You could call it the "Obama effect." The American president has achieved a quick, first victory: Jerusalem and Ankara have made peace a serious accomplishment for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Now we can move on to the next phase: Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab world. Israel has always been adept at taking advantage of its warm relations with Turkey. Turkey has always benefitted as well. But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chose a religious Muslim orientation. Initially he aligned himself with Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but later, in the wake of the Arab uprising of 2011, he put his money on the people who rose up against these tyrants. The Arab and Palestinian people disillusioned with their leaders chose to take to the streets holding posters of Erdoğan. The Ottoman Empire reared its head those were Erdoğan's glory days, or back to the future. But something went awry in Erdoğan's plan. The "Arab Spring" didn't bring the anticipated grassroots redemption, but instead it brought Islamic regimes with independent aspirations. After Iran, Egypt now suddenly also views Turkey as a competitor. Erdoğan has already reaped the benefits of his conflict with Israel. Now he gets to reap the benefits of reconciliation with Israel. Syria is now his main concern. Washington and Jerusalem are his natural partners. How ironic that Turkey once tried to mediate peace between Israel and Syria, and now it is Assad that has prompted Israel and Turkey to make peace. Israel's apology strengthens Erdoğan. To the Arab world it says that he managed to bend Israel's will, and it also brings him closer to Washington. Turkey's strength was always its ability to have one foot in the East and one foot in the West. Israel never had the same geo-political privilege. Its alliance with the periphery which included Turkey posed as a substitute. In any case, the partnership with Turkey is important to Israel militarily, diplomatically, economically, in terms of intelligence-gathering, and, no less important over the Passover vacation, in terms of tourism. Before the crisis with Turkey, the country was the most popular Israeli vacation spot with Turkish resorts offering "all-included" vacations an Israeli favorite. But it isn't easy to digest this apology. Between Erdoğan's horror show at Davos in 2009 (in which, shortly after Israel's Gaza offensive Operation Cast Lead, he reprimanded President Shimon Peres and stormed off the stage), and his recent declarations comparing Zionism with racism, Israel has taken a lot of abuse from Turkey, including even a military threat on the Lebanese border in November 2011 in the event that Israel attacked Lebanon or Gaza again. The Middle East has changed greatly over the last three years, which explains why Israel and Turkey can view the reconciliation between them as an accomplishment. But the Middle East hasn't changed that much. "Never apologize. It is a sign of weakness," said John Wayne in the 1949 film "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." We can take comfort in the knowledge that these days there aren't many people who have seen the film. The good kind of people don't need apologies, and the bad kind of people take advantage of apologies to be cruel, so they say. Time will tell. In the meantime, pack your bags. There are great deals on vacations in Antalya.
