ANKARA Jamaal Williams Youth Jersey , July 21 (Xinhua) -- The ongoing Gaza conflict has slowed down, if not totally halted, the restoration of bilateral ties between Turkey and Israel despite that their diplomats have been working hard to root out almost all of their differences.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of committing genocide and state of terror in Gaza and vowed that normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations will not happen as long as he is in power.

However, with the strongly-worded rhetoric turning harsher, and popular outrage mounting in the country, the Israeli military are doing nothing but intensified its attacks on the Gaza Strip, saying that their offensive aims only to crack down on Hamas movement along with other militant groups threatening Israel.

According to Erdogan, Israel agreed to lift its Gaza blockade as part of its talks to normalize ties with Turkey before Gaza offensive started. However, the attack on Gaza will almost certainly delay the talks.

Ankara broke off relations with Tel Aviv after the Mavi Marmara, a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, was raided by Israeli army forces in May of 2010, killing nine Turks.

Israel apologized for the killing, and agreed to compensation for the victims. The final agreement was not officially signed by political leaders on either side, but both Turkish and Israeli media reported that the deal was about to come up.

Turkish analysts believe Erdogan's remarks are not helpful for improving the situation in the conflict-ridden Gaza area.

"By totally cutting diplomatic relations and engaging in fruitless rhetorical fights with Israel, Turkey has lost its leverage on Israel and has lost its tiny little opportunity to help the Palestinians," lamented Ihsan Yilmaz, professor of international relations at Fatih University.

"Moreover, this attitude of Turkey has pushed left-wing Israelis who could potentially cooperate with Turkey to the corner of the hawkish Israeli right-wing politicians," he added.

Beril Dedeoglu, professor at Istanbul-based Galatasaray University, also said that Ankara has no leverage to use with the Israeli government because of Turkey's relations with Israel.

Yet in his speech to the parliament last week, the Turkish prime minister rolled out even more piercing criticism against Israel, accusing the Jewish state of "terrorizing the region" with its bombardment in Gaza.

"With utter disregard for international law, Israel continues to terrorize the region, and no country but us is telling it to stop," Erdogan told lawmakers.

Amanda Paul, analyst at European Policy Center and columnist in the Turkish daily Today's Zaman, believes Erdogan ends up shooting himself in the foot by using such extreme language and risk Turkey becoming isolated further.

"His approach is not helpful to any party: the Palestinians, the international community or Turkey. It simply serves to further isolate Turkey in a region where Ankara is pretty much already standing outside the window looking in," she noted.

There were demonstrators both outside the Israeli ambassador's residence in Ankara and the Israeli Consulate in stanbul recently with the crowd hurling stones at the consulate building and draping the Palestinian flag in front of the official residence.

Israel has to scale down its diplomatic presence in Turkey, which is functioning with skeleton crew, by ordering families of diplomats in Turkey to return on Friday. The country's foreign ministry also criticized Turkey for being inaction in preventing the violence.

GAZA DEBATED IN TURKISH POLITICS

Israeli offensive in Gaza has now become a intensively-debated political issue in Turkey's domestic politics.

A joint declaration to denounce Israeli was accepted this week by all the four political parties represented in the Turkish Parliament. The parties expressed concerns over the rising death toll, describing Israel's killing of civilians as an "indefensible crime against humanity," and called on Israel to halt its attacks on Gaza.

Erdogan who is running for president in next month's election seized upon the opportunity to mobilize his supporters. He accused his challenger Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu for being neutral on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Ihsanoglu, former Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, dismissed Erdogan's criticisms, saying that one cannot afford to remain neutral in a fight between an oppressor and a victim.

"I become very upset when I see this issue being used as a means for politics in Turkey," Ihsanoglu said, stressing that his remarks on the topic were distorted.

In contrast to Erdogan, the opposition's presidential candidate Ihsanoglu also stated that Hamas, which rejected the ceasefire, should act in parallel with the Palestinian government. He said Hamas' working with the international community will help ease the pain of the Palestinian people and rebuild peace in the region.

Turkish opposition parties criticized Erdogan for disingenuously exploiting the Gaza conflict for domestic political gain.

The Nationalist Movement Party parliamentary group deputy chairman Oktay Vural said Erdogan is pretending to support Gaza by cursing Israel, adding that Erdogan and his government are performing nothing but a theatrical show.

The main opposition Republican People's Party Deputy Chairman Faik Oztrak also accused Erdogan of hypocrisy in his pro- Palestinian rhetoric, particularly with regard to Turkey's role in the sale of oil from the autonomous Kurdish region in north Iraq to Israel, bypassing the central government.

"Those who keep talking about Gaza from dawn till dusk and curse Israel feel no discomfort over helping deliver oil to Israel. Such hypocrisy has never been seen before," he told reporters.

However, how much Gaza offensive will impact presidential election begs further questions acco

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