottoman or Christian-Islamic confrontation. [5]
However, insisting that, the agreement with Israel was not much different compared with similar former agreements with Arab countries like Iraq, Saudi-Arabia, Jordan and Libya, Turkish officials showed a tendency to put pressure on Syria regarding the accusations of support to the Kurdish Movement: Syria might choose between its relations with Turkey and its protection of PKK's leader Ugelan. At the same time, Turkey had refused any attempt to regionalisation the water-disputes considering that the Arab countries have no rights to intervene in this problem. On the other hand, most of the Arab countries accused Israel of disrupting the peace process by establishing a new military bloc in the region. Simultaneously, the relations between Turkey and some of the Arab countries like Syria and Iraq and some Islamic countries like Iran experienced tensions. Internal tension especially in Turkey was also an aspect of reactions towards the military agreement with Israel. In this context, the personal attentat against Demirel's life [6] has been connected to the theory that Israel's last assault on South Lebanon (Qana), where hundreds of civilians were killed, was a result of the military agreement.
The objectives of this paper
This paper is seeking to test the military cooperation between Turkey and Israel in the context and the opportunities of globalizing the Middle Eastern structure of relations: Why was this 'alliance' being possible and necessary, and how it could contribute in restructuring the region? The paper is seeking to explore some of the reasons behind the new military alliance. Considering the relations between the internal development strategy and the international system, it seems that the new military alliance was not necessarily a disruption of the peace process Israel/Palestine, but on the contrary an integrated part of it with some structural changes projecting to stifle and suppress the contra-forces internally and externally. Among the external target groups were: Iran and its allies, the Hisbullah militants in Lebanon, the Palestinians Islamic groups, the unclear Syrian position on the peace-process, as well as the PKK's positions in Turkey.
On the national level, the alliance was projecting the nature of intra-social and political relations in the Israeli and the Turkish societies. Undoubtedly both societies were experiencing severe division; in Israel because of the peace-process, and in Turkey because of the controversial view on Islam and the Islamic World and the relations with the West. The new military alliance could be seen as projecting the globalization of national crises, or in other words a rational attempt to solve domestic social, economic and political crises within a regional network of economic expansionism, where the role of the military power experiences an essential transformation in its nature from self-defence to a guarantee for economic expansionism.
However, the objective of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of the new role of the military power on the national plan of Third World countries. The paper seeks to prove that in light of the new structure of international relations, some selected countries in the Third World can improve their national economic, political, and social conditions through regional economic expansion secured by sophisticated military power. The role of military power is in no way a return of colonialism, but to function as an overbearing body that by permanent threats to suppress any antagonistic action and to secure the articulation of the resources and opening of markets externally. It is, basically an attempt at imposing coercive hegemony.
Methodologically, my point of departure is at the level of regional actors. This is in contrast to Realism and other schools of international politics, whose level of analysis relates mostly to the world powers. Furthermore, I will examine the impact of internal changes on the state's apparatus in Turkey and Israel.
The paper has six sections: The first section includes the introduction and the objectives of the paper. The second section, Old Rules, New Potentials, is a theoretical discussion of the potentials, which the structure of the so-called New World Order offers for small countries who seek to secure their interests. The third section, Old Ambitions, seeks to show that Turkey and Israel had have historical ambitions, which have not been realized. By exploiting the new potentials, these two countries tried to realize those old ambitions. The fourth section, Internal Developments, concentrates on the internal evolution that necessitated the realization of these old ambitions as well as the start to a new project of economic development. The fifth section, A Common Project, is a problematization of the Turkish-Israeli military agreement which, depending on the new evolutions in the international environment, aimed to realize the old ambitions based on structural adjustments with regard to internal and regional developments. Finally the sixth section, Conclusion, sums up the former sections and examines the possibility for realizing the project.
Old rules, new potentials
Central to the realist approach, are concepts like actor state, power, national objectives, military. The state is seen as a rational actor in bringing security and securing national sovereignty through its impact on international relations, which only can be set up by power politics. In the last instance, war is a clash of opposing wills, with power as the only key element that can bring victory. Military power is as determining as any other capabilities like economy, technology, diplomacy, international status etc. The Cold War was a complex of all these factors. But as the two world superpowers had nuclear capability, war was no longer an option, nevertheless accumulation of the capabilities of power, including the arms race, was evidence for the rational role of the state actor. [7]
As the Cold War was over, the structure of international relations was also experiencing changes. The Neo-realists consider the new world order on the basis of the same principles; 'The new pattern is a combination of several poles of power, a single dominant ideology and a single dominant coalition. This combination defines a new international order that can usefully be seen as structured along centre-periphery lines'. Here two changes can be observed: Firstly, 'the organisational structure of global management is still confused; secondly, 'aid (economic) is no longer easily available for strategic reasons.[8] This means that clients can no longer depend on their former patrons.
Obviously, the conditions of the Cold War necessitated a long range of commitment by the superpowers towards their proxies in order to hold on to them as allies. One of these proxies was Turkey, which received essential economic aid and political support from the USA in order to keep its position as the south wing of NATO to confront any Soviet expansionist potential. Israel was another proxy with the duty to preserve Western, mainly USA's economic interests in the Middle East and in the Gulf region.
However, although Israel was still receiving American economic aid as well as political support, USA's growing presence in the Arab countries in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War had perhaps resulted in a relative reduction of Israel's importance. Because, as its economy was in decline, the world superpower, USA, might so take over a big part of the job by itself. On the other hand, Turkey's importance was also experiencing a decline as the Soviet threat was no longer valid. This meant that the country could not count on any direct rescue from the USA. Under the emergence of the New World Order, the hegemony of the superpower USA is no longer able to secure the interests of each client country, nor can it homogenize the world. In return, as it is no longer willing to provide economic aid, USA's unipolar hegemony provides the opportunity for its former allies to seek securing their own interests as they can. [9] This is perhaps one of the new main elements in the New World Order: Every single country is seen to be free to secure its own interests. The only condition is not to challenge the world system, or in other words, securing the interests of countries must not be at the expense of the interests and superiority of the world hegemon, the USA. What is essential in the new order is the stability of the world system and the commitment to preserve American hegemony, not necessarily a common parameter for development in the whole world, nor a more fair distribution of the world resources. This can be seen as a new phase in the process of unequal development of the world capitalist system. [10] In a world of capital expansionism that perpetuates unequal development, the only logical model is the development of the stronger while leaving the weaker in a category that can be politely called underdevelopment.
Thus, a sort of selective stability gives the powerful allies of the USA the right to expand at the expense of the weak and the 'defected' countries. [11] In the light of this structure of relations, it was perhaps quite appropriate for countries like Turkey and Israel to follow the pattern of the world hegemon and play the game of securing their own national interests also by exporting their national crises. In a system, like the world capitalist system, where the values of moral and justice [12] have no place, the military threats remain the only and the most practical guarantee not only for the survival of the system itself but also for any successful operation within its context. [13]
Supposedly, without such a military power Iraq would never have given up its occupation of Kuwait, nor could democracy have been reinserted in Haiti. Also when Israel agrees to give up territories in Gaza and the West Bank, its deportment might be seen as a response to the violent Intifada and not least the intensive military actions of the Islamic groups. Even economic sanctions, as the new innovation of the international system to impose changes on single countries, can never be effective without military observance.
The importance of the military boom is undoubtedly essential to support the economic expansion, because without it, economic corporations remain exposed to antagonism of the contra-forces either by sabotage or by seeking counter-bloc. [14] In fact a parameter of international relations, i.e., to secure the interests of all partners is not born yet. Coercion is therefore still necessary when consent is absent. Since the end of the Second World War, military power is still the only guarantee for economic and political flourishing. Japan's and Germany's economic powers have flourished under the American military protection. Now when these two countries are in economic conflicts with the USA, they are well under way to reconsider their military position.
What we actually have experienced in the aftermath of the Cold War was not a really demilitarization process of the world super military powers as it has been expected. [15] In some countries, it was in fact a process of transforming the nature of the military tenets in the domain of both mobilization and weapons from accumulated quantity to selected quality. France's insistency on conducting nuclear testing followed by changes in its mobilisation methods was significant evidence of a new qualitative military competition. The difficulties in the international negotiations to stop nuclear testing and expansion are other signs, where the less developed countries like India and Pakistan desire a common pledge by all counties to reduce their nuclear arsenals. To India it seems that the demilitarization process was but a trick by which the most sophisticated nuclear countries sought to dismantle any challenge to their military dominance. [16] In the world of today, the new role of military power is in no way defined by traditional issues like security. Nor has it much to do with democracy, while some scholars emphasize its negative impact. [17] It seems the negative impact can both be economic, because of the high level of military expenditure, defence-budget; and political, because when the army has no external enemy, internal societal interference can be an attractive gaol. It seems also that military power is under way to possess a 'productive' role and have a positive impact in securing the outwarded economic expansion. This is not new to the history of the superpowers, because colonization and imperialism might have already signified the central role of military as a productive factor for their economies. In contrast, it would be a new phenomenon in the history of the Third World countries since the establishing of the world capitalist system. Iraq was expelled out of Kuwait because it used the traditional methods of colonization and because it challenged the world system and dissatisfied the world hegemon. Israel and Turkey were not placed in the same categorization and would use different methods. Turkey and Israel were two countries with tight relations with the USA, and then they had to take initiative to seek to secure their national interests by their own capabilities in the Middle East: a rich region characterized by both resources and crises, where the majority are Arab and Muslim countries.
