ResurgentIran
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2013
- Messages
- 3,813
- Reaction score
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Turkey had no major relations in the Middle East prior to Erdogan, Turkey did have a decent relationship with Israel but that was no longer in the political sense due to flotilla incident. You can't compare this leader to a leader from a stable Europe. The Middle East saw many drastic developments in the past two years that greatly complicate politics. There isn't a good choice here, there is only a better choice than the other one. Or there is neutrality which is possible for some nations but not for neighboring nations in major conflicts.
Sisi had a hostile attitude to anyone he thought was Ikhwaan. If you think that came out of nowhere then you are wrong. His policy was coordinated with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel prior to him overthrowing the elected president. Erdogan was just being smart and refused to display weakness because either way Egypt and its new allies were going to demonize Turkey.
Hamas initially accepted the events and tried to display brotherlyhood with Egypt in an attempt to have things function normally between the Palestinians and the Egyptians but it didn't work because the Egyptian intelligence was already ordered to refuse to even cooperate on the border let alone in any other sense. So Hamas was wasting its time thinking that Egypt wouldn't hostile but that wasn't the case. Now they realize everything.
Diplomatically yes the relations has soured, but economically speaking Turkey's trade with Israel has tripled/quadrupled since the flotilla incident.