Abstract
Unlike the peripheral alliance, which caused no reaction because of its secrecy, the new alignment brought immediate and sharp responses from countries in the region. These varied from one country to another, or from one group of countries to another, but only one Arab state—Jordan—welcomed it, and most perceived it as a serious threat to themselves or to the region as a whole. The questions that need concern us here are: What impact did the alignment have on the region’s stability? Did the Turkish-Israeli alignment bring about the formation of a counter-alliance or any other alignment in the region? The greater part of this chapter is devoted to examining the reactions of Arab states, for several reasons:
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1.
In the past, their attitude was the main stumbling block to close and open relations between Turkey and Israel.
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Their numerical strength gave them leverage that no other neighboring country, such as Greece or Iran, could compete with.
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3.
Any counter-alliance was likely to include this huge bloc, or at least parts of it.
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Notes
For an earlier treatment of the subject see, Ofra Bengio and Gencer Özcan, “Old Grievances New Fears: Arab perceptions of Turkey and its Alignment with Israel,” Middle Eastern Studies, April 2001. For some studies on mutual images, see Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, “Qira’a li-Ta’rikh al-Dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya wa-‘Alaqatiha bil-‘Alam al-’Arabi,” Studies on Turkish Arab Relations, Annual 1986 (Istanbul: TAIV, 1986), pp. 85–118. For a thorough discussion of this subject, see Ulrich W. Haarmann, “Ideology and History, Identity and Alterity: The Arab Image of the Turk from the Abbasids to Modern Egypt,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, No. 20 (1988), pp. 175–196.
Ibrahim al-Daquqi, Surat al-’Arab lada al-Atrak (Beirut, Markaz al-Dirasat al-‘Arabiyya, 1996).
Amin Shakir, Sa‘id al-‘Aryan, Muhammad Mustafa ‘Ata, Turkiyya wal-Siyasa al-‘Arabiyya (Cairo, Dar al-Ma‘arif Bimisr, 1954), pp. 45, 71.
See, e.g., Al-Minbar, No. 61 (March 1991), p. 47; Al-Mustaqbal al-’Arabi, No. 151 (September 1991), p. 160; Muhammad al-Sammak, “Al-‘Alaqat al-‘Arabiyya al-Turkiyya, Hadiruha wa-Mustaqbaluha,” in al-Arab wal-Atrak fi Alam Mutaghayyir (Beirut: Markaz al-Dirasat al-Istratijyya, 1993), p. 81. Khalid Ziyada, “Al-‘Arab wal-Turk fi al-Ta’rikh al-Uthmani,” in al- Arab wal-Atrak fi ‘Alam Mutaghayyir, p. 66.
New documents reveal that not only Iraq, but even Jordan’s King ‘Abdullah, was willing to consider a defense agreement between Turkey, Jordan, Iran, and Iraq as early as January 1947.
Elie Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World:The Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 46. For the failed Turkish attempts to bring Jordan into the pact in 1958,
see Ara Sanjian, Turkey and Her Arab Neighbours, 1953–1958 (Wiltshire: Archive Editions, 2001), p. 218.
Muhammad Muslih argues that the two events that have left a lasting imprint on Hafiz al-Asad and his Ba‘thist comrades were the loss of Palestine to the Zionists and of Alexandretta to Turkey, although the latter was of secondary importance. He also notes that the Syrian intellectual, Zaki Arsuzi, an Alawite from the Sanjak of Alexandretta and a cofounder of the Ba‘th Party, was the moving force behind the protest movement against the Turkish annexation. Muhammad Muslih, “Uneasy Relations, Syria and Turkey,” in Henry J. Barkey (ed.), Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey’s Role in the Middle East (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996), pp. 114, 116.
Muhammad Wafa’ al-Hijazi, “Al-‘Alaqat al-Misriyya al-Turkiyya,” Al-Siyasa al-Duwaliyya (October 1985), pp. 140–145, Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization of the Arab State System 1945–1954 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993), pp. 143–155.
See also Uri Bialer, Between East and West: Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation 1948–1956 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 256–257. In 1952 the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey George McGhee, carried out a survey in Arab countries and Iran to find out their position in regard to the possibility of Turkey assuming a leading role in such an organization. The results indicated their opposition to this.
George McGhee, The US-Turkish-NATO Middle East Connection (London: MacMillan, 1990), pp.186–207.
See Ali Ghsan Bağış, “The Beginning and the Development of Economic Relations Between Turkey and Middle Eastern Countries,” Foreign Policy (Ankara), Vol. XII (1985), pp. 85–96;
M. Hakan Yavuz, “Gkicilik:Türk-Arap İlişkileri ve Filistin Sorunu (1947–1994),” in Faruk Sönmezoğlu (ed.), Türk Diş Politikasının Analizi (2nd ed.) (İstanbul: Der Yayıncılık, 1998), pp. 574–577
and Mustafa Sönmez, Türkiye Ekonomisinde Bunalım-12 Eylül ve Sonrasının Ekonomi Politiği (2nd ed.) (İstanbul: Belge, 1986), p. 156, p. 161;
Yusuf Ziya Irbeç, Türkiye’nin Dış Ekonomik İlişkilerinde İslam Ülkeleri (Ankara: no publisher, 1990).
