Soğuk savaş dönemi sonrası Türkiye'nin İsrail dış politikası: Yapısal realist bir yaklaşım

In the four decades following the establishment of first diplomatic relations with Israel in 1949, Turkey had a low-contact relationship with Israel based on moderate cooperation within the framework of the Cold War. Roughly, the two states shared a common position of being members of the United States-led Western bloc in the Middle East. However, in the 1990s considerable improvement in bilateral relations occurred with the encouragement of the United States. In fact, rising regional security challenges arising from unfriendly policies of Turkey's neighbors had led Turkey to enter into a strong strategic relationship with Israel. In contrast to the 1990s, the 2000s have witnessed a critical transformation in bilateral relations as relations deteriorated due to a number of developments, most of which have been related with Israeli attacks on south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip under Hamas control, and the JDP governments' intense criticisms of these attacks. This thesis aims to analyze Turkey's relations with Israel in the post-Cold War period through the perspective of structural realism. It is argued that both the close military alliance between the two states in the 1990s and tensions in bilateral relations in the 2000s can be explained by a structural realist approach. Shared sense of common regional security challenges encouraged rapprochement between Turkey and Israel, whereas reduced sense of external enemies in the early 2000s has noticeably reduced Turkey's need for military alliance with Israel.