Israel's flawed electoral system

 

          Israel has still not emerged from the ridiculous political logjam of 2019-20, which saw the nation making its way to polling stations three times within 12 months. This state of affairs came about simply because Israel’s electoral system twice failed to yield a workable government at the end of the polling process.

          It seemed as though the political paralysis finally ended in May 2020 when the new government was announced. The controversial power-sharing deal called for Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as prime minister for the government’s first 18 months, to be replaced by Benny Gantz for the next 18 months. Their painfully constructed coalition deal could only come about after the country’s Supreme Court ruled it had no legal grounds to block it. But it was constructed in the first instance because the electoral system had produced a situation in which Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White parties were virtually neck and neck as regards seats.

          The deal led immediately to the dissolution of Gantz’s alliance with his main partner, Yair Lapid, since it was only achieved by Gantz reneging on his central campaign promise not to serve under Netanyahu.

           Despite the criticism, Gantz argued that teaming with Netanyahu offered the country its only way out of the prolonged stalemate and prevented Israel from being dragged once again to another costly election that would have been its fourth in just over a year. Yet here the nation is again, only seven months later, facing the prospect of yet another excursion to the polls. Why?

          One obvious reason demands to be aired – that Israel’s electoral system is simply not fit for purpose in the 2020s. Or, to be generous, that it has outlived its usefulness.

          Eminent constitutionalist, Vernon Bogdanor, has pointed out that Israel’s electoral system is not a considered structure, but a procedure hastily adopted in 1948 when the infant state was at war with its Arab neighbours. With no time or inclination to construct a new electoral model, elections to the Constituent Assembly, which became the first Knesset, were held by the same method that had been used in the pre-state period for elections to the Zionist Congress and to the elected assemblies of the Yishuv, the Jewish community of Mandatory Palestine. But, as Bogdanor points out, a system suitable for a voluntary organization is not necessarily equally suitable for a mature democracy.

          When the Israeli electorate go to the polls, they are asked to choose the one party among the many competing – usually 20 or more – with whose policies they most agree. This system has been described as “one of the purest forms of proportional rule” since the number of seats that each party in the Knesset gains is almost exactly proportional to the number of votes the party obtains in the general election.

          The downside is that inevitably the nation’s vote is fractured. With every shade of political opinion represented by Knesset seats, no one party can emerge as the outright winner. After each election, weeks are spent in backroom negotiations and deals as the party with the most votes attempts to gain sufficient support from others to command a majority in the Knesset.

          Attempts have been made from time to time to ameliorate the problem caused by too many small parties. Until 1992 a political party needed only one percent of the total votes cast to enter parliament. This was gradually raised – first to 1.5 percent, then to 2 percent, and more recently to 3.25 percent – which is still a low threshold of entry compared to similar electoral systems.

          One major discrepancy between Israel’s electoral system and that of most other Western democracies is the absence of any constituency-based element. While many nations have adopted a combination of proportional representation (PR) and the direct election of representatives, the UK’s system is virtually the complete opposite of Israel’s.

          Great Britain and Northern Ireland are divided into 650 constituencies, each of which elects one member of parliament. Any political party, provided it fulfills the necessary criteria, may put up candidates and compete in the election. The candidate who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected, regardless of how many votes were cast for other candidates. PR does not feature. The idea of substituting PR for first-past-the-post was put to the electorate in 2011 in a national referendum, and overwhelmingly rejected.

          The UK system nearly always results in one or other of the two major parties – Conservative or Labour – obtaining a clear majority. Its leader becomes prime minister and appoints all government ministers. Party lists are an unknown phenomenon. Except in rare cases, which do arise from time to time, there is no need for the leader of the winning party to negotiate with anyone about anything.

          As for elected members of parliament, each is regarded by their constituents as “their” MP, whether or not they voted for him or her. All MPs hold regular “surgeries” in their constituency where members of the public with problems can speak personally to their MP and ask for advice or help. The personal connection between MPs and their local areas is very strong. This electoral system, like all electoral systems, is far from perfect. Its main disadvantage is its failure to match the national voting pattern with seats in parliament.

