After the Israeli Flotilla Incident, Turkey is the new Palestinian Champion
Article posted on The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times
June 3, 2010
Beirut, Lebanon
“This is language that we have not heard since the time of Gamal Abdul Nasser.†Thus wrote the influential chief editor of Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, referring to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fiery response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza flotilla – adding that such “manly†positions and rhetoric had “disappeared from the dictionaries of our Arab leaders (since the demise of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser).†He lamented that “Arab regimes now represent the only friends left to Israel.â€
There is no doubt that it is President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, President Nasser’s successor, to whom Abdel Bari Atwan principally refers; and there is no doubt, too, that the “flotilla affair†marks a watershed moment for Egypt – and to a lesser extent for Saudi Arabia.
Even the notoriously tin ear of President Mubarak to his own people’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause in Gaza could not fail to hear the grinding of the tectonic plates of Middle East change. Even Mubarak has felt obliged to respond to the Israeli assault. He ordered the immediate opening of the Egyptian crossing into Gaza.
What we are witnessing is another step – perhaps crucial – in the shifting strategic balance of power in the Middle East. The cause of the Palestinians is gradually passing out of the hands of Mubarak and King Abdullah bin Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. It is the leaders of Iran and Turkey, together with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who recognize the winds of change. Mubarak appears increasingly isolated and is cast as Israel’s most assiduous collaborator. Here in the region, it is often as not the Egyptian embassies that are the butt of popular demonstrations.
Mubarak’s motives for his dogged support for Israel are well known in the region: He is convinced that the gateway to obtaining Washington’s green light for his son Gamal to succeed him lies in Tel Aviv rather than Washington. Mubarak enjoys a bare modicum of support in the United States, and if Washington is to ignore its democratic principles in order to support a Gamal shoo-in, it will be because Israel says that this American “blind eye†is essential for its security.
To this end, Mubarak has worked to weaken and hollow out Hamas’s standing in Gaza, and to strengthen that of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, he has pursued this policy at the expense of Palestinian unity – his regular “unity†initiatives notwithstanding. Egyptian one-sided peace “brokering†is viewed here as part of the problem rather than as part of any Palestinian solution. Paradoxically, it is precisely this posture that has opened the door to Turkey and Iran’s seizing of the sponsorship of the Palestinian cause.
But standing behind this sharp Turkish reaction to Israel’s assault on the Turkish ship is a deeper regional rift, and this divide stems from the near-universal conviction that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has failed. Its structural pillars have crumbled: The Israeli public no longer believes that “land for peace†– the Oslo principle – will bring them security. Rather, Israelis believe those who tell them that further withdrawal will only bring Hamas rockets closer. The other Oslo pillars also lie broken on the ground: The hitherto presumed “reversibility†of the Israeli settlement project and the hypothetical possibility of last-resort American imposition of its own solution are now understood to have been no more than chimeras.
Yet Egypt refuses to budge in these changed circumstances. It stands almost alone as Israel’s ally. But the shift in the balance of regional power toward the northern tier of Middle Eastern states – Syria, Turkey, Iran, Qatar, and Lebanon – continues, and gathers pace. Egypt increasingly has only its memory of past grandeur on which to stand. In contemporary terms its influence has been on the slide for some time.
Egypt’s one card is that it is Gaza’s other neighbor – aside from Israel. It has been Egypt’s acquiescence to the siege of Gaza – encouraged by President Abbas in the West Bank, who shares Mubarak’s desire to see Hamas weakened – that has given Mubarak his stranglehold over Palestinian issues. But the Islamic and regional tide will be flowing ever stronger against him after Israel’s action against the flotilla.
Already the Arab League is talking of supporting Turkey in any legal action against the Israeli assault on the aid convoy to Gaza. The Arab League has also issued a call to other states to break Israel’s siege on Gaza.
It is too early to say that such talk marks any turning point in Arab League politics. The Arab League, as such, is not taken seriously in the region or elsewhere. But it is rather the shifting of the regional strategic balance that marks the locus from where real change may become possible.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia may conclude that the price of seeing the baton of leadership on such a key and emotive issue pass to non-Arab hands inIran and Turkey is too high, and too shameful. The near-universal skepticism directed toward the “peace process†among their own peoples has already left these leaders exposed internally.
For nearly 20 years these leaders have used their involvement in the “process†as justification to curb internal dissension; but it is now a tool that has lost its magic. They are already paying the price of popular cynicism.
This is Mubarak’s dilemma: stay with the siege and hope America will reward him with Gamal’s succession; but by flouting the winds of change, he may imperil Gamal’s very survival. In any event, Egypt’s control of the Palestinian “file†will never be the same again.
© 2010 Global Viewpoint Network/Tribune Media Services. Hosted online by The Christian Science Monitor.
This article points out a realistic analogy to the situation in the occupied Territory of Palestine. However, I would like to add that the situation in Palestine seems to be favorable to the Israelis, and why should we believe so? It’s simple, the division in the Palestinian political factions is creating a cushioning platform for the Israelis to become less dedicated to developing a real peace in the area. Israel cannot be found irresponsible in that regard, because the blame can be addressed to the two main Palestinian political powers; Fatah, and Hamas. The real victims in the conflict are the civilian people of Gaza and the West Bank, as they watch their politicians’ rivalry taking the Palestinian quest to some undesired dimensions, and how is that taking place? The people of the occupied territory are sick and tired of living under a military rule for 4 decades, and even when the world is trying to convince them that they are on the road for self-ruling, the fact tell them that their restricted maneuverability in their homeland is a constant indicator to their military occupation, and a daily reminder of their deprived freedom.
The question that prompts itself now is: How much longer do the Palestinians have to endure being led by people who do not feel their pain? Surly no one saw Hamas leaders becoming the direct victims of the Israeli air raids on Gaza, while the civilian casualties neared 2000 dead, and a few thousand homeless, and those leaders continue giving their orders to launch rockets onto Israel, only to usher more air raids by Israel, and to have more civilian casualties.
I conclude to say that peace in the region can only be reached when the Palestinian people choose a united political power that will have a unified goal, such power may never be made available by neither Fatah, nor by Hams.