South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Voice of America on the new violence facing US allies Israel and Turkey:
As the Middle East continues a downward spiral, two important U.S. allies that had seemed relatively stable – Israel and Turkey — are both confronting significant new violence.
In Israel, a spasm of Arab attacks — and Israeli retaliation — is prompting fears of a third intifada. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to avoid overreacting to what look like “lone wolf” acts, primarily by knife-wielding Arab residents of Jerusalem. But without a strategy for dealing with underlying grievances – including 48 years of Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank – and discrimination against Israeli citizens of Arab origin, Netanyahu is unlikely to find more than a temporary fix for a chronic and worsening conditions. In Turkey, flawed leadership is also a major factor in growing instability. The government of President Recep Tayyib Erdogan has blamed the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) for twin suicide bombings that killed nearly 100 people in the capital, Ankara on Saturday – the worst act of terrorism in modern Turkish history.