          Proposals for reform in Israel’s electoral system combining the constituency concept with the proportionality of the present system have been put forward on three occasions – in 1958, 1972 and 1988. The last attempt, prepared by MK Mordechai Virshubski and signed by 43 others, offered two ideas. The more interesting proposed that 60 MKs would be elected in 60 constituencies, and 60 by the current system. In short, each elector would vote for both a candidate and a list. This bill also passed a first reading, but subsequently foundered.

          Back in 2005, President Moshe Katsav set up a Presidential Commission for the Examination of the Governmental Structure, a forum of the country's leading political scientists chaired by Hebrew University President Menahem Magidor. The commission met regularly for more than a year, and it too finally favoured a combined system, recommending that half of the Knesset should be elected directly within the country’s 17 districts, while the other half would be voted in by way of the current system.

          The commission’s recommendations, like the earlier parliamentary bills proposing electoral reform, were not followed up. Nor indeed were subsequent attempts, such as the determined effort by Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson in 2006. Then Chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Ben Sasson set to work with a will. Undeterred by all the previous unsuccessful attempts, he declared: “This generation might be ready. At least I have to try”. Try he did, but his proposals were blocked by those who feared a loss of influence in any revised system.

           Despite a history replete with discouragement and failure, electoral reform in Israel is an unfinished saga. The inadequacies of the present system remain obvious. Another genuinely determined effort, supported by a consensus from within Israel’s body politic, must be made sooner or later to provide the nation with an electoral system truly worthy of it. Why not make a start?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 December 2020, as: "Israel's electoral system is leaving the country stuck in a political logjam":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israels-electoral-system-is-leaving-the-country-stuck-in-political-logjam-653347

How far will Biden diverge from Trump?

 

          The question exercising countless minds worldwide is how much of President Donald Trump’s policies will the forthcoming Biden administration uphold?  At first glance the two men could not be further apart politically.  Closer scrutiny of the issues reveals a rather different picture.

As far as the Middle East is concerned, there is general agreement that US president-elect Joe Biden will certainly endorse the Abraham Accords. On the other hand, most Washington watchers do not expect him to maintain his predecessor’s aggressive stance towards Iran. After all, as vice-president, Biden was key in selling to Congress the Iran nuclear deal, still regarded by Barack Obama as the crowning achievement of his presidency.  Many believe that Biden will seek to negotiate a US re-entry into the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the multi-national agreement that sealed the terms of the deal, and from which Trump withdrew in May 2018.  If he does so, there is no consensus on what he might require, or what Iran might demand, as the price of his re-engagement.   

            Trump’s policy of disengaging US armed forces from the conflicts of the Middle East is a broad strategy likely to commend itself to his successor.  The long-standing US military presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and its involvement in Libya and Yemen, has often exacerbated conflict as much as contain it.  The announced Trump troop withdrawals will doubtless be popular domestically, but whether they will have a positive or a negative effect in the countries concerned is less certain. Biden may find himself having to reassess Trump’s decisions in some cases.

In one particular instance, Biden may diverge completely from Trump’s withdrawal strategy. Back in August 2014, with Obama as US president and Joe Biden his vice-president, the US formed a coalition of fourteen countries to oppose Islamic State (IS) military victories across Syria and Iraq.  Ever since, up in north-eastern Syria US troops had been supporting the valiant Kurdish Peshmerga forces who had led the attack against IS on behalf of the coalition.  The Kurds were embedded in the Syrian Democratic Forces (the SDF). which also contained militias from around the world.

On 6 October 2019 the Trump administration ordered US forces to withdraw from the region.  On October 9 the Turkish army, together with the Syrian National Army (the SNA), launched an attack on the SDF.  Erdogan had designated it a terrorist organization because of its ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Turkish party agitating for Kurdish independence.  He maintained that the operation was intended to expel them from the region. Amnesty International said it had evidence of war crimes and human rights violations committed by Turkish and Turkey-backed Syrian forces.

Trump's sudden pullout of US forces in Syria was criticized by many, including former US military personnel, as a "serious betrayal of the Kurds".   Biden may well reconsider that particular issue. At the time both Democrats and Republicans in Congress opposed it.  And Biden is on record as saying “Turkey is the real problem,” and that he would tell “Erdogan that he will pay a heavy price.”

