Erdogan will meet Netanyahu and Abbas next week
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to meet both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week amid a new spiral of violence and tension in the West Bank.
As a Turkish presidential statement noted, Erdogan will receive Abbas on 25 July and Netanyahu just three days later, on 28 July, in the first visit by an Israeli prime minister in 15 years. According to i24 News, Erdogan and Netanyahu are scheduled to discuss deepening cooperation in tourism and business, as well as possible gas shipments to Turkey.
Despite past disagreements, Turkey and Israel have begun to establish a new alliance over the past year. Erdogan, faced with the country's severe economic crisis, has been forced to strengthen regional ties with a focus on trade, as has also been the case with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to Ankara in March 2022 opened a new stage in ties between the two countries, and since then Turkey and Israel have forged closer ties on a number of issues, while senior Israeli and Turkish officials - including foreign and defence ministers - have held meetings with the aim of boosting this bilateral partnership. Indeed, Erdogan himself also met with former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last autumn, the first meeting between the heads of government since 2008. All these steps culminated in the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations in August last year. Moreover, the devastating earthquake in February further strengthened this bond, as Israel was one of the first countries to send rescuers and humanitarian teams to the country.
Despite the current harmony, however, Turkey and Israel's ties have gone through a series of ups and downs that have led to the suspension of relations on several occasions. In 2010, Ankara and Jerusalem recalled their respective ambassadors following the Mavi Marmara incident. Subsequently, after a slight improvement in relations, Erdogan accused Israel of 'state terrorism' during the riots in Gaza in May 2018 over the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, again causing bilateral ties to break down.
Recent developments at the Al-Aqsa mosque and Israeli raids in the West Bank have also provoked rejection from Erdogan, although he has taken a more cautious tone in order to maintain the current good relations.
This past week, Netanyahu also received an invitation from Morocco's King Mohammed VI following Israel's recognition of Rabat's sovereignty over Western Sahara. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has also extended an invitation to Netanyahu to visit him at the White House amid tensions between Jerusalem and Washington over Israeli judicial reform and the new wave of violence in the West Bank.