Pundits this week focussed on the rising role of Turkey in the region following its support for attempts to lift the Israeli blockade on Gaza in the wake of the attack on the Freedom Flotilla. For many the raid made Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a new star on the Arab street, surpassing Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashid wrote that it went without saying that Erdogan aimed to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza "however -- and perhaps without meaning to -- he managed to break Iran's blockade of the Arabs." Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Hizbullah, enjoyed immense popularity in the wake of Israel's war on Lebanon in 2006, and posters of him can be found everywhere in the region. "However, Erdogan has taken over from Nasrallah while the Turks have replaced the Iranians, by creating an uproar over the Freedom Flotilla and by making fiery speeches," Al-Rashid argued. However, Al-Rashid prefers "the hot-blooded Turkish rhetoric" to "Iranian shouting". Al-Rashid explains that Turkey did not sever its ties with Israel, and did not halt its security, military, and political cooperation with Tel Aviv. Moreover, Al-Rashid continues, Arab regimes have welcomed Turkish competition with Iran. Al-Rashid offered two view points. Some argue that Turkey's appearance on the Arab political scene, despite the fact that this embarrasses Arab regimes, also serves them by keeping Iran's political and propaganda onslaught at bay. "It might have occurred to some Arabs, who are being politically besieged by Iran, to attempt to bring in Turkey to counter Tehran. This is in line with the specifications of the new conflict in the region, the most prominent of which is sectarian," Al-Rashid explains. However, he adds, there is an opposite point of view: Turkey is an alarming and additional power in the region that is not a substitute for Iran. They believe that Syria, Tehran's strategic ally, invited Turkey to have a role in the Middle East when it suggested Ankara as mediator for its negotiations with Israel. Without Damascus, Turkey would never have gained a foothold in the Arab world today. "So the question is: is Turkey a part of the Iranian axis or is it part of a plan to exclude the Iranians?" Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Tariq Al-Homayed described the announcement by Ali Shirazi, representative of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, that the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard is prepared to provide a military escort for the aid ships that are trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "absurd". Al-Homayed wrote Shirazi's statement as evidence that "Iran is trying to regain the role that it lost." According to Al-Homayed, the evidence of this is that "Shirazi's statements fail to reflect any political consciousness, or awareness of their consequences. Rather this is political opportunism which does not serve anybody except Israel." He explains that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in an attempt to justify the crime committed by his country's armed forces which caused Israel to find itself in a tight spot before the international community, previously announced that Israel will continue to prevent ships from reaching the Gaza coast in order to prevent the establishment of "an Iranian port in Gaza". "However, today Khamenei's representative emerged to give Netanyahu something that will allow him to market his justification to the West, and which will also allow Israel to avoid international pressure calling for an international commission to investigate the crime, as well as lifting the Gaza blockade," Al-Homayed concluded. In the London-based daily Al-Hayat, George Samaan wrote that what happened to the Turkish flotilla Marmara "was a gift from heaven for Turkey to complete its strategy in the region and to lead a wide-ranging international campaign to lift the siege on Gaza." "The vicious Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla offered a rare opportunity for Erdogan to achieve a number of targets at once. In this context the Turkish flotilla seems to be gaining similar ground to that of a Palestinian Intifada," Samaan wrote. According to Samaan, Turkey has succeeded in manipulating Israeli arrogance when others failed. He explained that Turkey advanced towards positioning itself as a major player in the region at a time when the US and major world powers are redrawing the Middle East from Afghanistan to Sudan, passing by Iraq, Palestine, the Gulf and Iran. However, Samaan notes, Turkey can not go too far in its support of the Palestinians. He wrote that Turkey definitely cannot appease the extremists in the Arab world and choose to boycott Israel. It will always hold the stick from the middle and consider the stance of the moderates in the Arab world. "This moderation will give its campaign to lift the siege on Gaza more tools and power to achieve its target unlike those supported by extremists and Iran [which isolated Hamas and the Palestinians.] In its editorial, the United Arab Emirates' newspaper Al-Bayan wrote that the repercussions of the flotilla attack with the stream of Gaza-bound aid ships and legal suits against the incident show that more isolation and condemnation for Israel is yet to come. "Time was never more suitable to put Israel in the neck of the bottle. The challenge now lies in the capability to use and escalate this atmosphere to assail Tel Aviv," Al-Bayan wrote. In its editorial 'Israel is the prime threat to Asia's security', the Omani newspaper Al-Watan wrote that Oman participated in the Asia security gathering conference in Turkey on Tuesday. "Turkey, as head of the gathering, a major regional and international power and a victim of an Israeli attack on one of its ships in international waters last week, is expected to identify a security concept to the Asian continent far from any pressure from the US and Europe," Al-Watan wrote.
