The brutal Israeli attack on the Turkish-led flotilla of aid ships to Gaza has destroyed the already fading special relationship between Turkey and Israel and turned old friends into new enemies, reports Gareth Jenkins On Monday, tens of thousands of Turks took to the streets to protest against the Israeli assault on the Turkish-led flotilla of ships carrying aid to Gaza as already strained relations between the two countries appeared on the point of collapse. In the early hours of Monday morning, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak telephoned Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to tell him that nine of the pro-Palestinian activists on board the ships had been killed in the Israeli attack (the actual total was 19) and around 25 injured. Barak gave no details of their nationalities or identities but in fact 16 were Turks. Around two thirds of the 581 people on board the Mavi Marmara, the liner which effectively served as the flagship for the nine-vessel flotilla, are believed to have been Turkish nationals. Davutoglu left no doubt about how he regarded those killed, publicly referring to them as "sehitler", the Turkish word for martyrs, which is traditionally reserved for those who die in the service of their country or their religion. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc held a press conference to denounce the assault, which he described as typical of Israel's tendency to use "disproportionate force". Onur Oymen of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) asked why, given Israel's record and its repeated warnings that it would prevent the ships from docking in Gaza, the government had not tried to protect the flotilla. "What did Turkey do in response to these statements? Did it take any measures against the possibility of an attack?" Oymen asked. But neither Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) or the Human Rights and Freedoms (IHH) Islamic charity which coordinated the flotilla ever thought that Israel would launch an attack on the high seas in blatant contravention of international law. The most they expected was for Israel to prevent the flotilla from entering what Israel regards as its territorial waters. The IHH has a long record of support for radical Islamist causes and has been active in channelling aid and personnel to conflict zones such as Chechnya, Afghanistan and Kashmir. In 2006 it led the Turkish aid effort to Lebanon during the war between Israel and Hizbullah. But, although it has sometimes cooperated both with Turkish state agencies and NGOs close to the Turkish government, its political stance has traditionally been much more radical than the moderate Islamism of the AKP. When the IHH announced that it was planning to breach the embargo on Gaza and send 10,000 tons to the Hamas-controlled territory, the AKP neither encouraged nor discouraged the organisation. The Israeli assault has forced the AKP to threaten action. "We shall remain neither silent nor passive in the face of this state terrorism," warned Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who cut short a tour of Latin America to fly back to Ankara. The public pressure on the government began to intensify as the first Turkish survivors began to arrive at Istanbul airport after being released by the Israelis. "They stopped us about 68 miles off the coast of Gaza," said Kutku Tiryaki, who had been working as a radio operator on the Gazze, one of the smaller ships in the flotilla. "We told them that we were unarmed but they launched an operation against the Mavi Marmara. We tried to escape but they caught us. We waited on the deck with our hands up. They did not use any force against us but we saw them firing indiscriminately at the Mavi Marmara." Turkey cancelled planned joint military exercises with Israel and withdrew its ambassador but has so far stopped short of severing diplomatic relations. The deputy prime minister warned the Turkish public that there were limits to how the government could express its anger. "Nobody should expect us to declare war on Israel," said Arinc. On Tuesday, the Turkish military dispatched transport aircraft to Israel to repatriate Turks who were killed or wounded in the Israeli assault on the flotilla. As they, and the Turks who survived unscathed, begin to arrive back in Turkey, the public anger is likely to continue to mount and the AKP government to come under intense pressure to take concrete steps against Israel. It is currently unclear what the AKP will or can do. But there is no doubt that relations between the two counties can never be the same again. During the late 1990s there was speculation that Turkey and Israel could be moving towards a strategic alliance. The alliance never happened but, despite increasing strains in bilateral ties after the AKP first came to power in November 2002, until relatively recently it was still possible to describe Turkey as the closest Israel had to an ally in the Muslim world and for Turkey to present itself as an honest broker in peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. But, over the last 18 months, the relationship has come under increasing strain. After Monday's assault on the flotilla, it has simply collapsed. For the vast majority of Turks, Israel is not only no longer an ally or partner: it is their country's worst enemy.