A partnership of economic cooperation with the Arab and the Islamic countries in the region, needs a non-antagonistic atmosphere of relations. Both Turkey's and Israel's relations with their neighbour countries were constantly lacking such a non-antagonistic atmosphere: As the bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel have been shaped by a kind of mutual understanding [18] since the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust and later the establishment of the state of Israel, both the Turks and the Israelis may be quite convinced that in acceptance by the Arabic and the Islamic masses was still far from being reached. These masses cannot be satisfied as long as what they fought for in the last several decades is not achieved yet. [19] History is still the major contributor to form the consciousness and the attitude of these masses. In the Turkish example, although they share the same religion, the bad and bloody memories of the Ottoman Era are still shaping the minds of these masses: The attempts to 'Turkicization' of the non-Turks and the brutal suppressing of the Arab nationalists especially in Syria and Lebanon; of the Kurd nationalists in the whole region; and of the Shiite-Muslims in the Arabic Peninsula and Iraq. In the Israeli example, the heritage is even heavier: The relations are dominated by the logic of revenge and resistance.
On the other hand, countries like Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia (only relatively) and Syria have likewise regional ambitions of hegemony and economic cooperation projects, which have caused more antagonisms between regional states rather than cooperation potentials.
However, in the light of all these realities, and in order to secure its national interests in the context of the rules of the world system, it was quite legitimate for Israel and Turkey to use coercion. This was accentuated by the fact that Shimon Peres' [20] vision of the project of a Middle East Economic Market was rejected outright by some Arab countries and Iran, while other countries were sceptical. Even Egypt had reservations. [21]
In fact, the role of the military power has never been absent from Israeli strategy towards the Arab countries in the Middle East. Although it usually refuses to recognize that it possesses nuclear capability, Israel has actually rejected signing the international treaty on nuclear proliferation. Despite Arab and especially Egyptian appeals to the USA to put pressure on Israel to open its arsenals to international inspections, it still rejects any discussions of the subject. However, the essential transformation in the nature of the Israeli military doctrine is seemingly, that its role is no longer merely to protect the existence of Israel from any Arab 'invasion' and secure it as a state in the Middle East, but to work for its economic expansionism in the region. (see later on Israel's ambitions) Similarly, the Turkish military which had the duty to safeguard the south wing of NATO from any Soviet invasion and to secure Turkey's unity against the Kurdish separatists, was now to fulfil the tasks of securing the regional economic expansionism of the country.
Old ambitions
When Turkey joined the NATO in 1952, its priorities were seemingly based on a dream that the military regime was to play a greater role in the Middle East in order to prove that the successors of the Ottoman Empire were not less effective. The dream was to regenerate the overthrown empire perhaps on new conditions and with the help of those who actually eroded and destroyed the Empire, i.e. the Europeans. When Ataturk adopted secularism and replaced Arabic letters with Latin in the Turkish language, he expected that these procedures would open the door to the European house and to prove that the Turks were still able to do more than what they did before; the Turks can enter Europe from the backstage avoiding any European antagonism. [22] Thus, the huge wave of the Turkish labour emigration to Europe in the 1960's and the early 1970's were perhaps the tools by which the Turks aimed to create a new reality in the European political and social structure: By effective participation in the European economic machinery, this civil invasion aimed to consolidate and legitimize Turkey's efforts to be adopted by Europe.
However, these dreams created a tradition within the military institution of Turkey, and consolidated its position as the absolute societal force, whose authority determines the capacity of manoeuvre of the political elite both what concerns domestic and foreign policies. The political elite can only act when the military institution is satisfied. That means in areas where the military institution is opposed to policies, the political elite is actually paralyzed. One important aspect of this paralysis was the disability of the political elite to carry out any successful economic policies. [23]
Similar to Turkey, the political life in Israel is also dominated by a strong military tradition. The power of Israeli military institution stems from the history of the state, which was established in 1947 as a result of the efforts of the Zionist para-military organizations cleansing Palestinian-Arab areas and replacing them with imported Jews from all over the world, in order to impose the new state as a reality. But this state has always been rejected and suspected by its neighbours, the Arab countries. This posture has strengthened the position of the military institution; the organization of the army which waged four wars against the Arabs in order to force the Arab to accept it as a member state of the Middle East. The war struggle for legitimacy has been the doctrine that shaped and still shapes not only the attitude of the Zionist organizations and the military institution, but also the discourse of the political elite. Based on the historical passions of the Jews in the ancient of the East but in the modern history in the West, where the term of anti-Semitic was born and where the Holocaust took place, the only logic that determines the consciousness of Israelis is the necessity of strength; in order to impose your own state and to force the others to accept Israel. Thus, the dream of Greater Israel [24] might be seen as a product of this doctrine. But although Israel, since its establishment, and depending on the West particular by the USA, has been the strongest state in the Middle East, it had not been managed to realize the project of Great Israel yet. What is important here is that, in order to be the strongest, Israel has always allied itself with those stronger outsiders who have interests in the region. Thus, Israel's permanent allied was/is the American superpower. In its efforts to secure its interests, Washington has always faced antagonism in the region, therefore it had/has to have permanent military threat, either indirect through proxies like Israel and Iran under the Shah, or its own forces as now.
However, as far as Turkish ambitions to play a greater role in the Middle East and perhaps in the world are concerned, Europe plays an important role. Since the establishment of the European Community, Turkey has applied for membership several times, but all applications have been rejected on different grounds: Sometimes economic reasons and other times new issues like the development of democratic institutions and the violations of human rights are invoked by Brussels. However, this was/is not the only defeat in seeking to play a greater role. Nor has membership in NATO offered Turkey the opportunity to play a hegemonic role in the Middle East. Under the Shah, Iran was preferred by the US to exercise regional hegemony in the Middle East. After the fall of the Shah, the Western countries supported Iraq to dominate the Gulf region, and Israel was strengthened by the US. During the Gulf crises, Turkey offered the Western-led alliance the use of its bases in the military offensive and control of the economic sanctions against Iraq, and also to offer the Iraqi Kurds the secure zone in Iraqi Kurdistan. As a result Turkey lost the earnings from the Iraqi oil export through its territories, while its project to be the motherland of all Kurds has been rejected. [25] But Western economic aid was not increased
Internal developments
Although Kemal Ataturk and his followers clearly visualized a secular, Western-style, mixed economy and democratic polity, [26] the Turkish state's intervention was intensive in the societal relations. With its objective to secularize society, the state projected structural as well as social changes in the society; people were no longer allowed to wear their traditional costume, which was to be replaced with modern Western style; the Kurdish language was totally forbidden not only in the cities, but also in the villages and even among family-members. In fact the clause of democracy was put in cold water, and the actual characteristics of 'the Kemalist state was undoubtedly authoritarian and totalitarian'. [27] After the reimposition of the parliamentary system, developments in the post-1980 military coup have, however, seen an ease of state intervention in societal relations. [28] This course actually opened the door for many oppositional forces within the structure of the society to express different attitudes rather than those which defined by the state. This has been the reason for a new set of tensions in the society. In 1983, Turket Uzal became first prime minister after the reimposition of a parliamentary system in Turkey. Later on he became president. He aimed to modernize the country by converging religion and modernization, conservatism and nationalism. Uzal projected also creating stability in the society based on a peaceful solution of the Kurdish problem. But it seems that his project had embarrassed both the military as well as the political elite: his project was conceived as an attempt to transcend Ataturkism and to build a new Ottomanism to give Turkey a leading role in the Middle East. [29]
However, developments in the post-1980 coup created a course of new relations between the state and the masses. The focus on the triad: secularism-nationalism-Westernization has actually deepened the chasm between what the state was projecting and how the social development has taken place. Due to the Islamic traditions, the people rejected this project. Significance for this rejection is seen in the growing Islamic Movement both in the form of the democratic-parliamentary aspect, the Islamic Party and the Welfare Party, and in the form of Islamic militant organizations like Hizbullah-Turkey. The repeated anti-state demonstrations and the social unrest are also signs of this chasm. [30] The state/society dichotomy can also be related to a complex of political instability based on crisis of identity and elite monopoly. [31] A significance for that was the cabinet-formation process in the aftermath of the last general election is a good and clear example of the influence of the military institution. Although the Welfare Party, which propagated Islamic positions, won the election, it was immediately been restrained to form a mini-cabinet, and then when it managed to form a coalition with Ciller's party, this coalition has been forced to resign and the Welfare Party has been dissolved.
