The lesson of a recent diplomatic spat is that Tel Aviv needs Ankara much more than Ankara needs Tel Aviv, writes Mustafa El-Labbad Israel lost its most important diplomatic face- off since the end of the Cold War recently when it was forced to offer an apology to Turkey. However, the importance of this incident extends beyond the world of diplomatic tit-for- tats, since it also shakes axioms that Israel has attempted to place at the foundations of American regional strategy. The diplomatic encounter exposed the lack of propriety in conducting the affairs of the Israeli Foreign Ministry under the leadership of Avigdor Lieberman and his deputy Danny Ayalon. It also revealed that the ministry had lost touch with the subtleties of the strategic balance of the region and Israel's position within it. The battle began when Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkey's ambassador to Tel Aviv, Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, to complain about a Turkish television show that was perceived as being anti-Semitic. Israel has been feeling increasingly uncomfortable over Turkey's new Middle East policy and its growing influence in the region, and the complaint over the TV show was a pretext to put Ankara in its place. At the meeting, Ayalon refused to shake Celikkol's hand and had him sit on a low sofa as he explained to the waiting cameras that the alleged insult to Israel had been intentional. It was a crude display and, as it turned out, poorly judged. Turkey responded immediately by demanding an official apology for the treatment of its ambassador, and it threatened to withdraw its envoy from Tel Aviv if Israel did not comply within a day. Pressured by Peres, Barak and Netanyahu, Lieberman and Ayalon were forced to cave in, since Israel could not afford to lose a cornerstone of its regional policy. Turkey was the first country in the region to recognise the state of Israel, and the volume of trade between the two countries today stands at $10 billion, the highest level of bilateral exchange in the region. Both countries have been close allies of the US for decades, and both have strong military and strategic links with Washington. Both countries also have developed economies when compared to other countries in the region, and their political systems guarantee the peaceful transfer of power through democratic elections. However, here the similarities end. On other points of comparison, Israel is very much the junior partner. Turkey's geographical profile far outstrips Israel's in terms of land area, territorial waters and geopolitical importance. Turkey also has huge human resources of more than 70 million people, compared with Israel's five million. Moreover, Turkey has close cultural ties with its neighbours in the region, which accept its regional leadership. Not only does Israel have no cultural or historical ties with other countries in the region, its existence is frowned upon by the majority of the people of the region due to its occupation of Arab land and oppression of the Palestinian people. Yet, Turkey remains Tel Aviv's most important ally in the region at the economic and strategic levels. If that alliance weakened and Turkey moved closer to the positions of the Arab countries, the strategic balance in the region would gradually shift against Israel. Such factors seem to have escaped Ayalon and Lieberman, who seem not to have seen that a reduction in Turkish-Israeli relations would hurt Turkey only a little and, indeed, might benefit it domestically by reinforcing the links between the ruling Justice and Development Party and its secularist opponents and regionally by allowing Turkey's star to rise even higher. As a result, Turkey has delivered an unequivocal message to Israel to the effect that Tel Aviv needs Ankara much more than Ankara needs Tel Aviv. Israel cannot afford to court the hostility of both Iran and Turkey, which would dispel the final remnants of former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin's "periphery policy", which saw Israel establishing ties with non-Arab nations on the fringes of the Arab world in order to create a kind of vice to contain its Arab neighbours. This policy worked during the 1950s and 1960s, when Israel worked with Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia. However, Iran fell out of the picture with the victory of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Were Turkey to remove itself from the equation, the countries on the periphery would change from instruments for pressuring the Arab countries into a means to further isolate Israel. The Turkish-American partnership in the region is strengthened by three major assets, which include Turkey's ability to help facilitate an eventual US withdrawal from Iraq and prevent the country from turning into a base for forces working against US interests in the region, its potential to help bring Syria on board in regional policies that help, or at least do not obstruct, US interests, and its standing as the only power that can be relied upon in containing Iran. Israel, by contrast, has nothing like the advantages Turkey has to offer, in spite of the powerful lobbies promoting Israeli interests in Washington. Geography is not in Israel's favour, its nuclear arsenal cannot expand its regional influence, and it lacks the depth and breadth of the historical and cultural connections possessed by Turkey. In the event of a clash between Turkey and Israel, Israel would have no guarantee that Washington would side with it in view of the US's need for Turkey. This is the major lesson of the diplomatic showdown that Israel has just lost. Israel's standing in Washington's strategic thinking is no longer as unique as it once was, at least not since Turkey's comeback as a front- line player in the Middle East. As if to make matters worse for Israel, while Tel Aviv lacks the means to influence Ankara's strategic choices, Ankara has the ability to influence Tel Aviv's because of Israel's dependence on Turkey as a regional ally. Thus, from the Turkish perspective the diplomatic squabble with Israel, brief as it was, packed an important message. It drove home the fact that Turkey understands the limits to Israel's strategic importance, especially in comparison to its own. This is why Ankara rose to the Israeli challenge and emerged victorious.
