By Daniel Pipes
The Government of Israel, we
learned yesterday from a Turkish source, has delivered Airborne Warning and Control
System (AWACS) equipment by ELTA, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries.
that gives military aircraft protection from electronic attacks. Not only will
the AWACS planes, in the wording of the Today’s Zaman article, “greatly
increase [the Turkish air force’s] dominance over Turkey’s own airspace” but
they will also be useful to it in the Syrian civil war and vis-à-vis “tensions
with Israel and Greek Cyprus over the issue of gas drilling.”
Ankara ordered the systems
years ago but the Israelis held them back following the Mavi Marmara incident
in 2010. In part, the Israeli decision to deliver them resulted from pressure
from Boeing, manufacturer of the AWACS planes. But in part, it has to do with a
hope in Israel that the Turks will again become friendly; this move comes in
the context of back-channel talks between the two governments and the
decision last week, by Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities
in the Territories, in the words of Israel Defense, to “allow the entry
of Turkish experts and construction materials for the largest Turkish hospital
building in the Gaza Strip, ahead the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan
in Gaza.”
Israel Defense continues: “There are voices within the Israeli
defense establishment calling for the end of the Marmara crisis vis-à-vis
Turkey, by finding a formula of apology, in order to return to the
Israeli-Turkish alliance against Syria and Iran.”
Comments: (1) As the Turkish newspaper itself notes, the AWACS
will potentially be used against Israel in the Mediterranean Sea. (2) This move
fits into a larger pattern of an Israeli and more broadly a Western reluctance
to recognize the AKP-dominated government of Turkey as hostile. Neither
appeasement nor seduction will work. The time has come to come to see Erdoğan
& Co. as the opponents they are.
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Παρακαλούνται οι φίλοι που καταθέτουν τις απόψεις τους να χρησιμοποιούν ψευδώνυμο για να διευκολύνεται ο διάλογος. Μηνύματα τα οποία προσβάλλουν τον συγγραφέα του άρθρου, υβριστικά μηνύματα ή μηνύματα εκτός θέματος θα διαγράφονται. Προτιμήστε την ελληνική γλώσσα αντί για greeklish.