On the other hand, as already mentioned, in Israel, like in Turkey, there is also a rigid and influential military institution. The political elite is not able to act without regard to the view of the military. [32] A difference can be found in the stage of societal intervention. In contrast to the wide societal intervention of the Turkish military, as emphasized above, it is necessary to underline that the degree of political democracy in Israel has always limited the role of the military to national defence and strategic policies. This difference might be seen as the result of the historical role of the two military institutions: In Turkey, the military played a great role in reforming the national identity [33] of the Turks as a new nation after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. In Israel, as the Jews were already organized in the Zionist organizations, the military role was defined by the creation of the territorial structure of the state of Israel. Nevertheless, as a response to the desires of the military and the political pressure of religious-Zionist groupings, the political elite is sharply divided on the peace process. In return this has created a social-political division in society. The military institution and the religious-Zionist grouping are influenced by a certain kind of xenophobia expressed in mistrust to all others than Jews. [34] Historically, the military desires have been translated into an ideology and an action of revenge. Simultaneously, these xenophobia and mistrusts of anyone have also shaped the definition of who is really Jewish, [35] which in turn created sharp discriminations within the Israeli social structure. [36] The white and European immigrated Jews are favoured and they actually dominate the political as well as the military domains. The Oriental Jews including those who actually were the original inhabitants of Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel are less favoured. [37] Meanwhile, the black Falasha Jews from Ethiopia and the black Jews from USA whose origins are in Africa, they are generally excluded from any political influence as well as any social position; in fact they are excluded from the economic privileges like housing and jobs, which immigrants normally be privileged; they are marginalized and live in containers in extremely unsatisfactory social and health conditions; their future is vague or perhaps they are without any future prospects, as long as their children have no access to schools. [38] This is only one small aspect of the split in the Israeli social structure. The main and the sharpest division is actually grounded in the duality created by the peace process. That is the duality between the complex of xenophobia, mistrust, revenge, the Greater Israel and God's Best Nation on the one side, and the peace agreement which demands trust, cooperation, stability and security for all on the other side. In practice these requirements need ideological change as well as territory concessions.
The explicit expression of the enormous difficulties which cause the realization of these changes almost impossible, is exemplified by the breaking of the Jewish religious taboo by a young student of law who killed Prime Minister Rabin. The recent general election and its result support this argument.
To go back to the developments in Turkey, the view of the Kurds is the most essential issue, where disagreement between the military institution and the political elite, can be assessed. For a long time, since the dispersion of the Ottoman Empire and after the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic, the Kurds were viewed as a non-civilized group. But, as a consequence of the tragedy of the Iraqi Kurds, who have been severely suppressed at the end of the Second Gulf War, the world's humane view of the Kurds has changed. The Western countries led by USA who offered the Iraqi Kurds a secure zone in Northern Iraq, has also pushed Turkey to change its position towards the Turkish Kurds. The political elite had actually shown a tendency towards a kind of concession in the form of securing the cultural rights of the Kurds, and for the first time in Turkey's modern history, to recognize them as a separate ethnicity. Prime Minister Turket Uzal, who at that time expressed sympathy for the idea, 'suddenly'died. Although his successors the current President Suleiman Demirel, Tanso Ciller, Erbakan and Yalmaz, perhaps had shared in part the same attitude on the Kurdish issue, they were actually under the pressure of the military to send troops to the Kurdish areas in southeast Turkey and across the Iraqi border to chase the PKK's guerrillas.
What is significant, is that neither the great offensive during the past year in Northern Iraq nor the military operations either inside Turkey or in Northern Iraq could paralyse PKK's actions. [39] The case was still unclear as to what a rational and better solution could be? The popularity of the PKK has clearly increased in Turkey, and the European as well as the general Western pressure on Turkey was also increasing especially after PKK's new strategy to threaten Western tourists in Turkey and the bloody demonstrations by the Kurds in European countries like Germany, France, Belgium, simultaneously with political efforts to declare a Kurdish Parliament in exile. The army institution in Turkey still insisted (s) on a military solution while a group in the political elite was seemingly convinced that such a solution was no longer possible. In this context also, the relations between Turkey and respectively Syria and Iran were to be tackled. Although both the military and the political elite had agreed on the necessity of securing the country's interests, the dispute was still shaping on how to do that. Both Syria and Iran were accused of seeking the destabilization of Turkey: Syria by supporting the PKK, and Iran by supporting the PKK as well as a growing radical Turkish Islamic Movement. In return, Iran accused Turkey of supporting the Mujahideen Khalq, an Iranian opposition militant group, who was said to carry out sabotage actions across the Irani borders to Iraq and Turkey.
In Israel, the view on the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank had shown a tendency towards transformation. During the past few years, the Israeli authorities in these areas were faced with a strong uprising by the Palestinians, Al-Intifada, which survived the brutal suppression of the Israeli soldiers. As a consequence of that, a part of the Israeli political elite, the majority of the Labour Party supported by some generals in the military institution, realised the need to find a solution. Responding to Western pressure, the Israelis and the Arabs were gathered in Madrid Conference followed by the Oslo agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Here the Israeli view on the solution was seen as moving towards a willingness of giving up territories and perhaps even accepting a Palestinian state. [40] Not only territorial concessions meant the recognition of official boundaries, something which has never been defined since the establishing of the Israeli state, but more essentially it meant renouncing the traditional definition of the dream of Greater Israel.
But could this essential transformation of the Israeli dream be conceived simply on a humanitarian base or as a response to international pressure? And although the Intifada has been a permanent internal exhaustive war, could it be the only reason? (see the next section) As such, conducting the peace process was in no way without a price; as it has already been emphasized, the peace process in fact created severe social division in the Israeli society. Seen in this light the military alliance could be seen as a tool to hinder further escalation in the crises.
However, this division was not totally new. Maybe Israeli intellectuals have been aware of it. Thus alliance with Turkey was perhaps an attempt to rehomogenize the social structure. But the result of the last general election and Prime Minister Netanyaho's reemphasis of the old principles are perhaps expressions of frustration more than a further step to reunite the society. But as the alliance was an attempt by the peace supporters to get the accept of the conservatives to continue the new course, perhaps it would have other objectives!
A two-partners project
The project of the Two Partners does not mean a unification of their forces; either military, economic or/and political, nor is it a joint hegemonic project. It is rather a project of partnership built on the principle of reciprocity in assisting each other in securing national interests as well as in the time of crises. It has perhaps periodic validity or/and can evolve to be an embryonic start to the formation of a regional bloc. It differs from the usual collective action, which indicates an equality in goods and payments. [41] The project of Two Partners is built on a complex of interests and the two countries may accordingly assist each other to secure the interests as well as to assure the security of each of them. It means that common interests and security are not necessary (pre)conditions for common actions. This can be seen in contrast to former attempts to creates alliances in the Third World including the Middle East, like Baghdad pact 1955 which was established by Western forces to confront the Soviet Union; the Arab Bloc against Israel which was depending on Soviet assistance; and not least the Non-aligned Movement which was penetrated by both world blocs (the West and East) and was used as a forum for political propaganda against this or that bloc.
The project of Two Partner is neither against the world hegemon, USA, nor is it merely an instrument for its interest-management. In fact, it seems that this sort of project was seen to fitting Turkey and Israel's position in the Middle East regional, where it is too difficult to find other partners to share the same objectives. Thus, both USA's esprit de corps as well Jordan's substitute positions are not seen as to be partners.
The project of Two Partners is aimed to serve Israel and Turkey in various areas in the contemporary Middle East structure and in the light of the opportunities offered by the globalization process.
Nevertheless, in addition to many of the interests and crises already mentioned, the main dreams of Turkey and Israel were to be integrated as important actors in the Middle East region. As the new innovation of the international structure is the formation of regional blocs for securing economic cooperation, both countries were assumed to have intentions in this direction, also to solve internal crises and secure national interests. But in fact realization of economic cooperation is restricted by the political disintegration of the region. Shimon Peres, the former Foreign Minister and then Prime Minister in the Labour Party-led government had already formulated a project for a sort of economically based cooperation. A mechanism for international conferences on economic cooperation in the Middle East has bee established: The first conference was held at Casa Blanca in 1994, the second took place in Amman in 1995, but nothing practically has been done mainly because of political reasons. [42]
On its side, Turkey has been one of the most enthusiastic countries to the project of Middle East Economic Cooperation. But Turkey also faced serious problems to integrate itself in the region because of historical problems; Turkey's hitherto policy of searching integration in Europe at the expense of its relations with the Arab and the Islamic countries, and not least because of the water disputes with Syria and Iraq as well as the Kurdish problem which involves these countries and Iran.
Moreover, since establishing of the new secularized Turkey by Ataturk, the country has suffered several defeats in its efforts to play a greater role on the international arena: The first and perhaps most bitter is that Turkey has been rejected by EEC (EU) several times. The second concerned Turkey's relations with NATO: Here despite Turkey's essential position as the south wing of NATO confronting Soviet expansion, NATO's countries did not offer Turkey any important support; in its disputes with Greece the Western countries have been conceived to side the latter; Turkey's project to annex all Kurdish territories to establish the Turkish-Kurdish great state is rejected by the West, the Arabs, and Iran. Thirdly, the project of a Great Turk empire has failed, because the Asian Islamic countries are divided between Iranian, American and Russian and later also Saudi-Arabian and Israeli influences.
As a response to all these defeats and still looking for a greater role and a better integration in the world system, both the Turkish military institution and the political elite (the Welfare Party was not in power yet) were supposedly agreed that Israel was the proper ally; it is the best card guaranteed by the West to put pressure on the Arabs; and it is the proper gate into the international scene, because Israel, since its establishment has been the dearest protégé of the world community. This was what Turkey tried to utilize. [43]
On the other hand, as far as the Jewish state is concerned, as the project of Great Israel has shown the need of a transformation from the physical-territorial context to the economic sphere, thus, according to the new international structure, Israel had to find a strong partner who not only accepts it but also as an ally. This project is to secure Israel the position of a mini USA.
Nevertheless, it has been emphasized, that the economic dominance should be secured by a military and political presence and attendance. Politically, and in addition to the peace agreements with Egypt, the Palestinians, and Jordan, Israel has actually established a network of relations with two Gulf countries: Oman and Qatar, and with three Magreb countries: Morocco, Tunisian and Mauritania. [44]These political relations have also opened the door to embryonic economic cooperations, which can be extended in the case of full commitment to the peace process. But what about the military?
