Gains and losses

This time, the Turkish president's reaction may have an effect not on the state of Israel but on Prime Minister Netanyahu's situation: As Netanyahu's party, which has been Prime Minister since 2009, failed to win a mandate to form a government alone, it is known that Netanyahu is facing serious problems in the investigation of the prosecutor's office, which began on November 21, 2019, alleging "bribery and illegal activities".

On the other hand, after Netanyahu failed to reach an agreement with other parties in the Knesset to form a coalition government despite all efforts, the meeting of Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid Party, who was authorized by the President of Israel to form a new government, with Mansour Abbas, the leader of the United Arab List, and the decisive position of the alliance in the discussions that began in this context supported perhaps the sharpest statement made by Mr. Erdoğan in recent years against the bombing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

In other words, Netanyahu's inability to form a new government and his problems with the prosecutor's office, as well as the decisive position of the United Arab List, even if it is not in the Hamas worldview supported by Erdoğan, have strengthened the Turkish president's "go to the end of the struggle".

At a time when his rating in the country is declining, this situation is very important for Erdoğan. The fact that Erdoğan interrupted then-Israeli President, Shimon Peres, at the World Economic Forum in Davos in February 2009, challenging him by saying, "One minute, you know how to kill well", has had an incomparable role in bringing Mr. Erdoğan's rating to the top, both in Turkey and in the Islamic world. Now, at the weakest period of Prime Minister Netanyahu's political career, Erdoğan has made a new move.

This shows that Mr. Erdoğan is maintaining his own worldview and the political position he has built on that worldview since his early youth and leads to the preservation of sympathy not only in Turkey but also in poor Muslim countries.

All the emergency meetings held in the 1.5 years since taking over the interim chairmanship of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on April 15, 2016, were related to the situation in Palestine.

Although Ankara, which reacted immediately to US President Trump's announcement on December 8, 2017, that he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, hosted the next OIC summit in Istanbul on December 17, everything remained on paper, and on May 14, 2018, the ceremonies in Jerusalem were watched in despair.

It is naive to think that the harsh response of Ankara, especially the head of state, to the operation against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first Muslim Qibla, will have an effect on the position of the state of Israel or the fate of the planned coalition government. This will go down in history as one of the examples that Mr. Erdoğan defended his principled position at a time when the Arab world seemed to have completely abandoned the Palestinian issue.

This must be met with respect. However, this principle in the Palestinian issue has been overshadowed by the ongoing processes within the country. We are talking about the "Politics-Mafia" relations, which are shaking up Turkish politics again.

In the early 1990s, when I watched Turkish politics from the inside, I saw that Demirel, Özal, Türkeş, and other right-wing politicians had relations with the "underground world". However, relations at that time were very limited, and it was impossible for mafia bosses to interfere with any state affairs.

Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, the situation changed and mafia leaders began to gain importance in public administration. The situation even reached the point that the turmoil created by the state-business-mafia relations caused by the arrest of a mafia leader in Paris in August 1998 led to the resignation of the government of Mesut Yılmaz.

The AKP government gave no respite to the mafia for the first 10 years, and mafia leaders who could destabilize the country were detained in prison. However, in the last 5-6 years, the release of some of them from prison and their use in the propaganda of the ruling party have revived the mafia-state relations. Sedat Peker, who warned of "bloodshed" at a rally in support of the ruling party, later took the situation to the point of full support for the Azerbaijani government.

The chaos deepened when the government's minor ally, Devlet Bahçeli, entered the game and had a mafia leader, who had been in prison for almost half of his life and was one of the main culprits in the political turmoil of the 1990s, released.

After the release of the MHP leader's "close friend", the fact that the mafia leader who supported the AKP left the country did not mean that the war behind the scenes would end but that it would escalate, and those who predicted it were not mistaken. Four videos shared by Sedat Peker so far have shown that not only politicians but also some high-ranking military officials have been actors in relations with the mafia.

When the opposition questioned the relationship, government officials blamed the opposition, and although the Minister of Internal Affairs with unlimited powers could not refrain from saying, "I'm ready to commit suicide if my connections are proven", photo and video wars are becoming increasingly brutal. As the inability to make satisfactory statements to the public leads the government to a more hopeless point due to the fact that the state-mafia relations have reached this level, political turmoil intensifies, as if leading Turkey back to the 1990s. What measures will President Erdoğan take to prevent this? Will Mr. Erdoğan, who is currently the most experienced and powerful politician in Turkey, take radical steps to prevent these processes, which are deepening and threatening not only the government but also the state structure?

It is inevitable that he will take those steps. Because it is necessary to believe that the processes have caused Mr. Erdoğan to see these two harsh facts: 1) The unlimited power given to the police will eventually turn against the government; 2) Giving power to relatives will inevitably create problems in public administration.

Mayis Alizade