Turkey was the second Muslim nation to recognize Israel in 1948 (after Iran), and since then both nations have been allies. In 2008, bi-lateral trade topped $3 billion. An agreement in the 1990s allows Israeli fighter jets to train in Turkish skies, and Israeli contractors are licensed by the Turkish military. And tourism is, on the Israeli side, a strong factor in the relationship as 7% of the Israeli public visited Turkey last year.

But Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine and its most recent massacre of Palestinians in Gaza - over 900 civilians of whom over 400 were children - was greatly strained relations and puts into doubt whether both nations will even have diplomatic relations in a few years if a Palestinian state is not established by then.

Turkey’s prime minister strongly criticized the Gaza attack, and then engaged in a heated debate with the Israeli president at the Davos World Economic Forum. Turkey recently a NATO military exercise, which Israel was supposed to take part in, most likely due to opposition of Israeli participation (Israel isn’t even a NATO member). And since the Gaza massacre, trade between nations have fallen 40% in just nine months.

Israel has been panicking about its souring relations with Turkey. The loss of Turkey would further alienate the Jewish state in the international arena and undermine its legitimacy. It would also put more pressure on Egypt and Jordan to end their own relations with Israel.

The Turkish public is also incredibly pro-Palestinian. As usual, Israel always blames some news reporting or some “bias” for opposition to Israel rather than its own destructive, deadly policies that have made the Jewish state nearly a pariah in the world. Now they are criticizing a Turkish serial:

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official rebuked Turkey’s acting ambassador on Thursday over a Turkish television series that, among other things, appears to depict an Israeli soldier murdering a Palestinian child.

Naor Gilon, deputy director for the Foreign Ministry’s Western Europe desk, said he had told the Turkish envoy, Ceylan Ozen, that the television series was “incitement” that could set off attacks against Jews visiting Turkey.

Mr. Gilon met Mr. Ozen at the ministry’s headquarters in Jerusalem amid increasing tensions between Turkey and Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later talked about his own concerns about the series and what it said about bilateral relations.

“We are disappointed by the incitement on Turkish television, and we are not very happy by the trends we are seeing in Turkey of late,” he said at a news conference with the visiting Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. . . .

Clips of the television program, screened by Turkey’s state-owned TRT television, show soldiers in what appear to be Israeli combat fatigues committing acts of murder and violent repression against Palestinians under their control. Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

In one of the most striking moments of the program, a soldier is portrayed standing in front of a father with a baby held high in his hands and firing a bullet at the baby, killing it instantly.
. . .

TRT has not commented on the Israeli criticisms of the program.

The Web site of TRT includes a brief explanation of the series and announces that the production is “a heartfelt display of the events in Palestine, which was occupied in 1948.”

The series, the Web site said, “portrays the sorrow of women and children, in particular, and gives a voice to the suffering of mothers whose children and husbands were slaughtered.”

What is the disputer here? This show is accurate: Palestine has been occupied since 1948 and Israeli occupation troops routinely kill women and children. And contrary to what Israelis who dehumanize Palestinians an animals may think, Palestinians do have sorrow. Incitement on Turkish t.v.? These people kill over 400 children and then have the temerity to speak about incitement. But this is just the beginning of the isolation and end of that awful Zionist state.