Israel has been a target of a wave of para-military actions by groups of the Islamic Movement, both inside Israel, in the occupied territories and by Hizbullah in the Israeli-occupied zone in Lebanon. Iran was accused to be the major supporter to these groups. In this context, Israel has always expressed the desire to dismantle Iran's capacity. [45] Thus, targeting Iran might be seen as an important priority for the Israeli military, particularly due to the allegations about future Iranian Nuclear potentials. As Israel does not share borders with Iran, its air force needs midway bases. Here Turkey can provide vital assistance as long as Turkey may have similar reasons. Iran had been actually accused by Turkey of supporting PKK's guerrillas as well as the Islamic Movement of Hizbullah-Turkey.
However, in addition to its bases in the Kurdish area in Northern Iraq and supposedly in Iran, the PKK also has a base in Lebanon, precisely in Al-Beqa'e valley, which is under the control of Syrian troops. Moreover, the Turkish authorities insisted that the PKK's leader, Abdullah Ugelan, lives in Syria under the protection of the Syrian securities. But as all operations, which the Turkish troops have hitherto lunched against the Kurds were resultless, it seemed that Turkey was actually not able to incapacitate PKK's guerrilla war.
In addition to the security problems, Israel faces an essential water problem. This problem has actually been one of the main factors in the peace process. Because of its great agricultural projects, Israel utilizes the biggest share of the water from Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinians rivers. Now these countries are also under the way to develop their own agriculture projects. Some of these rivers stem from Turkey, which has in fact built up important agriculture, industrial, and tourists projects. The water issue is also a disputable between Turkey and both Syria and Iraq. In this context, in 1992, Suleiman Demirel, Prime Minister at that time and now President, launched the principle that Turkish water is for the Turks. [46] The slogan was perhaps a revised Turkish response to the Arab motto Naftul-Arab Lil-Arab; Arab's oil for Arabs; the principle which was launched by the Baath regime in Iraq in relation to the nationalization of the Iraqi Petroleum Corporation in 1972 and later on the Arab-Israeli war of October in 1973. Demirel's new principle called on exchanging Arab oil for Turkish water with Syria and Iraq. Although Turkey actually started to build large dams at the water sources in the Kurdish areas of southeast of Turkey as agriculture, industrial and tourists projects as the main bases for its economic and development strategy, [47] the major aim of the principle, that is the exchange of Arab oil for Turkish water, was not realized yet. Nevertheless these projects have reduced Syrian and Iraq's access to the water, but the influx of the water to Syria and Iraq was still gratuitous. As Turkish officials insisted, the quotas of the water were shared according to former agreements concluded under other circumstances. [48] On the other hand, and to confirm that there is a new world order now with different conditions and rules, the US, which offered essential assistance both in planning and implementing the Turkish dams and projects, has not reacted to Iraq's and Syria's insisting on the necessity of commitment to international law and the former agreements. Even if the US wished an overall solution of these main water problems the question would be how to implement it. However, what concerns Turkey, and in order to ensure that the Turkish development projects survive, the southeast part of Turkey must experience stability. But as long as the PKK continued its military actions, stability could not be settled in this part of Turkey, which is historically a Kurdish territory. This problem has already been emphasized in this section.
Thus, the case might be formulated in the following way: Now Israel needs Arab water, Arabs need Turkish water, Turkey needs Arab oil, Arabs have claims on territories from Israel. The new alliance might be seen to seek to realize this project, but the Arabs were not willing to give up, neither oil, water, nor territories. The alliance would seek to push the Arab regimes into accepting the new formula. Perhaps this could be realized through long range efforts and through an overall solution of the problems in the Middle East, and not least through realization of the project of Middle East economic cooperation. [49]
Although it might be an obvious, that any foreign policy needs its own operational model of internal changes as dynamic precondition, I have to be very prudent to involve the internal political and social changes, which have taken place in both Turkey and Israel in this discussion. [50]
The main objective of the internal political changes, would lie in an attempt to extend the popular bases of the governments. This would be an condition for pushing the project of economic expansion forward.
In Turkey, however, in the midst of all the disputes the way was open to Erbakan to form a new cabinet: a coalition with his earlier 'enemy' Ciller and her party. The military institution finally seemed to have accepted. Erbakan was perhaps one of two options: either a new military coup to confront the social and political crises as well as, especially, the growing influence of the Islamic-attitude, or an attempt to contain them. The military and the political elites chose the second option not because of its inherent nature, but in order to ameliorate the already negative picture of Turkey and its regime in Western eyes. But even more important the aim was to avoid an overall social explosion; the memories of what happened in Iran in the second half of the 1970's which ended with the Islamic revolution in 1979 were present in the minds of Middle Eastern elites. The assumption was that the Erbakan in power would not be the Erbakan in opposition. While in opposition the man used to express 'Islamic' attitude freely, even calling for the unification of the whole Islamic world in a new Khilafah Islamiyah (Islamic Great State). [51] In power he would be bounded to the state's real politik towards international agreements including the military agreement with Israel. The agreement which Erbakan, as opposition leader, had severely criticized. But as government leader Erbakan would talk about Turkey's national and strategic interests; the importance of the Turkish Republic in Northern Cyprus; renewing the agreement with the Western countries: USA, France and Britain to save the Kurds in Northern Iraq. [52] A second main objective of Erbakan's government was perhaps to find a sort of permanent solution to the Kurdish problem: Relying on his Islamic credentials, Erbakan could use terms like Muslim-fraternity to minimize the Kurdish claims and to preserve the unification of the country menaced by the separatist movement. [53]
In Israel, the changes have been more dramatic, during his election campaign the candidate Netanyahu voiced rigid rightist principles and when he became prime minister he continued to insist on those principles; he emphasized a policy of three Nos: [54] When the former labour government conducted the peace-process, it created divisions in society, because the party was representing only a half of the Israeli population. Then Netanyahu's policy represented the other half. The main objective of this hard line may lie in the efforts to contain the intensive resistance to the peace-process by the rightist-religious groupings, because as he has been opponent of the peace-process, he postulates that it is his model of peace, which is favoured by all Israelis. [55]
Conclusion
As part of the evidence for the still important role of the military power in determining national, regional, as well as international relations, is the enormous influence of the military institutions in Turkey and Israel, whose rigid doctrines not only defines the capacity of the political elite, but also control any attempt to question or modify that doctrine. In this context, it seems that the vital impacts of the former Turkish Prime Minister Uzal's political line could be summarized to four steps: He was seen as trying to build a new Ottomanism on different grounds than those of the Ataturk era. This was conceived as an attempt to dismiss and reject Kemalism or Ataturkism; He also aimed at coupling secularism, the Western principle which Ataturk had adopted to build modern Turkey, with Islam. In other words, the religion and its legacy which Ataturk had sought to destroy. This was understood as a re-Islamization of the Turkish political and social development; He sought to generate pragmatism, probably meant to replace dogmatism, which the military institution was/is built on; He sought to recognize the Kurds as a separate ethnicity and secure their political and cultural rights. This would be a recognition of a system of multi-culturalism and non-homogeneity of the Turkish society, something which may lead to destabilization and perhaps also opening the door to the dismantlement of the Turkish state, which both the military institution and the political elite are bounded to preserve.
While the Israeli-Turkish agreement aimed at satisfying the military institutions and at consolidating the position of the political elite in both countries, it had, as far as democracy is concerned, different impacts on Turkey and Israel. In the latter, the agreement could have positive effects in the efforts of the political elite to rehomogenize the Israeli society after the divisions on the peace-process. Actually the parties at which the agreement was aimed, Syria, Iran, and the Islamic fundamentalism, are considered enemies by both the pro- and anti-peace process supporters. These adversaries are estimated by both wanting to sabotage the peace-process and to destroy Israel as well.
In Turkey, in contrast, the agreement deepened the dichotomy between the state and the pro-Western elite on the one side and the majority of the people and the opposition parties and movements, who explicitly rejected and condemned the agreement on the other side. Some saw the later Israeli incursion of Lebanon (Qana), where hundreds of civilians were killed, as result of the agreement. A personal attentat on Demirel's life followed. Erbakan called for an anti-Zionist Islamic pact. These developments necessitated the change of power or more precisely allowed a new policy in order to hinder a worsening of the situation. Erbakan's potentials to continue his course were related to his efforts to rehomogenize the society as well as to secure Turkey's interests. Thus came his initiatives on both the national as well as the regional plans: His visions of a peaceful and total solution of the Kurdish problem in cooperation with Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and his efforts to have independent relations with these countries as well as with other countries in the Middle East including economic cooperation and not least to resolve the disputes around the water question. [56]
In Israel, the long commitment of Israeli politicians to the view of the military institution expressed in the four general wars against the Arabs; the occupation of territories in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine; the several assaults on Lebanon, developing nuclear power and rejecting to sign the international agreement of banning nuclear testing and prelimination; the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor and the threats to the supposedly Iranian and Pakistani nuclear capacity. These are a few evidences of the influence of the military institution and its dominating doctrine.
The essential question of this paper is whether the new military alliance can realize the objectives of restructuring the Middle East region in the light of globalization process, by imposing the project of economic cooperation guaranteed by military power. Obviously the realization of any project depends partly on the country's own capacities, and partly on the reactions of the exterior.
What concerns their own capacities, it seems that the governments in Turkey and Israel have so far made a great part, but in creating internal changes, which aimed at broadening the mass mobilization, the efforts have not much successful.
