The story of Turkish-Israeli relations

Introduction

“I say clearly that Israel is a terror state” – Said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey
about Israel, following Israeli retaliation to the October 7th attacks. Turkey’s president is the
only one of a high-income country to condemn Israel for their invasion of Gaza, but why is a
country which was once on good diplomatic relations with Israel now one of it’s biggest
condemners?

History of Relations –

In 1949, Turkey and Iran became the first Muslim majority nations to formally recognize
Israel (Iran later denounced this), and in January 1950, Israel and Turkey formalised
diplomatic ties.
Towards the end of the decade, the relationship between both countries evolved into an
informal intelligence and security partnership, as Syrian and Soviet entrenchment were both
perceived as threats by Turkey and Israel and in 1958, David Ben-Gurion (the country’s first
prime minister) made a covert trip to Ankara to meet with the Turkish prime minister at the
time, Adnan Mendres. This pact, coming to be known as “the alliance of periphery”, was put
in place to establish an alliance with non-Muslim Arabs, and non-Muslim peripheral
countries, including Iran and Ethiopia as well as Turkey.
In 1980 however, relations went cold. The Knesset (Israeli Parliament) passed the ‘Jerusalem
Reunification Law’, where Jerusalem was declared the capital of the Israeli state. Turkey, a
country which recognises Palestine (which recognises Jerusalem as its capital), saw this law
passed and in solidarity with the Palestinians, they decided to cool down diplomatic relations
with Israel.

Nevertheless, with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the signing of the Oslo Accords
between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), Turkish and Israeli
diplomacy once again made ground.
Fast-forwarding to 2008/9, the Israeli government ordered an offensive into Gaza, killing
1400 Palestinians and several Hamas militants. This came to be known as the ‘Gaza
Massacre’ in the Muslim World, and it strained Turkey’s relations with Israel. Erdogan
(Turkish Prime Minister) also harshly criticized Israel for their actions in Gaza during the
World Economic Forum conference in Switzerland, in 2009.
The Gaza Flotilla Raid was a military operation by Israel attempting to block the Free Gaza
Movement's ninth attempt to break the naval blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza. During
this, in May 2010 a passenger ship, the Mavi Marmara, was stormed by Israeli commandos,
during which 8 Turkish nationals and an American of Turkish descent were killed. This led to
Turkey further cutting diplomatic relations and suspending military cooperation. In 2011,
Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador to Turkey following a UN report stating that the
ongoing Gaza blockade was legal under international law, but excessive force was used to
board the ship. Israel refused to apologise for their actions, leading to the expulsion.

Normalisation (attempts) –
Since the loss of love, the Israeli Government has made numerous attempts to normalise
relations, with Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel’s current Prime Minister) apologising in 2013 for
the Gaza Flotilla Incident (with Turkey later accepting it). And in 2016 Turkey and Israel
reached a reconciliation agreement after the 6-year rift.
In this agreement, the country agreed that:
 Turkish parliament will pass a law cancelling the appeals made against the Israeli
soldiers involved in the Gaza Flotilla killings
 Hamas will be allowed to operate on Turkish soil as a political movement
 Turkey will be allowed to pass humanitarian aid into Gaza through Israel
 Israel will compensate the families of those killed in the Gaza Flotilla raids $20M in
total.
 Ambassadors will be reappointed in both respective countries.

But relations didn’t stay sweet. In 2018, the US government officially accepted Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel and planned to move its Embassy there, causing public outrage, riots, and
civil unrest, leading to the temporary expulsion of the ambassador from Turkey, and
consequently Turkey’s ambassador from Israel.