Israel apologized, Turkey accepted, and the two countries have resolved a three-year dispute -- all because Turkey's leaders realized that they stood to benefit more from cooperating with Israel than from exploiting the dispute for domestic political gain.
The surprisingly strong performance of Yair Lapid in Israel's election, coupled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's losses, have led many to conclude that Israeli voters have shifted to the center. But Lapid's party is conservative where it counts—on security issues—and the voters who left Netanyahu largely went even further to the right.
Since Recep Tayyip Erdogan took power, the world has watched closely to see if Turkey would become more democratic or more autocratic. Yet it is doing both simultaneously, and the incongruity is threatening its international standing.
