Erdogan: a hero of new play Even when he was prime minister, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used to make a fuss like a pistol filled with bullets by attacking Israel, his biggest ally in the area, with the aim of probing the feelings of Arabs and Muslims with his play, using it for his personal propaganda to crown himself as the Muslims' caliph.

Erdogan: a hero of new play
Even when he was prime minister, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used to make a fuss like a pistol filled with bullets by attacking Israel, his biggest ally in the area, with the aim of probing the feelings of Arabs and Muslims with his play, using it for his personal propaganda to crown himself as the Muslims' caliph.

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Since US President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December 2017, the Turkish president and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan began exploiting the Palestinian cause to promote himself in the Arab and Muslim world after his image was shaken by his support for terrorist gangs and Muslim Brotherhood, and his support to Qatar and his cooperation with Iran.

Erdogan, the president of Turkey, a member of NATO along with America, which recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, launched the statements to attract the attention of Muslims and called on the Islamic Cooperation Organization to hold a summit that passed resolutions not exceeding condemnation and rejection of the resolution, without actual decisions or boycott to Israel. The Turkish and Israeli sides also exchanged diplomatic statements without affecting their relations.

Diplomatic statements between Turkey and Israel

In February 2009, the leader of the Israeli ground forces, Avi Mizrahi, made statements in which he addressed Erdogan and pointed out that the Turks "carried out massacres against the Armenians and Kurds and  noted to the occupation of northern Cyprus," and called on Erdogan to "look at himself in the mirror first, "which led to a crisis in relations between the two countries.

Following the announcement by US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel capital and the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, Erdogan described Israel as an occupation and terrorism state in April 2018, and described its leaders as bloody.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Erdogan's statements by saying he would not receive a morality lesson from a head of state who bombed Kurdish villages inside his country, detained journalists and helped Iran to break international sanctions.

The Israeli response provoked Erdogan, who returned to attack Netanyahu. "There is no one who genuinely loves you in this world, and the UN international response of your plan for Jerusalem is clear, and do not tempt your nuclear weapons, it may not work when you need it, honestly, you will not receive any positive response from us"

But the Israeli prime minister returned to provoke Erdogan with a new e-mail saying: "Erdogan is not used to being answered ... he should start to get used to the responses ... Whoever occupies northern Cyprus, invades Kurdish areas and slaughters civilians in Afrin, has no right to preach values ​​and morality.

Recently, after the events in the Gaza Strip on the 70th anniversary of Nakba and the loss of 62 Palestinians for their lives, Turkey announced the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and general consul, but for a "temporary period", keeping the line to return to reopening relations, especially since it re-2016 normalization of relations after the ship incident "Mafi Marmara" without lifting the siege on Gaza, a condition that he placed in front of Israel to normalize relations.

Recently, Erdogan called for an extraordinary summit of the Islamic Cooperation Council, which issued a statement only demanding an international investigation and sending international troops to Palestine to preserve the lives of Palestinians, but not accompanied by boycotting decisions to Israel despite the call of the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami al-Hamd to boycott.

Some believe that this extraordinary summit, which took place last Friday, comes in the context of propaganda, which is not far from the presidential election that awaits Turkey in June.

Is Erdogan serious with his statements or uses them to promote himself?

It is very easy to know that Erdogan's statements against Israel come in the context of propaganda and try to polish his image in front of the Arab and Islamic world, especially after failure of the gangs whom he supported to reach power in the countries that witnessed a spring like Tunisia, Egypt and now in Syria. It is enough to return to the history of Turkish-Israeli relations in the reign that Recep Tayyip Erdogan was prime minister and after he became president that we know the extent of the strong relationship between the two parties.

The beginnings of Turkish-Israeli relations

Turkey's relations with Israel are ancient, Ottoman Turks played the most prominent role in opening the door of Jewish emigration to Palestine since 1800, by facilitating the purchase of land by the Jews under the name of "barren lands," which encouraged Jews to travel to Palestine.

With the adoption by the United Nations of the establishment of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state on Palestine land in 1947, Turkey has strongly opposed such a decision, and as usual, the Turkish rulers used this declaration to propagate themselves in the Arab and Islamic world and to show themselves as protectors of Muslims and Islam. However, the Turkish intention was quickly revealed and falsified when it first recognized Israel as Muslim state in 1949 and began to establish diplomatic relations with it since 1950.

Between the late 1960s and the late 1970s relations between the two countries were strained, but soon returned to development in the early 1980s, Relations developed with the beginning of the 1990s until the reign of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when he was prime minister from 2002 and after he became president.

Despite harsh political statements and his attack on Israel, Erdogan continues to develop relations with Israel, especially security, military, trade and tourism.

Security and military cooperation

As Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has begun his tenure; the Turkish Chief of General Staff Hilmi Azkuk went to Israel in July 2002 and met his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yalon. In November of the same year, the head of the political section of the Israeli Defense Ministry, Major General Amos Gilad, held a periodic discussion on security relations between Israel and Turkey. In November 2003, a discussion was held at the Ministry of Defense in Ankara with the participation of senior IDF technology officials, Gilad the joint activity between the Turkish and Israeli armies have risen in 2003 by 40% compared to the activity in 2002.

In April 2005, Turkey purchased three UAVs and purchased ground station systems from Israel Aerospace Industries for $ 183 million, the relations between Erdogan and Israel continued to develop in such a way that Erdogan used Israel in 2008 to provide him with drones, night telescopes and intelligence information in his war against the Kurdish people.

During Erdogan's visit in May 2005 to Israel and his meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav and then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the two sides agreed to continue joint cooperation, especially in the military field, and stressed the development of 17 joint projects between Turkey and Israel in the military field under which Turkey buys military equipment in return for Turkey supplying Israel with water.

