But then again...
I'll just be straightforward and say that I really don't know what Israel's play is, here. I think we're all asking ourselves the same thing right now: how much of Erdogan's talk is what he needs to do to prove his bona fides to Turks, and how much of it is real vitriol? To an extent, it's valuable to have a private ally in a leader who knows how to bring his people along on something they might object to, if they knew where his feelings lay. But how are Israelis supposed to differentiate? How big a chance do they want to take on Erdogan?
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This is going to be one of those comments where I expect I'm missing some important fact or am being impossibly naive.
But....is it possible that ultimately there may be little choice but to trust the Turks? One of the most pressing dilemmas with respect to Gaza seems to be an issue of how does Israel safeguard its border without so massively restricting traffic into and out of Gaza as to further destabilize the local economy (and thereby strengthen Hamas)?
The only answer to this question would seem to be that there is a need for some other nation whose forces Hamas would not be willing to kill to closely monitor the cross-border traffic; it also has to be a nation whose presence Hamas would accept since any troops would likely have to be stationed on the Gaza side of the border. But this nation also has to be one that Israel can trust to take the job of border monitoring seriously (i.e., would not likely encourage its forces to permit potential suicide bombers to cross the border).
It would seem that there are precious few nations that would meet these criteria and that would be willing to take the risks necessary to do so. Is it possible that Turkey would be the only nation so qualified?
Under those circumstances I think you're pretty close. What's stumping me right now is that Erdogan is holding this press conference *after* Hamas has requested Turkey's help. if he's serious about being an honest broker, it's not exactly reassuring.
The other option on the table for Israel is to keep pounding away at Gaza for a few days more, in the hopes that Hamas gets so nervous that they agree either to an international force, or an Egyptian force, or something similar. Turkey has been a diplomatic ally of Israel, but it has also maintained good relations with Iran (no easy feat), so I'm sure there are some in the Cabinet who think it's a better bet to roll the dice on more strikes rather than accept a Turkish guarantee of security.
And of course, Turkey would actually have to accept the role, and there's a reasonable chance they wouldn't.
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