The Decline of the 'Syrian Effect' in Turkish-Israeli Relations/Turk-Israil Iliskilerinde 'Suriye Etkisi'nin Dususu.

• Author: Ulgul, Murat
• Position: Report

Historically, Syria has played a central role in the formation, development and even deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations. In fact, Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations began in the 1950s partly as a result of Israel's desire to use Turkey's shared borders with multiple Arab countries. From Turkish territory, Israel could collect information about Syria, and Iraq, in an attempt to balance these countries' power in the Middle East. After Turkey's many years of neglecting, Ankara and Tel Aviv formed a strategic alliance in the 1990s as both countries were threatened by the Syrian regime. With a new government in Turkey and changing geopolitical conditions in the 2000s, Ankara developed warm relations with Syria and attempted to broker a peace deal between Damascus and Tel Aviv, which failed after Israel's 'Operation Cast Lead' in Gaza at the end of 2008. Disappointed by Israel's action, Ankara felt betrayed and this event led into a series of political crises between Turkey and Israel which reached a zenith with the Mavi Marmara raid in May 2010. All in all, as Stern and Ross point out, "developments in or associated with Syria have proved instrumental in determining Israeli-Turkish relations, for better or worse." (1)

Taking this into consideration, it is not surprising that the rapprochement between these two countries started with another development in Syria: the bloody civil war that erupted in March 2011. With the spread of chaos and anarchy in Syria, Israel and Turkey reluctantly, and with the mediation of then U.S. President Barack Obama, decided to solve the crisis through the bilateral relations. As Netanyahu apologized to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara raid in March 2013, he reasoned this decision with the developments in Syria. "The fact that the Syrian crisis is constantly intensifying was a prime consideration," he wrote on Facebook after the apology. "It's important that Turkey and Israel...are able to communicate with each other and this is also relevant to other regional challenges." (2) Yet, despite the continuing conflicts in Syria and the emergence of a new threat, namely the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), by December 2018 bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel had not improved as much as the level of threat in the region required. This article will analyze why the "Syrian effect," compared to former periods, failed to provide the desired and required cooperation between Turkey and Israel during the Syrian civil war.

As Schmidt states, a foreign policy theory "seeks to explain why a particular state pursued a specific policy at a certain point of time." (3) Foreign policy researchers, especially those involved in statistics, may seek to find a magic variable that explains most, if not all, foreign policy decisions in international politics. This may be a fruitful attempt in political science if the researcher examines a multiple number of cases over an extended period of time. Yet, if the researcher examines a specific case in a particular time period, as in this study, relying on a single variable may not offer a sound explanation as it would ignore the complexity of international relations in which local, national, regional, and global developments interact with each other. Taking this into consideration, this study will rely on a multidimensional explanatory methodology and show the effect of Syria on Turkish-Israeli relations by highlighting the interactions of systemic, international, and the domestic variables instead of focusing on a single variable or a certain theoretical perspective.

The article continues as follows. First, I will present a brief history of the Syria effect on Turkish-Israeli relations. Following this, I will explain contemporary developments and demonstrate the real and potential effects of the Syrian civil war on the bilateral ties between Ankara and Tel Aviv. Then I will identify the systemic, international and domestic factors that restrain the close cooperation between these two countries in this turbulent period of the regional politics. Finally I will summarize the findings in the concluding chapter.

The 'Syrian Effect' in Turkish-Israeli Relations

Turkey is the first majority-Muslim-populated country that recognized Israel as an independent state on March 28, 1949. The national security interests have become the major determining factor in their bilateral relations. Most of the time, Syria was another actor in the region that shaped these interests. In the early years of the political relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv, it was primarily Israeli security interests that pushed the country into seeking close cooperation with the Menderes government of Turkey. Even before the formation of a secret alliance between two countries in 1958, Israelis appreciated Turkey's critical geopolitical importance as the latter's long borders with Iraq and Syria, could provide important intelligence insights about these two countries that were officially at war with Israel. And this is why Israel appointed an experienced diplomat, Eliyahu Sasson, as a minister to the Ankara legation in 1949. During his service in the early 1950s, Ankara turned into a 'Middle East listening post' as Israeli officials in Turkey established important contacts with Arab informants and messengers, especially with Syrians who "were willing to trade information on developments in their own countries" in return for fulfillment of some personal interests. (4) In this period, despite Ankara's discontent, Israeli officials in Ankara were also involved in clandestine activities, including an aborted coup attempt in Syria. (5)