The most significant military deal amounting to half a billion dollars, under which Israel develops about 30 F4 Phantom Turkish military aircraft.

The writer Ahmad Khaled al-Zatari said in his book Turkish-Israeli Relations 2002-2016, that despite Erdogan's signing of various agreements with Israel, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party AKP has gained Turkish public opinion through its anti-Israeli political statements, " As for the actual practices in his strategy ... He has consolidated his relationship with Israel in the security and military field to win Israel in achieving the objectives of the Turkish policy of the  Justice and Development Party.

The spokesman for the Israeli aircraft industry, Doron Solik says that Turkey is the second largest military customer after India.

Israel uses Turkish airspace to bomb the Syrian Deir ez-Zor

On September 6, 2007, Israeli aircraft attacked a facility in Deir ez-Zor, which Israel said was nuclear but without evidence, the information suggested that Israeli aircraft crossed Turkish airspace as they came to Syria from the west side over Iskenderun which is occupied by Turkey, and then Israeli planes dropped fuel tanks inside Turkish territory, which caused embarrassment to Turkey.

Economic Cooperation

Despite the alleged tension in political relations between Turkey and Israel in some cases as a result of statements made by Erdogan and trying to deceive the Islamic world and the Arabic in particular, but the trade balance between Turkey and Israel maintained the level of development, even in periods of intense tension in political relations, this is an indication of the nature of the foreign policy of the AKP in the area.

Erdogan, who is trying to portray himself as a caliph to the Muslims and talk about the Israeli violations against the Palestinians and cry for them, his country has not turned since its recognition of Israel towards the Arabic markets to develop relations with it, but went to the Israeli market, and the Turkish Minister of Trade and Economy Jamil Barlas in 1949 after an Israeli delegation to Turkey is the best proof, as the Turkish minister said: Turkey and Israel completes each other from a commercial point of view, while Turkey imports industrial products from Israel on a large scale, the latter imports raw materials from Turkey, Erdogan continues to follow the example of his predecessors of Turkey.

Erdogan claims to support peace efforts but has brought businesspersons to Israel

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to show himself as a peace-maker, but his actions prove the opposite, that through his first visit to Israel on May 1, 2005, he said he went to Israel because he wanted to participate in peace efforts in the area, but in fact, Erdogan was accompanied by more than 100 Turkish businesspersons.

The emphasis on close trade cooperation is the statements of Israeli Prime Minister Ihud Olmert in 2007 when he said that dozens of Israeli companies are operating in Turkey and pumping billions of Turkish national output, Olmert called for an increase in the number of Turkish tourists to Israel.

Moreover, during the 2008 privatization process in Turkey, Israel entered the purchasing line of some Turkish enterprises. There are also 250 Israeli companies operating in Turkish territory and more than 580 Turkish companies in Israel.

When Erdogan became Turkey's prime minister, trade between Turkey and Israel reached 1.405 billion dollars, while the volume of exchange in 2016, after Erdogan became Turkey's president, was 4.341 billion dollars, according to Turkish statistics.

The volume of trade exchange in the first eight months of 2017, 3.2 billion dollars, not only that, but the volume of trade exchange between the two countries, even when the ship "Mafi Marmara" in 2009, amounted to 2.6 billion dollars, and these figures and statistics confirm the continuation of relations Between Erdogan and Israel even at the most tense times.

Tourism sector

From Tourism side, relations between Turkey and Israel have flourished. Turkey has become a very popular target for Israeli tourists, every week; dozens of flights from Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to Turkish cities have been launched. In the summer and holidays, the number of flights could have reached dozens per day.

The number of Israeli tourists who traveled to Turkey in 2007 about 400 thousand, they accounted for about 2% of the total number of tourists coming to the country, the number of tourists reached a peak of more than half a million in 2008, the number of Israeli tourists exceeded half a million visitors.

The most prominent feature of the economic relations between Turkey and Israel is the development and prosperity under the rule of AKP in contrast to diplomatic relations. Therefore, the economic relations between them are one of the most important factors that maintain the relationship between them, and keep Turkey and Israel to the need to maintain their commercial interests, and therefore the economic factor is a strong factor, which is still a conservative link to the relationship between the two countries.

This explains why Turkey's ruling AKP refused to vote on a draft resolution ending political and economic normalization with Israel by the opposition Kurdish Democratic People's Party last week, which observers described as "duplications" in the Turkish position.

Egyptian Ambassador: The accusations between Erdogan and Netanyahu are propaganda issues that do not affect the relations' essence

Ambassador Asem Mujahid, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, describes the mutual accusations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as propaganda issues that do not affect the essence of relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

He pointed out that the relations between Israel and Turkey are stronger than some believe, they are even up to the level of security cooperation and exchange of information on Arab countries, as well as diplomatic, economic and military relations, this is not the first time that Erdogan has attacked Israel and exchanged the accusations with the Israeli government with each new crisis in Palestine, which are agreed upon between the parties, that Israel rejects Erdogan's statements in public and accept them in secret as well as Erdogan and this part of the relations between the two sides agreed on with each other.

Mujahid pointed out that both Turkey and Israel have a position on the Arab area, and Turkey is seeking to break up the Arab countries, especially neighboring countries, in an attempt to restore Ottomani influence in the area and Israel has ambitions in the Arabic territories, both are common in having positions that are hostile to the Arabs, he stressed that all the differences floating on the surface between Turkey and Israel are formative differences similar to a drama and does not affect the relationship between the parties.

(H/S)

ANHA