A Strategic Alliance Crumbles (Regional-Report: Turkey-Israel‪)‬

Israel's unique and strategic alliance with Muslim Turkey appears to be crumbling. The ostensible reason is Turkish anger at Israel's bludgeoning of the Gaza Strip in a 22-day invasion last winter in which helpless civilians were slaughtered. But the real cause of the rift is that for Turkey's Islamist-led government the close links with Israel have become an embarrassment as Ankara, cold-shouldered by Europe, turns its eyes to the east to restore Turkish influence in a region once ruled by the Ottoman sultans. Potentially, this signals a major geopolitical realignment in the eastern Mediterranean that could have significant ramifications for the entire Middle East as the region lurches into a new era rife with uncertainty and peril, and for US power in the region. In recent years Turkey's charismatic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has sought to strengthen relations with neighbors once kept at arm's length, among them Iraq, Syria and Iran, which along with Turkey and Israel is the region's third non-Arab power. Turkey's strategy of expanding its influence goes beyond the Arab world and extends into the Caucasus and Turkic-speaking Central Asia. Erdogan seeks a new relationship with Russia, NATO-member Turkey's Cold War adversary. Islamists' Rise