untitled design

Jerusalem Post: Israel must not fall into the trap of appeasing Turkey

After a week of detention on false espionage charges, an Israeli couple has finally returned home. Seth Franzman in an article in Jerusalem PostFrom the first moment, the Israeli Foreign Minister and the country’s leadership had run for their release, ending in a moment of pride for the country’s diplomacy.

However, the sense of euphoria that followed should not lead to wrong conclusions. Ankara’s accusations of “espionage” and indirect threats to increase the “ransom” for the release of detainees suggest that Turkey is using “hostage diplomacy” to target innocent tourists. the support of the ruling party of Turkey – which seven years ago held two Israeli citizens hostage in Gaza.

In normal countries, innocent people are not detained. When a country proclaims law and order, it does not threaten to increase the “ransom” for the people it holds, and a country should not be afraid of “offending” or “irritating” a law-abiding democracy.

The fact that the Israeli media received warnings not to raise their voices, while informing that the Foreign Minister needed time to settle the case “quietly”, showed how serious the situation was, but also how much Turkey does not behave like a normal country. .

If, for example, a couple of tourists were accused in France or Britain of something they deliberately did, there would be no threats from Paris or London or even the Israeli Foreign Ministry, stating that if the Israeli media were critical, then this couple could not be released.

Accordingly, in hostilities between authoritarian regimes, hostage-taking situations are rarely involved, as one authoritarian regime can easily and quickly stop the actions of another authoritarian regime. And of course this means that in general, one authoritarian regime respects another authoritarian regime. Of course, in these countries there are no media that criticize, so there is no need to “silence” the domestic voices that criticize.

According to the Jerusalem Post, this is why authoritarian regimes rarely exchange hostages – but generally do not use hostages to reciprocate, knowing that there will be no domestic pressure.

The tendency for hostages is growing in the authoritarian regimes of Turkey and Iran. Tehran had abducted academics in Iraq in 2009 and taken them to its own borders. He also planned to kidnap an Iranian renegade in the United States and kill others in Europe. Kidnapped and killed a journalist in Iraq, holds a British woman hostage in Iran – the list goes on and on.

Who does not fall victim to Iranian abductions? The Chinese people. Russian citizens. This is because authoritarian regimes respect each other. On the other hand, Democracy can be marginalized for money and appeasement.

What we need to understand from this story: It is worth considering the possibility that Israel has fallen into the trap of Turkey. Turkey has arrested a couple of Israeli tourists on ridiculous charges. Who ordered their arrest may never be known. But what is clear and mentioned by several analysts in Israel is that Turkey now uses tourists as a lever of pressure and therefore Jerusalem should normalize its relations with Ankara.

“Let’s look at this logic and compare it to our model,” says Franzman. Authoritarian regimes take citizens of democracies hostage, as they see democracies as weak and believe that public pressure on them will force them to compromise. And as we mentioned, authoritarian regimes do not take hostages from countries they respect.

So the hostage-taking lies in the belief that it will make concessions. The idea that Ankara could win better relations, all it does is serve the message that whenever its regime wants something more, it will all it has to do is capture more tourists. But that threatens to turn every tourist into a potential hostage to the Turkish regime’s profits.

Another argument could be that Turkey wanted to save the pretexts, as it was pushed into the corner risking its tourism. Of course it was her own judicial system that detained the couple. And the Turkish regime is clearly in control of the judiciary, so any “mistake” the judges may have made is unfounded.

Ankara did not have to keep up appearances for the bad decision it made. The general idea that authoritarian regimes should not be humiliated when they commit illegal acts is a misreading of democracies by Iran, Russia and China, which leave no room for Turkey to commit atrocities. citizens, but Ankara does not take similar action as it respects these regimes.

Finally, there was the theory that the arrest of Israeli tourists was the result of a populist slump in the Turkish ruling AKP, which needed a populist move. This is a strange but also cynical reading of the facts, which raises the question: Will Israeli tourists be arrested every time the AKP has to win elections? Also, should Israel issue travel instructions before the Turkish elections? However, this does not seem like a normal foreign policy.

However, there is no evidence that the Turks support these AKP practices. In general, Turkey tends to provoke crises, with Syria, with Europe, in order to show strength. However, there is no sense that the average Turk considers Israeli tourists a possible target. So, as Franzman points out, the reduction to “domestic politics” is a misreading.

There is also no reason to accept the scenario that Israel should have relations with countries that attack Israelis for domestic use before their elections. This is by no means a reason for straining relations. On the contrary, if a country wants closer diplomatic relations, it must treat Israeli tourists properly.

Israel has recently normalized relations with Gulf states such as Bahrain and the UAE. It has also hosted air forces from many countries. Israel and Greece are becoming increasingly close allies, while an Israeli company recently signed a defense agreement with Cyprus. The idea that Jerusalem needs closer ties to the Ankara regime, which uses tourists as a bargaining chip, does not fit well with the geopolitical reality of the changing region. And the Israelis have many countries as alternative destinations that will welcome them.

That leads to the following, says Franzman. Some may think that Israel has little to do with pressure on Turkey, as it imports from there. But the Turkish economy is in danger as the pound is at an all-time low. Also, Turkey was expelled from the F-35 program and it seems that the HAE will take its place, while it is likely that the US will not sell it new F-16s.

No one is saying that Israel and Turkey should not build their relations. But the idea that this will happen because Ankara is arresting tourists and should be rewarded – possibly with concessions from Jerusalem to Turkish-backed Hamas and other organizations – is unrealistic.

The recent incident with the detention of Israeli tourists brings to the fore the voices asking us not to fall into the trap of appeasing Ankara. A trap that many Western countries continue to fall into, believing that the more extreme Ankara’s behavior is, the more they will have to do to calm it down. But the truth is that you need the complete opposite.

There is a saying attributed to Vladimir Lenin that is related to bayonets and could be applied to foreign policy, Franzman concludes in his analysis. “You explore with bayonets: if you find porridge, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” Turkey generally has a foreign policy like the one described in the saying – and other countries will have to draw the right conclusions.

.

Source From: Capital

You may also like

Get the latest

Stay Informed: Get the Latest Updates and Insights

 

Most popular