In Israeli Foreign Policy, Everything Is Connected

The apology that President Obama extracted from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the subsequent dramatic reconciliation with Turkey only go to show that everything in the Middle East is connected.

The Iranian nuclear program, the insurgency in Syria, the negotiations with the Palestinians and the Arab Spring – none of these topics can "go on leave." You cannot deal with the Syrian chemical threat without mending fences with Ankara. And you cannot mend fences with the Turks without taking action to mend fences with the Palestinians. We can now say that the turn of phrase "what's the connection?" which has been the quintessential Israeli stance to date is now "yok." In Turkish, this word denotes "no longer in existence" or "defunct." All of a sudden, the Prime Minister's Office passionately makes the case that Israel and Turkey have a joint interest to stop the Middle Eastern axis of evil.

Presumably, Netanyahu fully understands that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not make do with an apology and compensations to the families of the Marmara flotilla fatalities. The Muslim leader has undertaken to become the Palestinian savior, the messiah that will deliver the Palestinians from the Israeli occupation. The person who made peace with the Kurds and tried to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Syria will not sit quietly by if the diplomatic stalemate and the settlement activity lead to a third intifada.