If we cannot make a clear correlation between these events, we could at least ask about Israel's aims in the Balkans. The flotilla episode was just the latest, but also a sure sign that a breaking up of relations established decades earlier in the region wider than the Middle East is going on and that Israel is having a hard time acclimatizing to such developments.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's visit to Israel in the first days of 2010 was marked by a warning he was given by Foreign Minister Lieberman in Jerusalem. Gruevski was cautioned that Macedonia must be "suitably prepared" in order to prevent what happened in Africa and South America from happening in the Balkans. Lieberman learned that "current data testify to the fact" that the Balkan region is "global jihad's next destination for creating an infrastructure and recruiting activists." He added that "jihad in the Balkans is funded by Iran and radical Saudi Arabian elements" and that "they recruited Bosnian Muslims and Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia to wage terror."

The 'encroaching threat'

Contrary to Minister Gruevski, who agreed that such a danger exists, Bosnian Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj, himself Jewish, phoned his Israeli colleague to ask him what sources he had based his assertions on and to stress that there were no global jihadist cells or camps in his country. Lieberman retreated a little while visiting Skopje at the beginning of May. "The most serious threats to the international community do not come from the Balkans," he said, "but they are related to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan." However, he did not retreat from using Islamic jihad's "encroaching threat" to persuade Macedonia and other countries in the region to improve their relations with Israel.

Israel's relations with most countries in the Balkans were determined by the so-called Middle East crisis for almost half a century. Of all states ruled by communists, only Romania did not break diplomatic relations with Israel after the wars in the Middle East. Although not communist, Greece was a good example in that regard. Contrary to its reservations about Israeli policy and its traditionally good relations with Arabs, and in particular its great sympathy for the Palestinian cause, Greece has over the past few years improved its relations and cooperation with Israel, even in the military sphere.

Bulgaria is an even better example of such improvement. Its prime minister, Boyko Borisov, visited Tel Aviv last January, only a week after his Macedonian colleague. There he met with President Shimon Peres, who recalled how Bulgaria had prevented the deportation of its Jews to Nazi concentration camps during World War II and praised cooperation between the two countries "in all fields, including fighting terrorism and climate change." After signing an agreement on military cooperation, Prime Minister Borisov discussed the possibility of Israeli aircraft using Bulgarian bases in training exercises.

Going back to Milosevic's regime

The improvement of relations between Israel and Serbia and the establishment of special ties with Bosnian Serbs have its roots in the Slobodan Milosevic regime's aggression against Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s and was explained best by Igor Primoratz, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "From the outset," he wrote, "Israel's stand on the Balkan conflict has been quite different from that of most of the world, including the Jewish Diaspora: it has been clearly and consistently pro-Serbian." He found the explanation of such an approach in Israel's history. "Israel was set up," he says, "at the price of turning the larger part of the native Palestinian population into expellees of refugees. Its continued existence as an ethnic, Jewish state is predicated on not readmitting the exiled Palestinians." During Israel's offensive against Gaza at the end of 2009, this was more clearly visible in internally divided Bosnia and Herzegovina than in Serbia. While Serbian President Boris Tadic was more restrained, and Bosnian Foreign Minister Alkalaj urged Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik went so far as to send a letter of support to President Peres. He offered full support to Israeli efforts to "ensure security and peace" for the Israeli people.

Croatia, Montenegro and even Kosovo are also included in Israel's diplomatic efforts to enhance its relations with the region. High-ranking officials from Israel and most Balkan states exchanged visits in 2009 and 2010. These visits were more frequent than in previous decades. Apart from the abolition of visa restrictions, military cooperation and the "fight against terrorism" were the most frequent subjects of talks and agreements.

The May 31 flotilla raid was, apart from other repercussions, a second "Gaza indicator" of Israel setting its sights on the Balkans. The immediate regional reaction was more that of surprise than condemning the Israeli attack on the aid ships. Some countries treaded cautiously due to their national interests, while others did not want to harm their already improved relations with Israel.

