Palestinians look to Turkey for substance, not show
Although Turkey got its share of praise as the Palestinian flag was raised at the UN, Palestinians are still waiting for practical moves affecting their lives.
The raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN headquarters in New York was a heartwarming occasion for Turkey.
Turkey won a lot of kudos by taking a firm stand on the Palestinian side in the flag issue, as it did in 2012 when it backed promoting Palestine from nonmember observer organization status to nonmember observer state status. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government naturally made maximum use of the prestige that was accrued.
Protecting Palestine is ostensibly one of the key tenets of Turkey's foreign policy. But is there really anything to back that up? Despite the turbulence in Israel-Turkey relations following then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s famous “one-minute” walkout at Davos in 2009 and Turkey's participation in the flotilla carrying relief supplies to the Gaza Strip in 2010, Turkey hasn’t really done anything for the Palestinians that might irk the Israeli government.
When I called a Palestinian activist in Turkey and asked his opinion about Turkey’s role in the raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN, his response was, “Let them first abolish the visa requirement for Palestinians.” Although Palestinians don’t make a major public fuss of it, the visa requirement for Palestinians seriously bothers them.
