For several long weeks, the draft of a reconciliation agreement with Turkey has been sitting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desk, waiting for his signature. The draft was agreed on by the Israeli and Turkish negotiating teams in the last round of talks that took place in Jerusalem in February 2014. Netanyahu had defined the rehabilitation of relations with Ankara as a top Israeli interest, and has instructed his team accordingly. The team had reached an agreement with the Turks after four years of negotiations. However, Netanyahu still has not signed it, finding it hard to overcome his distrust of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Before the local Turkish elections on March 30, Netanyahu clung to the appraisal by his Foreign Ministry that Erdogan would lose much of his popular support. It turned out that these assessments were only wishful thinking. Israel failed to correctly estimate Erdogan’s political clout when the prime minister was advised not to sign the agreement before the elections, so as not to be viewed as helping Erdogan flaunt the reconciliation as a personal victory in his campaign.

About a month after Erdogan once again proved that he is Turkey’s incontestable ruler, the Turkish prime minister made his appearance on Charlie Rose’s show April 28. When asked to address the issue of reconciliation with Israel, Erdogan composed a clear message of reconciliation — in contrast to the behavior we have become accustomed to, ever since relations between the two nations began to deteriorate at the time of the Cast Lead military operation. Erdogan’s body language and phrasing transmitted serenity and good will when he addressed the issue of normalization with Israel. The irascibility and lordliness that had characterized his statements in the past were gone.

We can detect his intent here and also a message in the way in which his words were composed. This was the first time that Erdogan did not demand that Israel end its Gaza siege, as he has ever since the State of Israel postponed its apology for the killings on the Mavi Marmara and the related compensation payment. This time, Erdogan used the phrase “regulate the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza.” This was precisely what had been decided at the beginning of the negotiations between Netanyahu’s envoy Joseph Chiechanover and the representative of Erdogan, Ambassador Ozdem Sanberk, with the assistance of then-Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon. The understanding at the time was designed to avert the publication of the details of the UN’s Palmer Committee Report (the UN committee looking into the Marmara affair), the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Ankara and the downgrading of diplomatic relations.