The reaction of the exterior was in fact connected to individual countries. Egypt, one of the great countries in the Middle East, was and still is desperate. It refused the idea of joining the new alliance, because it seeks to assert its position as the vanguard of the Arabs and their interests, but on the other side it feels that it once more has been defrauded by the US, Israel, and Turkey by excluding it from the arrangements of the future of Middle East.
The Israel-Turkish alliance will probably realize its goals as an alternative contra alliance is not foreseen. A contra alliance would have to include Egypt, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and the other Arab countries. However, there is a conflictual relationship between most of these countries and Iran on ideological grounds. There is also a historical confrontation between Egypt and Iran on hegemony in the Middle East generally and particularly in the Gulf. [57] Nor are Egypt and Syria quite agreed on the peace-process with Israel. Iraq is actually paralysed. Most of the Gulf countries are neither able to stand against Iran nor against Egypt, nor do they actually possess any ambitions of external expansionism. In fact any contra alliance can not be effective without Iraq and Iran. Another stumbling bloc is not least the dispute between Syria and Jordan. Rejecting Syrian critics, Jordan has not only declared the desire to join the new Israeli-Turkish military alliance, but has also indicated a threat to Syria, when Prince Hassan accused Syria of having the intention of regenerating the Great Syria at the expense of Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. He added that the region will experience vital developments, and the Americans will put crucial pressure on Syria especially concerning its position on the peace process. [58]
As the realists point out war is clash of wills led by the rationality of the state. The states, which neither are rationale nor express any will, are weak and defenceless. In the case under discussion here, the weakness of the regional counter-front is not foreseen as capable to prevent implementation of the Israeli-Turkish agreement in achieving its goals. But on the other hand, wills can also be changed. In the Middle East nothing is stabilized: The peoples who established the first civilizations on earth are now besieged; they still have potentiality and they strive for material capability. This is the dynamic behind instability characterizing the region. The social formation in Turkey and Israel represent two different historical courses; there is no guarantee that they will continue what their military institutions and political elites have initiated; in short, the alliance between Turkey and Israel can easily be changed to enmity, thus making room for new constellations and a new regional balance/imbalance.
Further reading
Barbir, K.: Modernization in the Middle East: Ottoman Empire, London, Al-Saqi, 1992.
Begin, Ze'ev B.: A Zionist Stand, London, 1993.
Ben-Rafael, Eliezer: Language, Identity, and Social Division; the case of Israel, Oxford, 1994.
Bruno, Michael: Crisis, Stabilization, and economic reform; Therapy by consensus, Oxford, 1993.
Catudal, H.: Isreal's Nuclear Weaponary, London, Al-Saqi, 1991.
Cohen, Y.: Nuclear Ambiguity: Vanunu Affair, London, Al-Saqi, 1992.
Cosyantine P. Danopolous (ed): From Military to Civilian Rule, London, 1992.
Efraim Karsh and Gregory Mahler (ed): Israel at the Crossroad: The Challenge of Peace, London and New York, British academic Press, 1994.
Flapan, Simha: The Birth of Israel; myths and realities, New York, 1987.
Gabriel Ben-Dor and David B. Dewitt (ed): Confidence Building in the Middle East, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
Gerard Chaliand, (tr) Philip Black: The Kurdish Tragedy, London and Atlantic Highlands, HJ: Zed Books, 1994.
Gunter, M.: Kurds in Turkey, London, Al-Saqi, 1990.
Hale, W.: Turkish Politics and the Military, Lonod, Al-Saqi, 1994.
Heper, Metin: The State Tradititon in Turkey, Beverley, 1985.
Hunter, F. Robert: The Palestinian Uprising; a war by other means, London, 1991.
Jamison, D.M.: The Israel People; a study, Nogales, Ariz., 1992.
Kahhaleh, Subhi: The Water Problem in Israel and its Repercussions on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Beirut, 1981.
Landau: The Arab Minority in Israel, 1967-1991; political aspects, Oxford, 1993.
Metin Heper and Ahmed Evin (ed): Politics in the Third Turksih Republic, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
M. J. Laver (ed): Party Policy and Government Coalition, London, 1992.
Raphael Patai and Emmanuel Goldsmith (ed): Events and Movements in Modern Judaism, New York, Paragon House, 1995.
Robert Wistrich and David Ohana (ed): The Shaping of Israel Iddentity: Myth, Memory and Trauma, London, Frank Cass & Co., 1995.
Robins, Philip: Turkey and Middle East, London, 1991.
Rugman, Jonathan: Ataturk's Children; Turkey and the Kurds, New York, 1996.
Schiff, Ze'ev: Intifada; the Palestinian uprising; Israel's third front, New York, cop.1990.
Schindler, C.:Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream, London, Al-Saqi, 1995
Shaw, S.: Turkey and the Holocaust, London, Al-Saqi, 1995.
Shaw, Stanford jay (ed): History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern, Cambridge, 1977.
Shipler, David K.: Arab and Jews; wounded spirits in a promised land, New York, 1986.
Walter, F. Weiker: Ottoman, Turks and the Jewish Polity: A History of The Jews in Turkey, Landham, MD: University Press of America; and Jerusalem, Israel: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1992.
Williams, A.: Turkey and Europe, London, Al-Saqi, 1993.
Zvi Sobel and Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (ed): Tradition, Innovation, Conflict; Jewishness and Judaism in contemporary Israel, New York, 1991.
Notes
1.
Later in 1997, USA has officially approved the agreement and thus it has participated in the first Israeli-Turkish marine exercise, where Jordan has also been adopted as an observer.
[*]
2.
The British foreign minister emphasized he had not heard about the agreement, interview with MBC (an Arabic Broadcast from London), 26 June 1996. Onther other hand, (Alhayat [an Arabic daily newspaper published in London], 9 April 1996) writes: The American administration points out that, as the agreement is between an Islamic country and a non-Islamic country, it will offer a good basis for stability in the Middle East and that it is not directed against anyone. Muhammad Awadh, an Egyptian journalist, foresees that, by this agreement USA will give Israel access to the Iranian border. ( ibid, Al-Hayat 21 August 1996).
[*]
3.
Anti-terrorism top summit was held in Egypt, 13 March 1996 at the initiative of the USA and Egypt with the participation of many countries including Europeans, Japan, some Arabic countries, Israel and Turkey.
[*]
4.
Muhammad Nur el-Din, Turkish-Israeli Agreement was the Parameter to Confront Syria, Greece and Iran, Al-Hayat April 25, 1996.
[*]
5.
Khurshid Delly in ibid Al-Hayat.
[*]
6.
As many Turks, especially the Islamists, were against the development in the relations with Israel, the attentat on Demirel 18 Maj 1996 could be seen as a response to his trip to Israel; this would perhaps be connected to the attempts to abolish the Welfare Party and restrain its endeavours to have power, especially by the Army as well as the traditional political parties, because Ataturk's secular doctrine was still shaping the political life in Turkey. (Husni Mahli, The World This Week, MBC, 23 May 1996).
[*]
7.
For more about the realist approach see Pierre de Senarclens, The 'realist' paradigm and international conflicts, in International Social Science Journal, Vol. 127, February 1991, pp. 5-19.
[*]
8.
Both citations are from Barry Buzan, The Changing Security Agenda in Europe, in Ole Waever et al, Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, Pinter Publishers Ltd, London, 1993, pp. 11-12.
[*]
9.
It is useful here to refer to a new definition of the USA's hegemony in the New World Order. William Kristol and Robert Kagan call it BENEVOLENT global hegemony: Having defeated the 'evil empire' the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of US foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening America's security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its principles around the world...In the Middle East, the United States maintained the deployment of thousands of soldiers and a strong naval presence in the Persian Gulf region to deter possible aggression by Saddam Hussein's Iraq or the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran, and it mediated in the conflict between Israel and Syria in Lebanon. William Kristol and Robert Kagan: Toward a Neo-Reganite Foreign Policy, in Foreign Affairs, No.4, July/August 1996, pp. 21-22.
[*]
10.
Samir Amin works, respectively: Accumulation on a world scale: a critic of the theory of underdevelopment / translated by Brian Pearce, New York, 1974; Unequal Development: an essay on the social formation of peripheral capitalism / translated by Brian Pearce, Hassocks, 1976; Imperialism and Unequal Development, New York, 1979.
[*]
11.
With the conception of defected countries I address the countries which defect from the international system and challenge the world hegemon. These countries are now Iraq, Iran, Sudan, North-Korea, Cuba, Syria.
[*]
12.
Definition of these conceptions is obviously complicated and controversial. What I mean is the minimum commitment to the values of democracy and human rights which are mentioned in the UN Charter as well as the Western countries' constitutions, and which imply the right of the individuals as well as the nations to secure a better life-conditions by a better distribution of the resources.
[*]
13.
Edward N. Lutwak points out that: A policy of nonintervention would yield a world not only less stable, but also more militarized...[because]..A vacuum will have been created..[by supposedly USA's nonintervention policy] that other countries will fill. Edward N. Lutwak: A Post-Heroic Military Policy, in Foreign Affairs, No. 4, July/August 1996, p. 44.
[*]
14.
Jeremy D. Rosner emphasizes that the American supporters of NATO enlargement intend to sustain the 'idealists who seek to bolster democratic and economic reform in Central and Eastern Europe..' Jeremy D. Rosner: NATO Enlargement's American Hurdle, The Perils of Misjudging Our Political Will, in Foreign Affairs, No.4, July/August 1996, p. 9.
