Word: foreign
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics. That was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's conclusion back in the 1970s, but it appears to still hold true three decades later when it comes to understanding the latest fiasco in an Israel-Turkey relationship that has seen better days...
...fire was set on the evening of Jan. 11, when Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, summoned Turkey's ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to an urgent meeting. Its purpose was to deliver Israel's complaints about a Turkish TV series that portrays Israeli soldiers as baby killers. At the meeting, Ayalon was caught on camera instructing the Israeli TV news crew covering the event to make sure that its footage captured the fact that Celikkol had been deliberately seated on a chair lower than that of his Israeli counterpart, that only the Israeli flag was on the table (without...
...diplomatic spat, Ayalon's defiance potentially carried a high cost. But it took a behind-the-scenes intervention of the proverbial grownup in the Israeli establishment - President Shimon Peres, who served for decades as Israel's key diplomat - to orchestrate a climbdown. Peres called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Lieberman and urged them to defuse the crisis. But domestic politics was in play: not only was Ayalon's initial action calculated to burnish the nationalist appeal of his and Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, but Netanyahu's need to maintain that party's support for his coalition prompted...
...Ayalon remained defiant, on Tuesday issuing a statement of regret over the incident that nonetheless reiterated his belief that he had acted correctly in taking Turkey to task. "My protest of the attacks against Israel in Turkey still stands," Ayalon said. "However, it is not my way to insult foreign ambassadors, and in the future I will clarify my position by more acceptable diplomatic means." But insulting a foreign ambassador was exactly what Ayalon had set out to do, and the Turks on Wednesday rejected his "apology" as insufficient. (See the top 10 embarrassing diplomatic moments...
...Finally, on Wednesday, as the clock ticked down on Turkey's ultimatum, Ayalon came out with a full, written formal apology that satisfied the Turkish Foreign Ministry. "I had no intention to humiliate you personally and apologize for the way the démarche was handled and perceived," he wrote. "Please convey this to the Turkish people for whom we have great respect ... Although we have our differences of opinion on several issues, they should be discussed and solved only through open, reciprocal and respectful diplomatic channels between our two governments...