History of Turkish-Israeli Relations

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The first lecture of the program was given by Dr. Gallia Lindenstrauss, Senior Research Fellow in Institute for National Security Studies. The title of the lecture was: “History of Turkish-Israeli Relations”. Dr. Lindenstrauss begin her lecture by showing a picture of President Herzog’s visit to Turkey in July 1992 and referred the time period as “golden years of relationship”. The she continued by pointing out the contrast of the relationships between Erdogan’s approach from the beginning of his term and today.

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Then she begun to talk about the reasons that are causing the deterioration of bilateral relation. She explained the major factors as: Turkey’s relationship with Hamas, populism, polarization etc. She discussed the rise of antisemitism and antisemitic sentiments of President Erdogan. Dr. Lindenstrauss talked about the history of deterioration of bilateral relations. “One minute” accident, Gaza flotilla raid and then 2013 Apology and its effects on relations and normalization agreement. Then the 2017 restart process was discussed with its failure by Erdoğan’s sentiments about Jerusalem.

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She continued the history of relations by talking about the diplomatic history between two countries. She explained the May 2018 crissis and Erdogan’s quote “Jerusalem is a red line for Muslims” and collapse of the normalization agreement. Lastly, she explained the contemporary status of relations. First, she talked about Netenyahu-Erdogan’s conflict on twitter then she pointed out the polarization in the region with factors causing the polarization such as Morsi’s fall and death and Khashoggi’s murder.