[*]
15.
See f.ex. Martin Shaw , Post-Military Society: militarism, demilitarization and war at the end of the twentieth century, London, 1991.
[*]
16.
Kenneth J. Cooper says: From the Third World perspective, the treaty appears to be colonization. The white nations want to maintain their monopoly on the advancement of military power. [India's Veto of a Treaty Banning All Nuclear Tests Is Popular at Home, International Herald Tribune, August 24-25, 1996]. However, both Indian and Pakistanis recent nuclear tests are not seen to form any real challenge to the structure of the world system or to USA's world hegemony. These tests project regional geopolitical lack of stability as well as they express frustration towards the nuclear monopoly by the five world superpowers.
[*]
17.
See Charles W. Kegley, JR and Margret G. Hermann; How Democracies Use Intervention: A Neglected Dimension in Studies of the Democratic Peace, in Journal of Peace Research, vol, 33, No, 3, 1996, pp. 308-311.
[*]
18.
Al-Bakkush, Abd el-Hamid: Why should we lose Turkey by Politics addressing Crises as Funds, Al-Hayat, 22 August 1996.
[*]
19.
What I mean here is among other things, simple objectives like development, liberalization of Palestine and unification of all Arab land, liberalization and unification of Kurdistan, and re-establishing the Islamic State.
[*]
20.
See Peres, S.: The New Middle East, 1993.
[*]
21.
Egypt insists always on the necessity for full-completion of the peace process prior to any further economic steps. The role of the military power is to offer an umbrella to realize such a project, and also to contribute to the security of the Gulf countries vis-a-vis Iraq's and Irans ambitions. On the basis of its territorial disputes with Saudi-Arabia and Bahrain, Qatar's economic relations with Israel are seen to be an attempt to break up the security chain around itself.
[*]
22.
For more details of Ataturk's era see f.ex. Preston Hughes, Ataturkculuk ve Turkiye'nin Demokratiklesme Sureci, Istanbul, Miliyet Yayinlari, 1993, reviewed by Coskun Can Aktan, Middle East Journal, No. 1, Winter 1996, p. 125-26.
[*]
23.
Henry J. Barkey; The State and the Industrialization Crisis in Turkey, Boulder, 1990, reviewed by Kerim K. Key in Middle East Journal, No. 3, Summer 1991, p. 523. Here the author emphasizes that this paralysis resulted in military interventions in 1960, 1971, and 1980. In the post 1960 military intervention and up to the return of the civilian rule, the military, civilian bureaucracy, and industrialists were supporters of import substitutions...which caused in hampering the formulation and implementation of cohesive long-term policies led to a paralysis of the political leadership.
[*]
24.
That is from Euphrates to Nile.
[*]
25.
Turket Uzal's sudden conciliatory policy in 1991 towards the Kurds was seen as an attempt to convince the Iraqi Kurds to join a great Turk-Kurd state.
[*]
26.
Ziya Onis, Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era: In Search of Identity, Middle East Journal, Volume 49, No. 1, Winter 1995, p. 52-3
[*]
27.
Erik J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History, St. Martin's Press, New York, p. 194. However, the Shah of Iran did the same; the consequence was the emergence of the Islamic resistance which resulted in the revolution of 1979. In recent years such an Islamic embryonic resistance has been a social and political reality in Turkey. Efforts are perhaps made or to be made to avoid a similar Iranian experience.
[*]
28.
Ibid, Preston Hughes. he points out that Ataturkism should no longer be accepted as a dogmatic ideology...The principles of Ataturkism are not taboos.
[*]
29.
Kamaran Qara Daghi, Did Uzal project destruction of Kemalism or did he seek to be a new Ataturk? Al-Hayat 25 April 1996.
[*]
30.
Sami Shoresh, Al-Hayat, 26 May 1996.
[*]
31.
The Turkish Ambassador to Denmark Turhan Morali says in a lecture at Aalborg University, 2 November 1998, that the problem of democracy is that the political system is shaped by party-oligarchy restraining grass-roots movements to form any alternative. On the identity crisis, he said: We still ask ourselves: who are we?
[*]
32.
Yehuda Ben-Meir, Civil-Military Relations in Israel, New York, Colombia University Press, 1995, reviewed by Amos Perlmutter in ibid Middle East Journal, No. 1, Winter 1996, p. 117-18. The author points out that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have played a disproportional role in shaping Israel's strategy... In view of the professionalization of the IDF, its role in the decisions to go to war, and now in the peace negotiations, the Israeli military is certainly more important than in other democratic political systems.
[*]
33.
The imposed identity, as the Kemalist ideology had defined, was based on two cornerstones: non-ethnicity and secularism. But this identity never been realized (see ibid Turkish Ambassador), because the non-ethnicity led to Turkicization of the non-Turks and the secularism projected merely the dis-Islamization of the society in Modern Turkey.
[*]
34.
Kevin A. Avruch, Gush Emunin: Politics, Religion, and Ideology in Israel, in Michael Curtis (ed) Religion and Politics in the Middle East, West view Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1981, pp. 207-215.
[*]
35.
Daniel J Elazar and Janet Aviad; Religion and Politics in Israel, in ibid, Michael Curtis (ed), pp. 163-66. As the authors point out 'Israel is formally a secular democratic state', and the Jewish people are categorized either as religious, non-religious traditionalists or secularists. Furthermore, they emphasize that 'it is difficult to distinguish between a pure national Israeli identity and a Jewish identity. National historical consciousness does not exist without reference to the religious historical past. Continuity with Jewish national culture implies continuity with religious tradition in some form. The sources to be confronted are religious sources. The consciousness and sensibility are religious.'
[*]
36.
Within the right wing, there are both secularists and non-secularists, and in fact the right-left conflict is also inherent in the conflicts between the liberal citizenship and the religious-nationalist citizenship. Azmi Besharah, On the Current Challenges, Al-Hayat, Arabic Newspaper issued in London, August 24, 1996.
[*]
37.
In the last general election, the Russian Jews, who are relatively new immigrants won the same number of mandates (6) like Shas, and the Arabs won 4 mandates.
[*]
38.
MBC's interview with a leading figure in black Jews movement under the general election. See also Teshome G. Wagaw: For Our Soul: Ethiopian Jews in Israel, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993, where the author points out that the Ethiopian Jews are alienated in their resettlement in Israel.
[*]
39.
The recent Turkish threats to Syria which aimed to dismantle PKK's infrastructure in Syria had temporally led to minimizing PKK's actions, but there is no significance for a total uprooting of its military power, nor it can give a sense of future developments.
[*]
40.
Usi Sarid, the former deputy foreign minister in the Labour government, who was one of the main figures behind the Oslo accord, MBC's report, August 2, 1996.
[*]
41.
Baizhu Chen, Yi Feng and Cyrus Masroori; Collective Action in the Middle East? A Study of Free-ride in Defence Spending, in Journal of Peace Research, vol. 33, No. 3, 1996, pp. 323-24.
[*]
42.
President Mubarak states that the time is not in favour of peace, nor is it in favour of the region including Israel; without peace security is not expected, and without security there is no stability. News conference together with President Assad in Alexandria August 7, 1996. However, as the Third Economic Conference was held in Cairo in 1996 and was categorized as successful, it was clear that the unsolved political conflicts were still restraining real initiative to regional economic cooperation. Thus, the Forth Conference in Dawha (Qatar) in 1997 was a real fiasco because the majority of the Arab countries have boycotted it 'as long as there was not any progress in the peace process, due to Netanyaho's hard line'.
[*]
43.
Rumours have also been released that Iraq and Sudan have tried this gate.
[*]
44.
As issues like development and more integration in the international system (see note 36) can be seen as the main reasons behind these countries' relations with Israel. However, Qatar and Oman may have additional reasons: both countries seek to retain their national autonomy vis-a-vis the joint platform of the Gulf Economic Corporation, GEC, which is conceived to be dominated by Saudi-Arabia.
[*]
45.
Under the general election in Israel, Prime minister Shimon Peres called for the formation of a Western-Arabic coalition against Iran.
[*]
46.
Demirel said: Neither Syria nor Iraq lay claim to Turkey's rivers any more than Ankara could claim their oil, Turkish Daily News, July 25, 1992.
[*]
47.
See Water Issues Between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, A study by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Department of Regional and Transboundary Waters, in Perception-Journal of International Affairs, No. 2, June-August 1996, pp.94-96.
[*]
48.
Ibid, pp. 105-107.
[*]
49.
Sami Kohen emphasizes: The question of water certainly needs a new approach and should become the subject of bilateral and regional cooperation, rather than of dispute. In this regard, I believe that the Water for Peace project offers great opportunities for closer economic and political links among the nations of the Middle East. Sami Kohen: On the Future of the Middle East, in ibid, Perception, p. 116.
[*]
50.
My discretion derives from the point of view that the election programme of both Erbakan and Netanyahu were substantially contrary to the political reality in both countries. Therefore it would be too difficult to anticipate the compromises will evolute. To deal with Erbakan and Netanyahu, I think it needs a more comprehensive study of their programmes and the new realities they seek to create.
[*]
51.
A conference was held in Istanbul, Al-Hayat, May 29, 1996.
[*]
52.
This agreement was concluded in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War, according to which the Turkish authorities allow the air forces from the USA, France, and Britain to use Turkish military bases to observe the free zone for the Kurds in Northern Iraq. The agreement must be renewed every 6 months. Erbakan was very critical of the agreement, but when he became prime minister, he agreed to renew it. However, Erbakan's attempts to establish a political basis for cooperation (also economic) with the Islamic World, Asian and African countries, remained merely personal initiatives because of the tough opposition by the secular parties in Parliament.
