Israel, Turkey, and the Turkish–Jewish Community in Light of Operation Protective Edge

The Turkish context proves challenging for the development of a minority discourse in ways that differ from other countries due to challenges of, among other things, creating a substantive form of equality. The discourse on minorities in Turkey has legally changed as over the years Turkish politics and political culture have worked to establish a close linkage between citizenship and nationality, which has led to the discussion of ‘who is a Turk?’ The answer to this question continues to nurture the imagined unity of the Muslim millet, which remained intact through the positioning of non-Muslims as ‘others’. From the 1950s onwards, non-Muslim minorities have frequently lost socio-political and economic security whenever the Turkish government faced a diplomatic crisis. In this decade, the relationship between Turkey and the recently established State of Israel defined the position of Turkish Jewry and raised questions regarding its national identity. Eventually, by the 1990s, the intersection of these internal and external issues pushed Turkey to review its traditional concept and treatment of minorities. This was followed by Turkey’s candidacy in joining the European Union. Yet, in periods when relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated, restrictions and discrimination vis-à-vis the Jewish minority that marked the Turkish policy of the 1950s were implemented and justified through the prism of security, even if only in an unofficial manner. Growing Islamization has further complicated this situation and, with the rise of the AKP in 2002 and the deterioration of bilateral relations with Israel starting from 2008, has severely affected the government’s and then Turkish society’s attitude toward the Jewish community in the state.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Al-Aqsa Intifada between 2000 and 2005, the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident in 2010, and the 2014 Gaza conflict were the main historical points where Israeli-Turkish relations were tested. Operation Protective Edge is the recent military operation that served as a test case for the relations between both countries and their relations’ impact on the Jewish minority in Turkey.