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face-saving way for the two countries to patch their differences. The commission’s report, leaked to the New York Times, found that the Israelis had indeed used excessive force but that the Gaza embargo was legal. On the Israeli side, hard-line foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman at every turn tried to prevent a negotiated outcome from being finalized. Turks did not make it easier either by taking inflexible positions that made it hard for the Israelis to apologize. As I understand it, in December 2010, the two sides had come close to an agreement: Israel would apologize and provide compensation. However, Jerusalem wanted the agreement to also state that it had acted in self-defense. Turks would not agree to the latter condition, and the deal collapsed. There are many on both sides of this divide who worked desperately to prevent this turn of events, and they must feel terribly unhappy and bruised. Significantly, it appears that Turkey’s tactics shifted considerably in the intervening year since the original crisis. Ankara thinks that it is in the driver’s seat not just with respect to Israel, but also the rest of the Middle East. This is a gambit for leadership in the region. The Turks have gone beyond the demand for an apology by conditioning a return to the status quo ante on the lifting of the Gaza embargo, something to which they know Israel cannot and will not acquiesce. That conditionality is something that no other regional government has ever contemplated, much less articulated. By doing so Erdogan has once again captured the imagination of the region. This is a win-win for him not just abroad but also at home. The crisis with Israel will help him change the narrative as he begins to push for a much-needed and major overhaul of the Turkish constitutional system—it must be updated to start accommodating Kurdish demands, something that will be terribly difficult as the reforms go against almost ninety years of republican history. The Israel crisis, as HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025004