[*]
53.
This option failed as well. Erbakan's government and party have been quickly crippled by a harmonic play between the military institution and the secular political elite. Meanwhile the relations with Israel continued its progress despite the wide popular opposition.
[*]
54.
No withdrawal from Golan Heights, No withdrawal or even discussion of the case of Jerusalem, No negotiations under any preconditions.
[*]
55.
Interview in MBC, 7 August, 1996.
[*]
56.
During his trip to Iran 10-11 August 1996, Erbakan called on a summit between the leaders of Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq to find an overall solution of the Kurdish problem and all other security problems, and to establish a program of economic cooperation.
[*]
57.
Recently there have been some evidences about a progress in Egyptian-Iranian relations. But concert initiatives are still not been taken, due the ideological and political conflicts. E.g. Mubarak accused Iran to encourage terrorism and to intervene in Arab affairs (a statement on 7 July 1996).
[*]
58.
Al Sharq el-Awsat (an Arabic daily newspaper issues in London) 27 May 96 referring to a conference at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------
Power Bloc
Turkey and Israel Lock Arms
By Jennifer Washburn
The Progressive magazine, December 1998
Last December, when Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz visited the White House, a coalition of human-rights and arms-control groups urged President Clinton to confront him about Turkey's pervasive human-rights violations and its ongoing repression of the Kurds. Not all members of the American human-rights community were so critical, however. On December 17, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent Jewish organization that seeks to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination, presented Yilmaz with its Distinguished Statesman Award and honored him at a gala dinner attended by the leaders of several major American Jewish organizations.
" Turkey stands as a country committed to democracy and the promotion of tolerance," proclaimed ADL director Abraham Foxman in a press release distributed at the time. According to the ADL, its Distinguished Statesman Award goes "to those leaders who exhibit an extraordinary dedication to regional and world peace, and who possess a special commitment to promoting human and civil rights."
Such high praise for Turkey and its head of state prompted a sharply worded rebuttal from the Washington Kurdish Institute. Yilmaz's treatment of the Kurds, the group wrote to Foxman, "amount[s] to little more than ethnic cleansing."
Since 1984, the Turkish military has bombed and depopulated more than 3,000 Kurdish villages in its campaign to eradicate the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant Kurdish opposition group. As a result, 30,000 people have died, and two million Kurdish refugees have been driven out of their homes into overcrowded urban shantytowns.
The Turkish government "has long denied the Kurdish population . . . basic political, cultural, and linguistic rights," notes the U.S. State Department in its most recent human rights report. In 1997," torture remained widespread," and "government officials continued to harass, intimidate, indict, and imprison human rights monitors, journalists, and lawyers for ideas that they expressed in public forums."
So why would the ADL and other Jewish leaders lavish such praise on Yilmaz?
The reason is Turkey's burgeoning military partnership with Israel. In February 1996, Turkey and Israel signed a historic military training agreement, followed six months later by an arms-industry cooperation pact. Since that time, military and economic ties between the two countries have blossomed. Both nations now fly and train in one another's airspace, share sophisticated intelligence information, enjoy extensive trade relations, and cooperate on joint security and weapons projects.
"We think the relationship gives hope to the region; we believe it can be helpful in moving the region toward peace," said the ADL's assistant national director Kenneth Jacobson in an interview with The Progressive. "This award doesn't specifically use the word human rights," he explained defensively. "We always raise questions about human rights and the need for further democratic reform."
Most Turkey and Israel supporters, including the Clinton Administration, agree that this partnership is a cause for celebration. "We are very supportive of it," says Dana Bauer, deputy director of the Office of Southern European Affairs at the State Department. "It strengthens two pro-Western allies in the region and helps both to modernize their defense capabilities in areas that are of mutual interest. We see it as a stabilizing agreement."
Yet throughout the Arab world, and among arms-control and human-rights groups in the United States, this dramatic strategic development has raised a host of disturbing questions about the prospects for Arab-Israeli peace, the stability of the Middle East, the plight of the Kurds and the Palestinians, and regional arms-control efforts.
One immediate threat is a massive buildup of Turkey's military strength. Israel's willingness to sell top-of-the-line military hardware to Turkey, with no questions asked, could undermine progress on human rights. As the Congressional Research Service recently observed, "The Israeli connection enables Turkey to circumvent U.S. and European arms embargoes and what it believes to be the influence of anti-Turkish ethnic lobbies in Congress."
Of course, Turkey's main military supplier is the United States. Eighty percent of Turkey's weapons imports are stamped MADE IN THE U.S.A. and, over the last decade, Ankara has received more than $12 billion in direct and indirect U.S. military assistance. In recent years, however, mounting human rights criticism in the United States and Europe has been a persistent thorn in Ankara's side. In 1996, Turkey angrily accused the U.S. Congress of imposing a "shadow embargo" after a coalition of arms-control and human-rights groups succeeded in blocking two pending sales of Cobra helicopters and frigates. Last December, Europe rejected Turkey's application for membership in the European Union, in part because of Turkey's failure to improve human rights.
Israeli weapons offer Turkey a way around such sanctions. David Ivri, an adviser to the Israeli Defense Ministry who was instrumental in bringing about the Turkish-Israeli accord, was asked by the Jerusalem Post last year whether Israel considers human rights when it sells arms to other countries. "Israel to this day has a policy of not intervening in any internal matters of any country in the world," Ivri responded. "We don't like it when others interfere in our internal matters. For this reason, our policy doesn't touch on such matters."
Over the next twenty-five years, Turkey plans to spend an astonishing $150 billion to modernize its military. U.S. arms manufacturers will continue to lobby hard for these lucrative sales but, increasingly, Israel will be a major competitor. Already, Turkey and Israel have signed a number of arms deals, with many more in the works. Two of these involve Israeli contracts worth $715 million to upgrade Turkish F-4 and F-5 combat planes with high-tech radar and avionics to improve their performance in bombing missions. Israel also has orders for night-vision systems, tank upgrades on F-16 fighter planes, and 200 Popeye missiles. In May 1997, the two countries agreed to co-produce advanced Popeye II missiles, with a range of ninety miles, which will involve a significant transfer of technology and manufacturing capability to Turkey. This year, the two partners also sealed a controversial deal to jointly produce a new medium-range missile, similar to the Arrow missile that Israel has been developing using U.S. technology and $785 million of U.S. funding. Such sales raise questions about whether Israel will become a back door conduit for Turkey to obtain American technology.
Arms control advocates fear that Ankara's access to Israeli weapons could exacerbate the arms race between Greece and Turkey (by breaking the military parity that the United States has sought to maintain) and jeopardize resolution of their dispute over Cyprus. The Israeli connection could also further strengthen Turkey's military-the country's ruling power behind the scenes-just when international pressure is mounting for Turkey to democratize and find a political solution to its fourteen-year conflict with the Kurds.
Currently, arms control groups are gearing up for a major battle over Turkey's plan to purchase 145 advanced attack helicopters, worth $3.5 billion-one of the most lucrative helicopter deals in the world. Vying for the contract are a French-German consortium (Eurocopter), an Israeli-Russian consortium (Israeli Aircraft Industries and Kamov), and two American companies (Boeing Corporation of Seattle and Bell Helicopter Textron of Fort Worth). Groups like Amnesty International U.S.A. are campaigning hard to block any American sale, since the Turkish armed forces routinely use these helicopters and other U.S. weapons to carry out their scorched-earth campaigns against Kurdish villages in the southeast.
When President Clinton met with Prime Minister Yilmaz last December, he pledged that no final U.S. export license would be approved unless Turkey could demonstrate improvements in human rights. Now, however, the Israel-Turkey connection may jeopardize these gains.
"There will be tremendous pressure from arms contractors to grant an export license," says John Tirman, executive director of the Winston Foundation for World Peace, and author of Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade. "Choosing Israel is a way to leverage the U.S. because no one in Israel . . . is going to raise any human rights problems for Turkey."
The Israeli-Turkish pact fundamentally shifts the balance of power in the Middle East. As a 1997 paper by Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy observes Israel's enemies must now weigh the possibility that Turkey will provide Israel assistance in the event of a confrontation. The same logic makes Turkey's enemies more circumspect, as well.
Turkey and Israel have repeatedly stressed that their accord is not an "alliance" requiring either country to defend the other. But the Arab countries are dubious-and not without justification. In February, a former Turkish ambassador to Washington announced that Turkey would consider allowing Israel to use Turkish airspace to retaliate if Iraq ever threatens a missile attack on Israel. And reports already indicate that Israeli planes flying in Turkish airspace are gathering detailed intelligence on Iran, Iraq, and Syria- Israel's chief enemies.
Officially, the United States denies that it played any direct role in bringing this military axis together. But as Eqbal Ahmad, emeritus professor of Middle East Studies at Hampshire College, explains, "It seems an impossibility that two principal U.S. allies could form a bilateral alliance without the U.S. playing a matchmaking role. There is a long history of the U.S. trying to find strategic allies in the Middle East who would play deputy to American power."
Last December, following a U.S.-Turkish-Israeli meeting at the Pentagon, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai explicitly confirmed the U.S. role: "I certainly describe the relationship between us and the Turks as the development of a strategic relationship. All this with the backing and coordination of the U.S."
