The Prime Minister of Israel’s office reported that this week a special delegation would be sent to Turkey to negotiate with the government of that country. The composition of the negotiating group was predictable. It included Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who, according to the coalition agreement, is responsible for the maintenance of all sensitive negotiations regarding the interests of Israel, the personal representative of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lawyer Yitzhak Molcho, who actively participated in the establishment of informal contacts between Jerusalem and Ankara, and adviser to the prime minister on national security Yaakov Amidror.
As noted by the media, it will be the first official Israeli delegation tol visit Turkey in the last three years. But it is unlikely that the meeting will take place on Turkish soil in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Rather, Livni, Molho and Amidror will face a long and difficult discussion of the procedure and amount of compensation to the families of the nine killed in the "Mavi Marmara" and other aspects of the relationship with Turkey.
Israel is afraid that the money may eventually get to the fund which organized "the break of the siege on Gaza" – IHH, which is recognized as a terrorist organization not only in Israel but also in the U.S. and many European countries.
In addition, Israel has insisted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not give his Turkish counterpart promises of complete removal of the blockade of Gaza and demanded that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to visit Gaza, not to give a final legitimization to Hamas. This requirement was also joined by the United States and the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas. This means that the Palestinian leadership itself said the Hamas government in Gaza was illegitimate.
Meanwhile, the storm in Israel brought about by the apology reached its climax. Many politicians say that, in fact, the U.S. pushed Israel to embrace Turkey, caring only about its own interests, and hoping that, if necessary, Israel would intervene in what is happening in Syria, supporting Turkey and Jordan. According to analysts, Israel in no way and in no form should intervene in the Syrian conflict and generally associate themselves as an ally of Turkey and Jordan, opposing the Shiite world. "Israel should try to establish friendly relations with everyone - both Sunni and Shiite Muslim countries. Conflict between them is not our conflict!" the proponents of this view say.
They pointed out that Turkey claims to be a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in the talks for a new Israeli military technology and expects to receive Israeli gas. The role of mediator, in their view, cannot be provided to Turkey, because its position is well known and is inherently biased, and dangerous military technology cannot be provided for the simple reason that the developments in Turkey are unpredictable over the next years, and it could become a radical Islamic state and a potential military adversary of Israel.
"Those Turkish generals, whom we once could rely on, are now either in jail or sent into retirement. The current military elite of Turkey is not at all the elite with which we were dealing before the 2010s”, they explain. As for gas, supply to Turkey is certainly possible, but Israel, according to these analysts, in any case, should not pull the trans-European gas pipeline through Turkey - again, due to the unpredictability of the situation in that country.
Proponents of the reconciliation with Turkey point in the first place to the benefits for the Israeli economy. They are already anticipating the multimillion orders that the Israeli defense industry will receive, and the growth of tourism, and hence the volume of air travel from Israel to Turkey, which fell from 558 183 passengers per year in 2008 to 79,140 in 2011 and increased slightly in 2012.
However, even here the supporters of the opposite point of view have their objections. They pointed out that during the period of cooling relations from 2009 to 2012, the trade turnover with Turkey grew by 42% - from 2.46 billion. to 3.5 billion dollars per year. Turkish builders over the years continued to build Israeli power plants and other facilities. The volume of flights of Israeli companies fell, but the airline "Turkish Airlines" has earned billions of dollars, increasing the number of its flights to Israel to 7-8 per day and became the main carrier for Israel via Istanbul to South-East Asia.
In short, it seems that we are only at the complication of a new international political drama, which in the near future will be watched not only by Turkey and Israel, but by the entire world. So let's try to watch this Middle East “soap opera”, which is in no way inferior in its power to a real one.
