As President Isaac Herzog gears up to visit Turkey in what appears to be another step toward rapprochement, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan found themselves facing a major dilemma over the Russian invasion of Ukraine: both have had to find a way to sympathize with the victim without angering the aggressor.
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The solution: both have offered to play mediator between Moscow and Kyiv in an attempt to halt the fighting.
Erdogan's interest in seeing the war end is bigger than Bennett's and not only because of his country's physical proximity to the warzone. Turkey is a member of NATO but it also depends mainly on Russia, as well as on Ukraine, for its wheat supplies and natural gas, to say nothing of the millions of Russian and Ukrainian tourists that visit it every year.
Turkey has irked Russian President Vladimir Putin when it sent drones to Ukraine, and it vexed US President Joe Biden when it said it won't join the extensive sanctions Washington slapped on Russia.
However it is possible that it is exactly Turkey's two-pronged involvement in the crisis makes Ankara, not Jerusalem, a more convenient middle ground on which Russian and Ukrainian delegates could meet.
This doesn't mean that Bennett erred when he offered to mediate the crisis after all those involved gave him their blessing, as he said it. If he fails – no harm done; but if he succeeds, despite the odds being against him, he will have earned his international status.
There is, of course, no direct link between the common interest of Turkey and Israel in stopping the war in Ukraine and Erdogan's decision to roll out the red carpet for Herzog, who is slated to visit Ankara on Wednesday.
Over the past year, the Turkish president has signaled in almost every possible way that he is interested in improving diplomatic relations with Israel, which deteriorated since the deadly 2010 Marmara flotilla incident and reached their lowest with the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Turkey about four years ago.
Erdogan has already spoken with Herzog three times, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid at least once, and he has hinted at more than one occasion of his desire to get diplomatic relations back on track.
Turkey has reasoned the change in its position to the change of government in Israel and the fact that "there is now someone to talk to" in Jerusalem. But the reasons for this change run much deeper.
With the June 2023 presidential election now clearly in sight, Turkey is in one of its most difficult periods under Erdogan's rule. The Turkish economy is crashing with 48% inflation and a shortage of basic goods, energy prices have doubled, and the local currency has lost half its value. Turkey feels regionally isolated, and its relations with the United States are poor.
Erdogan needs Israel to get out of this predicament, mainly because he needs Israel to help him mend fences with the Biden Administration and persuade the US to revive tis sale of F-35 stealth jets to Ankara, which Washington canceled after Erdogan procured Russian-made surface-to-surface S-400 missile batteries.
Israel has no reason to reject Ankara's outstretched hand or oppose restoring ties in full – as long as no one deludes themselves into thinking that Erdogan transformed from a devout Muslim and an ardent supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood to a lover of Zion. The Turkish president is a rigid ideologue, who in the next conflict in Gaza, Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria will once again turn against Israel.
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