Unlike his soon-to-be predecessor in office, Biden is no admirer of strong ruthless leaders. Erdogan’s recent posturings on the world stage are not calculated to impress him.  The most provocative, perhaps, was Erdogan’s decision in 2017 to purchase the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system, which is designed specifically to counter fighter aircraft like the US’s state-of-the-art multi-purpose F-35.  In fact, and bizarrely, Erdogan was already attempting to acquire the F-35 itself.  In short Turkey, a member of NATO, was proposing to let Russia in by the back door. 

As a result the US ejected Turkey from the F-35 programme. Erdogan’s duplicity had proved a step too far even for Trump, and Biden is not likely to oppose his latest action on this issue.  On December 14, 2020. Washington imposed sanctions against Turkey’s military acquisitions agency for having acquired the Russian S-400 system.  The sanctions were also intended to hold Turkey to account for potentially allowing Russia to infiltrate Western defense technology.

Turkey’s refusal to back away from its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system left “us with no choice, ultimately,” said Christopher Ford, the assistant secretary of state for international security.

Biden is equally unlikely to favour Erdogan’s recent military interventions in Libya or in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, both pretty obviously regarded by him as opportunities to extend Turkish influence in the Middle East.  In both cases, in terms chillingly reminiscent of Adolf Hitler justifying his military incursions in the 1930s, Erdogan said his rationale was to protect people of Turco-Ottoman descent.  Then in mid-August 2020 he sent an oil and gas exploration vessel, escorted by warships, into what has always been regarded as Greek territorial waters, accusing Greece of trying to grab an unfair share of untapped resources. None of this is calculated to endear him to Biden or his new administration.

            Biden is a reasonable man.  Unlike Trump himself, he will not reject his predecessor’s legacy lock, stock and barrel.  As far as the Middle East is concerned, Biden will probably find himself endorsing a fair proportion of what he finds on his desk on 20 January 2021.

Published in the Eurasia Review, 25 December 2020:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/25122020-how-far-will-biden-diverge-from-trump-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 25 December 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/25/how-far-will-biden-diverge-from-trump/

The Morocco-Israel deal: what Trump conceded

 

At the heart of the Morocco-Israel normalization deal announced by US President Donald Trump on December 10, 2020 is the issue of Western Sahara.

Morocco occupies an extensive coastal strip and its hinterland in north-west Africa, starting with a stretch of Mediterranean coastline and extending down into the Atlantic for more than a thousand miles.  Western Sahara, appended to the south of Morocco, extends the coastline for a further 700 miles.

A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara has a troubled recent history.  Morocco laid claim to the area in the 1950s, but in 1966 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution asking Spain to hold a referendum of the Sahrawi population on the question of self-determination. Instead, in 1975 Spain relinquished control of the region to a joint Moroccan-Mauritanian administration.  By then, though, a flourishing Sahrawi nationalist movement called the Polisario Front had sprung into existence.  Rejecting the arrangement, and declaring the region to be the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), it launched armed resistance to the new regime.  After four years of conflict, Mauritania withdrew its claims on the territory, leaving Morocco in de facto control.

A further twelve years of conflict between Morocco and the Polisario followed, and it was only in 1991 that the insurgency ended with a UN-brokered truce and a promise by Morocco of a referendum on independence.  This has not yet taken place.  Meanwhile the African Union regards Western Sahara as an independent state, while the UN considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, and maintains that the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination.  Western Sahara remains on the UN’s decolonization list of “non-self-governing territories”. Despite having occupied its southern neighbour for nearly fifty years, Morocco’s claims are largely unrecognized internationally.

It was into this bubbling cauldron that Donald Trump plunged on December 10.  As part of a deal under which Morocco undertook to normalize relations with Israel, the White House said the US would recognize Morocco's claim over Western Sahara.

In a phone call, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI agreed that Morocco would "resume diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel and expand economic and cultural co-operation to advance regional stability".  As a quid pro quo, Trump "reaffirmed his support for Morocco's serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory, and as such the president recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory."

          Under the Moroccan autonomy proposal, first mooted in 2006, the Sahrawis would run their government under Moroccan sovereignty. Morocco would control defense and foreign affairs. The plan was promoted by Morocco as a means of reducing the influence of extremist Islamist groups in the Sahel region.

At the moment the Polisario Front controls about a fifth of Western Sahara and runs the self-proclaimed SADR, which is supporte d by neighboring Algeria.  The White House statement said an “independent Sahrawi state is not a realistic option for resolving the conflict” and that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution.”

While Morocco never formally recognized Israel, a close working relationship between the two was secretly maintained ever since Israel’s foundation in 1948, and particularly so during the reign of the late King Hassan II, autocrat though he was.  All US presidents have supported the many covert cooperative contacts between Morocco and Israel, but baulked at the international repercussions they feared might follow a formal recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.  It took Donald Trump to convert the problem into an opportunity.  The question is, at what cost?

   US recognition certainly diminishes the hopes of the Sahrawi people, who have been seeking their independence for decades.  The UN is still mandated to oversee a referendum, but that too now seems a remote possibility.  The protracted stalemate between Morocco and the Polisario Front ultimately boils down to international recognition ‒ a new independent state cannot be established without it ‒ and the chance of that outcome seems much reduced.

            Another question hovers over this deal.  Is a future Biden administration likely to endorse or renege on it?   As president, Joe Biden is unlikely to view the development with much relish, but the balance of US interests probably lies with allowing the deal ‒ and with it US recognition of Morocco’s disputed claim to Western Sahara ‒ to stand.  As far as Sahrawi national liberation aspirations are concerned, Israeli‒Moroccan normalization has been bought at a high cost.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 December 2020, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line as: "What did Trump concede in the Morocco-Israel deal?" 15 December 2020:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/what-did-trump-concede-in-the-morocco-israel-deal-opinion-652121

Published in the Eurasia Review, 18 December 2020:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/18122020-the-morocco-israel-deal-what-trump-conceded-oped/ 

Published in the Jewish Business News, 18 December 2020:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/18/the-morocco-israel-deal-%e2%80%92-what-trump-conceded/

 

Trump's Middle East swan song

 

            Having apparently lost the glittering prize of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords before he leaves office, Trump has hastened to finalize an Israeli-Moroccan normalization deal, and is grasping at another possible opportunity. Back in 2017, following years of dissension, Saudi Arabia and neighbouring states severed all relations with Qatar. Could Trump bring an end to what has become known as the Gulf Crisis?  Why else would Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser, Jared Kushner, have visited the Gulf region on November 30?

            Kushner met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, and then travelled to Qatar on December 2 for a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.  Following these discussions, media reports suggested that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were close to striking an agreement to end the dispute.

Qatar is a stand-alone Middle Eastern state in more ways than one − geographically, politically, economically, influentially.  Itself a small peninsula projecting into the Persian Gulf from the vast Arabian Peninsula, Qatar clearly aspires to become a major player in the region and beyond.  In pursuit of this objective, its tactics have sometimes puzzled, sometimes infuriated, its neighbours. But then, as one of the world’s wealthiest nations – and certainly number one on a per capita basis – Qatar has reckoned that it could afford the luxury of proceeding along its own preferred path, without too much concern for what others thought.

For example, Qatar’s strategy of backing Islamists − from Hamas in Gaza, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to hard-line Syrian opposition fighters − while also offering itself as a key US ally, was rooted in pragmatism.  Qatar wanted to extend its influence in the region by being friends with everybody. “We don’t do enemies,” Qatar’s one-time foreign minister is reported to have said, “we talk to everyone.”  And talk they certainly do, through the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera world-wide media network.

But Qatar’s wayward policies, especially with regard to Islamist groups, had long infuriated its neighbouring Arab states. Back in January 2014, when Qatar’s 33-year-old Emir, Sheikh al-Thani, had been in power for less than a year, Gulf states suddenly pressured Qatar to sign an agreement undertaking not to support extremist groups, not to interfere in the affairs of other Gulf states, and to cooperate on regional issues.

When the Qatari government flatly refused to comply, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain broke off diplomatic relations.  The inexperienced Al-Thani was unable to withstand the pressure.  In April 2014, at a meeting in Saudi Arabia, his arm was twisted, and the Qataris signed an undertaking known as the Riyadh agreement.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain clearly took away a very different view of what had been agreed than the Qataris. They expected Qatar to curtail its support for extreme Islamism, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. They believed that Qatar had agreed to remove, or at least reduce, the appearance of Islamists on Al Jazeera and other Qatari media, and especially to eliminate the constant Muslim Brotherhood-based criticism of Egypt’s government and its president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

They soon discovered that Qatar had no intention of meeting their expectations. It simply continued its support of Islamist extremists intent on undermining the stability of the region. Finally, their patience exhausted, the Gulf states and Egypt took drastic action.  On June 5, 2017, without any sort of warning, they broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar, suspended all land, air and sea traffic, and virtually imposed a trade blockade.

This bombshell initiative had been preceded by Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia on 20 May for a meeting with some 50 leaders of the Arab world.  On the subject of Islamist extremism Trump had been characteristically blunt. “A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists...Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy lands. And drive them out of this Earth.”

Qatar has been under siege for more than three years.  Although most major trade routes into and out of the country have been closed off, Qatar has been sustained by continuous shiploads of food and other goods sent in by Iran and Turkey.  As for exports, Qatar is the largest global exporter of liquefied natural gas, and this has been maintained.  As a result, the country seems to have weathered the blockade and to be reasonably well placed to sustain itself indefinitely. 

According to most media comment the Trump initiative has yielded positive results.  On December 4 Qatar's foreign affairs minister, Mohammed Al-Thani, said "We are optimistic about a resolution to the Gulf crisis, but we cannot say that all problems will be solved in one day."

The New York Times sees a connection between ending the dispute and Trump’s aim of weakening the regime in Iran, which has been sustaining Qatar’s economy.  The paper reported that high among the proposed first steps, Trump is pressing Saudi Arabia to open its airspace for Qatari flights. Over the past three years Qatar has been paying millions of dollars to use Iran's airspace.

The Abraham Accords will surely be added to the credit side of Trump’s account when his years in office are eventually submitted to the judgement of history.  If his last-minute effort to resolve the Gulf Crisis yields a positive result, his reputation as a surprising and unexpected peace-maker will be further enhanced.

Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 13 December 2020, as

"Could Trump bring an end to what has become known as the Gulf Crisis?":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/could-trump-bring-an-end-to-what-has-become-known-as-the-gulf-crisis-651919

Published in the Eurasia Review, 11 December 2020:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/11122020-trumps-middle-east-swan-song-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 11 December 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/11/trumps-middle-east-swan-song/

Are Biden and Erdogan on a collision course?

          Unlike his soon-to-be predecessor in office, US president-elect Joe Biden is no admirer of strong ruthless leaders. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may well find that his increasingly aggressive foreign policies ‒ headstrong behaviour that President Donald Trump condoned ‒ may be met with resistance from a Biden administration. Moreover Erdogan has a long-standing grievance against the US. He got nowhere with it during either the Obama or the Trump presidencies. He is not likely to get much further with Joe Biden at the helm.

           The issue that rankles with Erdogan centres around a man that has been a thorn in his flesh for much of his time as leader – Muhammed Fethullah Gulen.  Gulen was once one of the main spiritual leaders of Erdogan’s political party, the AKP, preaching a blend of moderate, business-friendly Islam that helped the party rise to power.  Erdogan now regards Gulen as his mortal enemy, and ever since 2014 has demanded time and again that the US extradite him to Turkey to stand trial.  Washington has consistently refused to comply. 

Erdogan’s most recent effort stems from a Turkish court ruling on November 26.  It decreed that Gulen is to be charged with master-minding a coup attempt back in 2016.  However Gulen, who has been living in the US since 1999, has been granted a Green Card which allows him to live and work there indefinitely.  As President Biden is most unlikely to hand the 79-year-old cleric over to the tender mercies of the Turkish president, the trial ‒ if it goes ahead ‒ will have to be held in the absence of the defendant.

