"Islam Takes a Backseat to Realpolitik in Turkey
Jonathan S. Tobin
Turkey’s Islamic government has spent the last few years gradually dismantling that country’s once warm alliance with Israel. Motivated as much by their ideological affinities as any notion of their national interest, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party government had distanced itself from Jerusalem and then assumed the role of one of the Jewish state’s most ardent critics. Things came to a head last year when the Turks allowed an “aid” flotilla to Gaza to be launched from their shores to break the blockade of the Hamas-run strip. When Turkish nationals were killed as armed activists on one of the ships resisted Israeli commandos who bordered the vessel, it seemed a complete rupture between the two countries was in the cards."
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