Turkish-Israeli Relations Take a Major Step Forward

At the United Nations last month, Benjamin Netanyahu and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in person for the first time—an important sign of the gradual thaw between the two countries that began in 2022. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak examines its significance:

The warm hospitality Turkey’s President Erdoğan showed his Israeli counterpart [Isaac Herzog in March of last year], the growing intelligence cooperation, and the following reciprocal ministerial visits—ranging from the foreign, defense, and economic ministries to the Israeli earthquake rescue and humanitarian mission—have contributed to a fragile normalization between the two countries.

The normalization process of 2022 contrasts with the failed 2016 normalization, particularly at the level of bilateral summits, their frequency, and their public style. Notably, in 2022, we saw the Israeli and Turkish flags waving in the most visible way. Normalization was declared by the former Turkish prime minister Binali Yıldırım and Netanyahu in separate locations via video conferences in Ankara and Rome on June 27, 2016. Erdoğan preferred then not to pose next to an Israeli flag and allowed Yıldırım to take credit as the architect of the normalization.

[T]he Netanyahu-Erdoğan summit should be considered a milestone for bilateral relations if the leaderships of both countries display the political will to deepen the ties.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey

 

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula