Follow the money

It is a headline writer’s dream: “Ambassador expelled”; “Trade with Israel suspended”; “Prime Minister to visit Gaza”; “Turkish navy to patrol eastern Mediterranean”. The reality is much less Hollywood. The Israeli ambassador to Turkey was not in the country anyway, conveniently and with “foresight” avoiding the embarrassment of television cameras capturing him skulking away. The trade suspension was rapidly qualified as government-to-government — a fraction of the $3 billion plus annual total. The Turkish navy is unlikely to provide the Israelis with another opportunity to demonstrate their military prowess with a 1967 Liberty-style attack. And Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Gaza trip was always politically unrealistic, however much he personally may have wanted to go. More significant than any of this is that private sector commercial relations between the two countries is growing, not declining. Never let rhetoric interfere with the sacred duty of making money. Even as Economy Minister