One key target of the Israeli-Turkish military partnership is Syria. "The entire state of Syria, to put it bluntly, is now surrounded," says Robert Fisk, the Beirut bureau chief for the London Independent. In addition to its regular reconnaissance missions over the Golan Heights, Fisk explains, "Israel can fly along Syria's northern border, just inside Turkey, and presumably over the northern Iraqi border with Syria as well," where Turkey regularly goes in pursuit of the PKK. The Economist reports that Turkey is already receiving detailed information about Syria from Israel's military intelligence service, Mossad.
Turkey's antagonism toward Syria centers primarily on Damascus's support for the PKK, which is believed to have bases in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.
Turkey and Syria also have a long-running territorial conflict over the Turkish province of Hatay (which Syria used to control), and a major dispute over access to water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which originate in Turkey and flow through Iraq to Syria. (It is widely thought that Syria supports the PKK largely to increase its leverage with Turkey over its water rights.)
Israel, meanwhile, has similar objections to Syria's backing of the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, with whom it continues to fight a low-intensity war. Israel hopes that pressure from Turkey along Syria's northern frontier will force Damascus's hand on talks over the contested Golan Heights.
In early October, simmering tensions in the Middle East boiled over into a serious confrontation when a top Turkish military commander announced that Syria and Turkey, which share a 550-mile border, had reached "a state of undeclared war" over Syria's support for the PKK. Ankara sent 10,000 troops and equipment to the border and indicated that it was prepared to invade Syria to attack the bases of the PKK, just as it does inside northern Iraq. Damascus responded by calling for talks. The Syrian government's official newspaper, Al Baath, declared that Turkey's aggressive behavior could mean only one thing: "full coordination between Ankara and Tel Aviv in accordance with their alliance."
Seeking to avert a crisis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended flights over the Golan Heights to stress Israel's noninvolvement. But many analysts question whether Turkey would have threatened strikes against the PKK in Syria were it not for its access to intelligence from Mossad and the heightened confidence Ankara feels from its military partnership with Israel.
"I don't think there is any doubt that this type of confrontation is what the relationship was conceived to do," says Alan Makovsky, a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It was specifically created to intimidate Syrian President Hafez al-Assad."
Sukru Elekdag, a former Turkish ambassador to the United States, clearly identified Israel as the source of Ankara's new bravado in a column appearing in the Turkish Milliyet. "Syria . . . cannot risk a hot clash with Turkey under today's conditions," he reasoned. "Syrians know that . . . if they lose their military forces in a war with Turkey, they would become totally vulnerable to Israel, their arch enemy.... In other words, Israel is breathing down Syria's neck."
In late October, Turkey and Syria reached an agreement in which Syria would end its support for the PKK and turn over its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to Ankara. "I think it worked beautifully from Ankara's point of view," Makovsky exclaimed. "Turkey never felt emboldened before, and now it does, Assad never caved in, and now he did." For Makovsky, Damascus's "surrender" is evidence that the Turkish-Israeli pact may compel Syria to bow to Israel's demands, as well.
But others are skeptical. John Tirman believes that the agreement was probably a "face-saving device." "The Syrians could easily agree to remove Ocalan, only to let him back in six months later," he explains. "I would doubt that the Syrians even have the capacity to eject the PKK out of their territory completely. The Turkish military continually claims they've done the PKK in, but then it always seems to resurface again."
Even Makovsky acknowledges that the Turkish-Israeli pact "might make Assad less secure about making peace." On September 16, the Arab League, led by Damascus, announced that the Turkish-Israeli pact "exposes Arab interests to real danger and brings the region back to the policy of axes and alliances" that proved so destructive during the Cold War.
Assad is certainly not blameless in these conflicts with Israel and Turkey, but it is by no means clear that a united Turkey-Israel front is going to soften his stance. Syria has already marshaled support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq to form a possible counter-alliance. Egypt, a traditional U.S. ally, has expressed strong opposition to the pact's effect on regional peace, while Iraq and Syria, formerly hostile neighbors, appear to be developing closer ties in response to the pact, despite Syria's support for the U.S. during the Gulf War.
The new Israel and Turkey relationship may also reinforce each country's inclination to find military solutions to their internal conflicts and to view these conflicts primarily through a "terrorism" lens.
Turkey and Israel's interests "coincide from an international 'terrorism' perspective," notes Mike Amitay, the executive director of the Washington Kurdish Institute. "How do you justify using force against segments of your own society? The answer is you create a terrorism mind-set."
No one disputes the fact that groups like Hamas and the PKK have committed serious acts of terrorism, but in both Israel and Turkey the governments' hard-line, anti-terrorism approach has been strongly criticized as an impediment to dialogue and lasting peace.
In Israel's case, despite the interim agreement signed in October at Wye Plantation, the Netanyahu government's ongoing land expropriations, restrictions on travel, and refusal to concede any genuine autonomy have left many Palestinians deeply disillusioned with the peace process.
In Turkey, meanwhile, the government's position is yet more extreme. "There is no dialogue whatsoever," explains Amitay, "even with legitimate Kurdish groups. Incredible as it is, Turkey is willing to go to war with a neighboring state-Syria- rather than identifying Kurdish interlocutors with whom it can start to negotiate a political solution." Still, he cautions, "the Turkish military won't find a resolution of its PKK problem in Damascus; it's a domestic issue."
There is a striking parallel between the Turkish and Israeli anti-terrorism campaigns. Both countries have violated the sovereignty of neighboring nations in pursuit of their enemies. In northern Iraq, Turkey has set up a security zone, nine miles deep, along the entire length of the Iraq-Turkey border, where it regularly conducts aerial bombing missions and sends in troops to eliminate PKK bases. Since 1982, Israel has occupied a similar security zone inside Lebanon, also nine miles deep, where persistent fighting with the Hezbollah has ensued. In both cases, civilian casualties have been high, and no resolution of the conflict is in sight.
Netanyahu publicly acknowledged in May 1997 that the threat of terrorism has drawn Israel and Turkey together. "Turkey has suffered from terrorist attacks from the PKK, and we see no difference between the terrorism of the PKK and that which Israel suffers," he said. The speech was significant not only because Netanyahu abandoned Israel's historic neutrality toward the Kurds and ruled out the establishment of a Kurdish state, but because he explicitly warned there would be no peace between Israel and Syria unless Damascus ended its support for the PKK.
Netanyahu's desire to involve Turkey in Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations could stall the peace process further. Turkey has long been an outspoken opponent of Israeli-Syrian peace talks because it fears that, if the two countries ever come to an agreement, Syria will re-deploy its army from the Golan Heights to the Turkish border. Given the trouble that Israel and Syria have encountered in their own negotiations over Lebanon and the Golan Heights, any participation by Ankara would certainly make reaching a settlement more difficult.
The same may be true of the Palestinian issue. Even though Ankara has supported the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, a Washington Post editorial last year suggested that a strengthening of Israel's security through its partnership with Turkey could actually reduce Israel's perceived need to reach a settlement.
In the Arab world, pessimism reigns. Recently, when Israel suggested it would like to invite Egypt to participate in joint military exercises with Turkey, Egypt's foreign minister Amr Moussa responded forcefully. "There has been no invitation, and there had better not be one," he said. "We regard this [military pact] as untimely, negative, and unhelpful to efforts to revive the peace process."
In Washington, the pro-Turkey and pro-Israel lobbies are working together to pursue their common interests. The Congressional Research Service notes that Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai has confirmed that "Israel is assisting
Turkey on the American political scene and encouraging Jewish organizations to follow this example." Earlier this year, according to the Economist of London, Turkey "was pleased to have the support of the powerful Jewish lobby in Washington," which "helped to get Congress to unfreeze the sale of two frigates" to Ankara. The Wall Street Journal notes that Turkish interests "are now on the agenda" of groups like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a Washington-based think tank, and the American-Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israel lobby. JINSA has spoken out against foreign aid cuts to Turkey and has organized meetings between retired U.S. military officers and their Turkish counterparts.
More recently, the Dallas Morning News reports that the American-Turkish Association, based in Ankara, has asked a number of Jewish groups-including the American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith, and AIPAC-for their help on Turkey's upcoming helicopter deal. "Help" essentially means persuading the Clinton Administration that Turkey's human rights practices have improved enough to warrant approval of a U.S. export license." I think Turkey deserves this sale," Foxman told the newspaper, citing "the relationship with Israel."
For Turkey, this is a dream come true. The new alliance "gives Ankara something they've never had before," notes John Tirman." An ethnic constituency in the U.S. that can strengthen Turkey's lobbying presence in Washington."
Last February, all the threads of this intricate alliance came together at the annual conference of the American-Turkish Council, a lobbying group in Washington that promotes closer U.S.-Turkish business and military relations. There, some of the largest U.S. weapons companies- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Textron, Raytheon, Sikorsky/United Technologies-were in attendance, which was not surprising, since representatives from these firms either sit on the Council's board of directors or have other leadership posts in the organization. The conference also attracted U.S. officials like Senator Jesse Helms (Republican of North Carolina), Commerce Secretary William Daley, and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Ralston. One panel on the Turkish-Israeli military pact, with Alan Makovsky speaking, drew considerable attention.
"The fact that Israel and Turkey-the most economically and militarily powerful states in the region-are working together as partners is a very dramatic development," says Makovsky. The conference made it clear that this new power bloc, while cementing U.S. control over the region, will do little for human rights and peace.
Jennifer Washburn is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute and a freelance journalist based in New York City.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