In the late 1950s, the same Syrian threat led Turkey to positively respond to the Israeli demand for cooperation. In 1957, Turkey came to the verge of war with Syria after Damascus signed an economic and technical aid agreement with the Soviet Union on August 6 and communist-leaning General Afif Al-Bizri became the Syrian Chief of Army Staff eleven days later. In response to these developments with its southern neighbor, Turkey moved her troops to the Syrian border which naturally brought Soviet and American involvement due to the Cold War dynamics. (6) While the war was averted as the two great powers mediated the crisis, it gave the Israelis an opportunity to form a partnership with Turkey. In an Israeli Foreign Ministry meeting on September 11, when the Turkish-Syrian crisis was not resolved yet, Reuven Shiloah, the first director of Mossad, recommended improving relations with Turkey as he believed that the common Syrian threat might open the way to rapprochement between Turkey and Israel. (7) Shiloah was right in his evaluation as Turkey and Israel formed a secret alliance called the 'Phantom Pact' in August 1958. Among other things, one of the factors that hastened the process was the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR) between Syria and Egypt in February of that year. (8) Therefore, Syria played a critical role in the formation of a Turkish-Israeli alliance. (9)

As the security threats Turkey facing eroded with the military coup in Syria that brought the end of the UAR in 1961. Ankara's Middle East policy relied on a balance between its relations with Israel and the other Arab countries. During the Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973, Turkey remained militarily neutral while politically leaning towards the Arab countries. Turkey's financial troubles, political interests (the growing number of Arab states which would be decisive in the UN votes over the Cyprus issues) and domestic sympathies with the Palestinians were critical factors behind this policy. After the Phantom Pact, Turkey treated Israel as "its mistress," as David Ben-Gurion once reportedly said: being in a relationship but refraining from publicly acknowledging it. (10)

Once more it was Syria that changed the substance of Turkish-Israeli relations in the 1990s. Although Syria lost its great patron with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the same development also made Damascus more unrestrained in its foreign policy. Syrian disagreements with Israel over the Golan Heights and with Turkey over water rights on the Euphrates River brought a significant tension in this period. As a result of these political problems, Syria maintained close relations with Iran and Iraq while becoming the main supporter of Hizballah against Israel and the PKK against Turkey. These policies led Turkish decision-makers to see Israel as a security partner again. Indeed, during the 1995-1996 Israeli-Syrian peace process, Ankara followed the negotiations with the suspicion that, if successful, the Israeli-Syrian peace might be detrimental to its national security as it would lead Syria to be more aggressive against Turkey. The failure of negotiations not only satisfied Turkey, but also made a Turkish-Israeli partnership more necessary to counter the common Syrian threat. (11) As a result, Ankara and Tel Aviv entered into a military alliance that included arms sales, intelligence sharing, common military training programs, and exchanges of cadets. (12)Although there were a number of other reasons behind the Turkish-Israeli alliance - Turkey's need for arms in its fight against the PKK or Israeli concerns about Iran, etc.- deterring Syria was the shared interest for Israel and Turkey. Syria believed the same as then Syrian Defense Minister General Mustafa Tlas stated on a number of occasions that the main objective of Turkish-Israeli military cooperation was to put pressure on Syria. (13)

Not only did the Syrian effect play a role in the formation of a Turkish-Israeli alliance in the 1950s and its development in the 1990s, but the same effect was also visible in the deterioration of bilateral relations in the late 2000s, but this time more indirectly. After the Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to power in November 2002, Ankara gradually shifted its...