          The issue from Erdogan’s point of view was the vast influence that Gulen acquired in the early 2000s both within Turkey and abroad. As leader of the Gulen, or Hizmet, movement he built up an impressive business, social and media empire, while his schools were grooming the next generation of pious yet entrepreneurially minded followers in Turkey. Erdogan saw him increasingly as a rival for power and a potential threat to his own ambitions. He began denouncing the Gulen movement as “a state within a state”.

          Gulen had followers at high levels in the Turkish establishment, including the judiciary, the secret service and the police force.  Early in December 2013 Erdogan was furious to discover that, for more than a year and unknown to him, the police had been engaged in an undercover inquiry into corruption within the government and the upper echelons of his AKP party. By the end of the year Erdogan’s own son had been named in the widening corruption investigation.  Erdogan denounced the police investigation as a plot by the Gulen movement to discredit his government.

In December 2014 some 20 journalists working for media outlets thought to be sympathetic to the Gulen movement were arrested, and a Turkish court issued an arrest warrant for Gulen himself.  He was accused of establishing and running an "armed terrorist group”.

Then came the confusing sequence of events of 15 July 2016, amounting to what was apparently a coup against the government by political opponents who had been able to mobilize elements within the army and the air force..  Whatever the truth behind it, Erdogan’s reaction was to accuse Gulen of having orchestrated the whole coup attempt with the backing of the US administration.  At the time, be it noted, Joe Biden was vice-president.  

Erdogan instituted retribution of unprecedented severity on people in all walks of life suspected of opposing the regime.  More than 110,000 people were arrested, including nearly 11,000 police officers, 7,500 members of the military, and 2,500 prosecutors and judges. 179 media outlets were shut down, and some 2,700 journalists dismissed. 

Erdogan has returned again and again to the coup to justify ever more stringent clamp-downs on political opponents and the media, accompanied by continuing condemnation of Gulen, and repeated demands that the US extradite him to stand trial in Turkey.  Those demands may have lost something of their validity since 2017, when Erdogan removed Gulen’s Turkish nationality. 

          The latest such coup-related operation occurred in the last week of November, when a Turkish court found 475 military and civilian personnel at an air base guilty of involvement in the coup attempt and jailed them for life. This trial was one of two being conducted against members of a suspected network, which the government claims is led by Gulen whom it accuses of orchestrating the failed coup. Gulen has denied any involvement. 

Erdogan’s accusations against Gulen are just as unlikely to impress Biden as his recent posturings on the world stage.  The most provocative, perhaps, was Erdogan’s decision to purchase the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system, which is designed specifically to counter fighter aircraft like the US’s most state-of-the-art multi-purpose F-35. He then attempted to acquire the F-35 itself.  In short Turkey, a member of NATO, was proposing to let Russia in by the back door. As a result the US ejected Turkey from the F-35 programme, but when Congress voted recently for sanctions against Turkey, Trump blocked them.  President Biden is quite likely to be in support.

Another bone of contention is Turkey’s intervention in Syria against America’s allies, the Syrian Kurds, whose valiant Peshmerga troops led the fight against Islamic State. When Trump turned a blind eye to Erdogan’s partial takeover of northern Syria, and then reduced the US troop presence there, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress opposed him. Biden is on record as saying “Turkey is the real problem,” and that he would tell “Erdogan that he will pay a heavy price.”

Biden is equally unlikely to favour Erdogan’s recent military interventions in Libya or in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, both pretty obviously regarded by him as opportunities to extend Turkish influence in the Middle East.  In both cases he said his rationale was to protect people of Turco-Ottoman descent.  Then in mid-August 2020 he sent an oil and gas exploration vessel, escorted by warships, into what has always been regarded as Greek territorial waters, accusing Greece of trying to grab an unfair share of untapped resources. None of this is calculated to endear him to Biden or his new administration.

With all this simmering in the background, US-Turkish relations are scarcely set fair. 

Published in Eurasia Review, 4 December 2020:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/04122020-are-biden-and-erdogan-on-a-collision-course-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 4 December 2020:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2020/12/04/are-biden-and-erdogan-on-a-collision-course/