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Recent events between Israelis and Palestinians revealed the true face of Turkey’s and Qatar’s twin policies, which are based on raising slogans in support of Palestine while blind evaluating relations with Israel.

Turkey

Turkey is the first Muslim-majority country to recognize and establish official relations with Israel since 1949, but Ankara is trying to exploit the various events that the Palestinian territories have witnessed to show support for the Palestinian people, which is critical of Israel.

The latest positions regarding what the Gaza Strip and the West Bank know are “a media catastrophe”, according to observers, which aims at local and regional consumption and will not have any real repercussions on the ground, as Turkey has an embassy and open relations with Israel, in addition to the fact that trade exchange between the two countries continues in large quantities.”

In this regard, official figures reveal that the volume of trade exchange and economic cooperation between Israel and Turkey reached great levels four months after the New Year, in spite of the “escalation” of the tone of Turkish officials, led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, against Israel and describing it as a “terrorist state” against the backdrop of the incidents in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Critical statements confirm, according to observers of the course of relations between the two countries, that Turkish-Israeli relations are based on the principle of “separating the economy from politics” in an equation that proves that there is not necessarily a link between political statements of all kinds, “the arms” or “the series”, with the volume of trade between two countries.

In number language

Official data issued by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK), Turkish Exporters Association (CBRT) and the Central Bank of Turkey (CBRT) show that the economic relations and trade exchange volume between Turkey and Israel have not stopped. On the contrary, they are growing and are being matched by an increase in the volume of direct mutual investments between the two countries.

In this context, Turkey exported $1 billion to Israel in 2020, $4.7 million, which ranks ninth among the countries to which Turkey exports the most. In the first four months of 2021, Turkish exports to Israel rose to $1.0 billion and $851 million, an increase of 35% compared to the same period last year. Israel became the eighth country to export Turkey in this period.

Qatar

Despite the Qatari regime’s ostentatious anti-Israel stance and criticism of Israel’s policies towards Palestine in the various incidents in the Palestinian territories, Qatar is the most prominent country that has adopted a policy of double standards in its relations with Tel Aviv.

Qatar began its relations with Israel after the Madrid Conference. It was the first Qatari-Israeli meeting with the then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, after he visited Qatar in 1996 and opened the Israeli Trade Office in Doha, signed agreements selling Qatari gas to Israel, and then established the Qatari Gas Exchange in Tel Aviv.

Exposing these hidden relations between Qatar and Israel came through the words of Eli Avidar, a member of the Israeli Knesset, who revealed in August 2020 exclusive details about the backstage of the relationship between Doha and Tel Aviv, and the contradictory policies of the Al-Hamdain towards Israel.

In a media interview, Elie Avedar explained that Qatar is deceiving and lying in the nature of its strong relations with Israel, which date back to 1995, pointing out that “the Qatari regime tried to delude its people that there are no relations with Israel,” pointing out that the Doha regime “promoted the fact that Qatar does not agree with relations with Israel, while the regime asked for an agreement with Tel Aviv and the opening of an Israeli trade office in Doha.”

Qatar’s policy of playing on both fronts in its relations with Israel, as it approaches Israel and holds meetings with its leaders in secret, calls on Al Jazeera, its media arm, to criticize Tel Aviv publicly.

“The Palestinian cause and the interests of the Palestinian people were not on Hamad ben Jassim’s agenda during the opening of the Israeli interests office in Doha,” Eli Avedar said in the same interview with the press.

“The latter never spoke about the Palestinian issue and did nothing about it,” Avidor said. “The agreement to open the Israeli office did not mention the issue.”

“After taking office in June 2013, Tamim bin Hamad continued to follow his father’s approach, Qatar continued to normalize its relations with Israel for nothing and to work to perpetuate the Palestinian divide, and Qatari-funded media continued the same politics of contradiction.” In May 2019, Al Jazeera suspended two of its journalists after a report angered the Israeli government.

The Qatari channel did not stop at the step, but rushed to inform Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of it in an attempt to win his support and not anger him. In June 2019, in a new episode of the Qatari series of contradictions, Qatar participated in the “Peace for Prosperity” workshop in the Bahraini capital Manama, after the media of “Al Hamdain” strongly attacked the workshop, describing the participants as going in the “wrong direction.”

In numbers language

The Israeli Bureau of Statistics has previously revealed that Tel Aviv constantly exports to Qatar machinery and computer equipment, in addition to medical tools.

The Qatari Defense Ministry imports military parts for infantry weapons, in addition to night vision equipment such as cameras, from its Israeli counterpart, Yediot Aharonot said, adding that 75% of Israel’s export of equipment and machinery is taken over by Qatar, while Israel imports only plastic from Doha. Trade between the two countries is valued at $7 billion.