Middle East in Turkish sauce

If the horrible attack by Hamas on October 7th seems to have taken the legendary Israeli secret services by surprise, it certainly, more understandably, surprised the Turkish leadership. This is why the president, traditionally very quick in his positions on international events, has unusually remained silent on the new crisis for several days.

The current leadership has always held a rather clear position on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at least since Erdoğan left the stage after an exchange of furious words with Israeli President Shimon Peres during a round table on Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2009 (despite the fact, let us remind those who may have missed it, that Israel has always been a strategic ally of Ankara). At least initially, the Turkish president limited himself to reiterating that the creation of an independent and geographically integrated Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem (East) as its capital, is a necessity that can no longer be postponed. In short, supporting the Palestinians without denying Israel's right to exist. One hundred years after the birth of the Republic on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is evidently no longer a secular and Kemalist republic and the current regime is built on its own version of civilizational struggle against the West, first of all as a reaction to the repeated slaps received by European non-politics, full of promises that have never been kept (except for contingent agreements of interest, such as the one on the management of migrants, which among other things are in total contradiction with the vaunted "democratic values", with variable geometry).

But if an Islamic vision of society is affirmed in today's Turkey which has, among other things, the Palestinian cause at heart, we must be wary of improper amalgamations, such as comparisons with Iran (the same Islamists intransigent Turks contest the political closeness between Hamas and Tehran). Interesting in this regard is the opinion of the Turkish analyst Selim Koru, who highlights the unique position of the Turkish leadership between pro "status quo" and "revisionist" positions. The first are those defended by Western countries and their allies who dictate the rules of the "international liberal order" and global economic interests. On the revisionist side, there are the nationalist/civilizing powers such as Russia, China and Iran, countries that lament their absence when the rules were established. They want a more important place in world affairs and increasingly think that the way to get it is some kind of violent confrontation. And Turkey?

According to Koru's analysis, from an economic, legal and military point of view, it is integrated into the network of the status quo, while from a political point of view it is profoundly revisionist but, also in this case, with some exceptions. If for the Iranian revisionist model change is produced by revolution (the traitors of civilization are overthrown and a theocracy is established), Erdoğan, distancing himself from his mentor Erbakan, proposes a "gradualist" model: he has understood that the power of the “traitors of civilization” and gradually build their own regime within their shell. This requires a strong leader, capable of gaining the respect of radicals but also putting moderates at ease. Unlike Iran, the focus of the movement is not military action, but trade. The economy grows, a new elite is created and one becomes an important (if annoying) part of the status quo, patiently waiting to reverse the relationship of dependence on the "imperial center".

This is why the sudden escalation in the Gaza Strip has annoyed the Ankara government, concentrated in the effort to appropriate the Turkish republican legacy with the centenary celebrations! This is precisely the key to understanding the meaning of the great Turkish pro-Hamas demonstration, held on the eve of the anniversary of the Republic, to obscure the republican celebrations in the media, inevitably centered on the father of the country Ataturk and not on the current rais!


Claudio Monge
NP November 2023