{"id":1145,"date":"2017-06-19T14:19:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T14:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/new\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2017-07-14T08:27:17","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T08:27:17","slug":"israel-turkey-russia-and-egypt-by-shoshana-bryen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/19\/israel-turkey-russia-and-egypt-by-shoshana-bryen\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel, Turkey, Russia and Egypt  by Shoshana Bryen"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul class=\"content_preface_bullets\">\n<li>In 2011, the UN Palmer Commission Report found the blockade of Gaza &#8212; jointly administered with Egypt &#8212; to be legal, and said Israel owed Turkey neither an apology nor compensation.\n<ul>\n<li>\n<hr id=\"system-readmore\" class=\"mceItemReadMore\" \/>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Lifting the Israel\/Egypt embargo on Gaza would empower Hamas, and thereby the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and ISIS &#8212; which would seem an enormous risk for no gain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"itemprop_articlebody\">\n<p>Turkish sources assert that Turkish-Israeli governmental relations are about to come out of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailysabah.com\/diplomacy\/2016\/04\/11\/turkey-will-not-drop-demand-for-end-to-gaza-blockade-in-israel-normalization-presidential-spox-kalin-says\">deep freeze<\/a>. But this is a reflection of Turkey&#8217;s regional unpopularity and glides over Turkish demands for Israel to end the blockade of Gaza. To meet Turkey&#8217;s condition, Israel would have to abandon the security arrangement it shares with Egypt &#8212; which has increased Israel&#8217;s security and has begun to pay regional dividends. To restore full relations between Israel and Turkey would irritate Russia, with which Israel has good trade and political relations, and a respectful series of understandings regarding Syria. Israel&#8217;s relations with the Kurds are also at issue here.<\/p>\n<p>After the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla &#8212; in which Turkey supported the Hamas-related Turkish organization, the IHH, in its effort to break the blockade of Gaza &#8212; Turkey made three demands of Israel: an Israeli apology for the deaths of Turkish activists; a financial settlement; and lifting the Gaza blockade, which Turkey claimed was illegal. The last would provide IHH with the victory it was unable to achieve with the flotilla.<\/p>\n<table class=\"mceItemTable\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 600px;\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"max-width: 600px; border: 1px solid black;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/pics\/1080.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"403\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 82%; margin: 4px 6px;\">The Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara took part in a 2010 &#8220;Gaza flotilla&#8221; attempting to break Israel&#8217;s naval blockade of Gaza, which is in place to prevent the terrorist group Hamas from bringing arms into Gaza. (Image source: &#8220;Free Gaza movement&#8221;\/Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>In 2011, however, the UN <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/News\/dh\/infocus\/middle_east\/Gaza_Flotilla_Panel_Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Palmer Commission Report<\/a><\/span> found the blockade of Gaza &#8212; jointly administered with Egypt &#8212; to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/un-report-gaza-blockade-legal-israel-doesn-t-owe-turkey-apology-for-marmara-1.371841\">legal<\/a>, and said Israel owed Turkey neither an apology nor compensation. In 2013, at the urging of President Obama and to move the conversation off the impasse, Prime Minister Netanyahu <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/International\/Obama-Netanyahu-Erdogan-speak-by-phone-307423\">did apologize for the loss of life<\/a> and agree to discuss compensation. While President Obama was pleased, Prime Minister Erdogan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailysabah.com\/diplomacy\/2015\/06\/25\/israeli-pm-netanyahu-regretful-about-mavi-marmara-apology-to-turkey-a-new-book-unfolds\">repaid the gesture<\/a> by denigrating Israel on Turkish television and announcing he would force the end of the blockade. Israel&#8217;s condition &#8212; that the office of Hamas in Ankara be closed &#8212; was ignored.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, in February 2014, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Turkish television that Israel and Turkey were &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/.premium-1.573351\">closer than ever<\/a>&#8221; to normalizing relations.&#8221; In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/Israel-News\/Politics-And-Diplomacy\/Israel-and-Turkey-move-closer-to-reconciliation-normalized-relations-437673p\">December 2015<\/a>, it was more of the same. And in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.albawaba.com\/news\/turkey-and-israel-resume-normalized-relations-811324\">February 2016<\/a>, there was yet another announcement of imminent restoration of government-to-government ties. In March, Kurdish sources said <a href=\"http:\/\/kurdishdailynews.org\/2016\/03\/02\/turkey-demands-weapons-from-israel-as-part-of-normalization-effort-report\/\">Turkey was demanding weapons from Israel<\/a>, but that Israel wanted to ensure that Turkey would not use them against Kurdish forces.<\/p>\n<p>Israel finds itself<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, the UN Palmer Commission Report found the blockade of Gaza &#8212; jointly administered with Egypt &#8212; to be legal, and said Israel owed Turkey neither an apology nor compensation. Lifting the Israel\/Egypt embargo on Gaza would empower Hamas, and thereby the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and ISIS &#8212; which would seem an enormous risk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}