Strange Friendship

Across the great chasm of religion which divides the Middle East, a strange alignment was growing last week between Moslem Turkey and Israel. Trade, not affection, brings them together. Three years ago Turkey imported a paltry $70,000 worth of goods from Israel. Now they have developed a $28 million annual exchange of goods, and Turkey has become the No. 1 customer for Israel's manufactures. Turkey sends wheat, cotton, cattle and oil seed to Israel and last year got in return $5,000,000 worth of cars and jeeps (from Israel's Kaiser-Frazer plant), $400,000 worth of antibiotics and drugs, $400,000 worth of pots and pans. Peasants in remote Anatolia now boil their weekly wash in Israeli-made pots fired by Israeli-made stoves, turned out near Israel's Ataturk Forest and carried to Istanbul in vessels of the Turkish Maritime Bank.

Both economies are eager to industrialize, but lack necessary foreign exchange; both produce goods that have difficulty competing in world markets (Turkey's wheat is inferior, Israel's manufactures overpriced), so they swap. Last week, to exchange-short Turkey, Israel granted new credits of $4,500,000. It was a returned favor; last year it was Israel which was caught short and saved by Turkey.

Out of their dealings with one another, the two nations have discovered likenesses. The Turks are Moslems but not Arabs; their Islamic ties are complicated by bitter relationships with the Arabs, whom they ruled for four centuries. Both Israel and Turkey are virile, modern and westward-looking inhabitants of an old, static and inward-looking region. Turkey admires Israel's compact little army as the region's second-best force (after her own), while Israel sees Turkey as the only other Middle East power of military significance. For Israel, an island in a sea of hatred, the new .neighborliness is doubly welcome.

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