See, e.g., Mahmut B. Aykan, Turkey’s Role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference: 1960–1992 (New York: Vantage Press, 1994). For a discussion on a leading group, the Aydınlar, see Anat Lapidot, “The Turkish–Islamic Synthesis: The National-Religious Narrative in the 1980s,” Hamizrah Hehadash (H), pp. 84–96.
Imset, The PKK, p. 172; for an account of the war by two leading Israeli analysts, see Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya‘ari, Israel’s Lebanon War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).They make no reference to the PKK’s casualties.
For details of Turgut Özal’s defunct proposals, see Joyce R. Starr, “Water Wars,” Foreign Policy, No. 82 (Spring 1991), p. 31 and Ramazan Gözen, “Turgut Özal and Turkish Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy (Ankara),Vol. XX, No. 3–4 (1996), pp. 80–81;
Kemal Kirişçi, Ali Çarkoğlu, and Mine Eder, Türkiye ve Ortadoğu‘da Bölgesel İşbirligi (İstanbul: TESEV, 1998), pp. 180–181; interview with Tamir, February 28,2000. Another defunct proposal, named “Peace Canal on the Golan Heights,” was put forward by a New York-based consulting company, Wachtel and Associates, to Damascus in 1993.
Suha Bolukbasi, “Turkey Challenges Iraq and Syria: The Euphrates Dispute,” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Summer 1993), pp. 9–32.
For Ankara’s role in the peace process, see George E. Gruen, “Dynamic Progress in Turkish-Israeli Relations,” Israel Affairs, Vol. I, No. 4 (Summer 1995), p. 53
and Ayşegül Sever, “The Arab-Israeli Peace Process and Turkey Since the 1995 Interim Agreement,” Turkish Review of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. IX (1996–97), p. 122.
Israel was actually fearful of the negative implications of the Baghdad Pact for itself, including the prospect that weapons delivered to Iraq would ultimately be used against Israel. Amikam Nachmani, Israel, Turkey and Greece—Uneasy Relations in the East Mediterranean (London: Frank Cass, 1987), pp. 73, 75.
The Turkish Army’s escalation of activities against the PKK in northern Iraq is indicated by the following numbers: the 1992 operation involved 10,000 troops, that of March 1995, 35,000, and that of 1997 about 50,000. For a detailed list of large-scale military operations within northern Iraq and their legal basis, see Sertaç H. Başeren, “Huzur Operasyonu ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti‘nin Kuzey Irak‘ta Gerçekleştirdiği Harekatın Hukuki Temelleri,” Avrasya Dosyası, Vol. II., No. 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 224–236. In
Baskın Oran, “Kalkık Horoz,” Çekiç Güç ve Kürt Devleti (Ankara: Bilgi, 1996), p. 38, footnote 25. See also Radikal, May 15, 26, 1997; Ümit, Özdağ, Türkiye Kuzey Irak ve PKK (Ankara: ASAM, 1999), pp. 62–188.
Hürriyet, July 6, 1994. Memoirs of his top military aides confirmed his interest in the plan (Yavuz Para, “Sayın Cumhurbarkanım! Siz Kerkük‘e Olan Mesafeyi Haritada Ölçtünüz mü?” Yeni Yüzyıl, February 14, 1998). For further details, see Necip Torumtay Orgeneral Torumtay’ın Anıları (İstanbul: Milliyet, 1993), pp. 105–130.
One analyst blamed the Arabs of having squandered an opportunity of initiating “real cooperation” with “the pro-Arab and pro-Islamic government. Al-Quds al-‘Arabi—Mideast Mirror, October 14,1998. For an analysis of the Turkish military motivation for courting Israel, including embarrassing the Erbakan govenment, see M. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish-Israeli Relations through the Lens of the Turkish Identity Debate,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXVII (Autumn 1997), p. 31. On Refah-Yol government see,
Aryeh Shmuelevitz, Turkey’s Experiment in Islamist Government, 1996–1997 (Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center, 1999).
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Inter-Arab Relations, in Bruce Maddy-Weitzman (ed.), MECS 1996 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), p. 78. For more on the summit and an earlier mini-summit in Damascus, see Hürriyet, June 9, 1996; Turkish Daily News, June 23, 25, 1996.
Šule Kut, “Filistin Sorunu ve Türkiye,” in Haluk ülman (ed.), Ortadoğu Sorunları ve Türkiye (İstanbul: TÜSES, 1991), pp. 5–34.
Bülent Aras, “The Impact of the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process in Turkish Foreign Policy,” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. XX, No. 2 (Winter 1997), p. 65.
Mahmut B. Aykan, Turkey’s Role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference: 1960–1992 (New York: Vantage Press, 1994), pp. 55–70.
Yeni Yüzyıl, February 21, 1997. For the ramifications of the affair, see Gencer Özcan and Ofra Bengio, “The Decade of the Military in Turkey: The Case of the Alignment with Israel in the 1990s,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 7, Nos. 1, 2 (Spring 2001), pp. 90–100.
See Tosun Bahçeli, “Turkish Policy Toward Greece,” in Alan Makovsky and Sabrı Sayarı (eds.), Turkey’s New World (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000), pp. 131–153.
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© 2004 Ofra Bengio
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Bengio, O. (2004). Implications and Reactions. In: The Turkish-Israeli Relationship. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403979452_6
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