Relying on earlier sympathies and similarities that led some observers to call it the "Israel of the Balkans," Kosovo still hopes it will be recognized by Israel. Greek officials did condemn Israel's use of "deadly force on an aid flotilla" and scrapped the Greek-Israeli air force exercise "Minas 2010" short after the raid, but relations between the two countries were not interrupted. President George Papandreou visited Israel already in July, where he said that "the strengthening of bilateral relations is our steadfast policy."

Due to their particular interests, Bulgarian officials did not even hide their sympathies for the Israeli military's action. First, Israeli Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog went to Sofia at the beginning of June to inform his hosts that "Israel is ready to divert up to 400,000 tourists to Bulgaria from Turkey." Then Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov in July went to Tel Aviv, where he spoke about the "strong, emotional connection and responsibility on our part to ensure Israel's safety and its future." He also said that Turkey had reacted to the Israeli raid of the flotilla "a little bit too strongly."

By mentioning Turkey, I am finally reaching the most sensitive point of Israel's sudden and keen interest in the Balkans.

Searching for a strategic ally

First, losing Turkey as the main regional strategic ally, Israel was forced to search for whatever alternative -- if not a country, then at least a region. There was no other direction to go in than towards Southeast Europe. Israel found itself isolated in the region, having only a weak partner in Egypt and facing small, but dangerous, enemies in Hamas and Hezbullah. By trampling and devastating Gaza, Israel also became more isolated in the world and more criticized by its main ally, the United States. The deterioration of its relations with Turkey was perhaps the major political consequence of Israel's military adventure in Gaza.

Military and intelligence factors are making Israel more anxious and nervous: In addition to other fields in which their militaries cooperate, only Israel and Turkey were allowed to jointly make "phantoms" outside the US. Already concerned by rapprochement between Turkey and Iran, Israel reacted nervously on the appointment of the new head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT), saying that he, as an alleged "supporter of the Islamic republic," could pass secret security information on to its main regional enemy. For that reason Israel is urging some Balkan countries, including Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, to improve their military cooperation with Israel and open their airspace to Israeli aircraft. In that sense Israel perhaps hopes that Kosovo will become a military substitute for Turkey because there is already a heavy US military presence there.

Trying to neutralize its main aims in the Balkans, Israel is putting them not only in an economic, but also a historical, religious and "terrorist" context as well. Some Israelis justified their army's raid on the aid flotilla by considering Gaza as part of a so-called neo-Ottomanism because the whole Middle East was part of the Ottoman Empire for around four centuries. In the same context, the Balkans are now also being seen as such by Israel, because they were under Ottoman rule for more or less the same period of time. This is also how many conservatives in Europe and neocons in the US look at the new and proactive Turkish foreign policy in both regions, the Middle East and the Balkans.

Being aware that they will have the support of many Christians in the region, Israeli politicians are also stressing the religious factor. When they speak about the threat of terrorism, they mean "Islamic terrorism." During the Gaza events, a Bosnian Serb website, "Serbian Cetnik," offered "full support to the Israeli people from Republika Srpska" and stressed, "We have the same enemies!" In Serbia, Serbiana.com made known that "during the raid on the Muslim terror ship, Israeli commandos arrested a Bosnian Muslim national of Syrian origin." There was a reflection of such an approach even in Russia. During the attack on Gaza, Moscow's Pravda, under the headline "Israel, you are Serbia now!" called on Israel "to grow up and face reality." "You already have the double advantage, having one in three of your citizens of Russian background," so that "there is only one block of nations with whom you have any chance: the Orthodox nations."

Getting back to Lieberman's warning to the Macedonians about the threat of a global jihad recruiting "Bosnian Muslims and Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia," it reminded me of the so-called "Green Transversal," almost the same geographic line invented in Belgrade before the wars of the 1990s. It was the direction from which all dangers emanate and come to the Balkans and further towards Europe -- namely, from Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Reading between the lines, I saw that his intention was to say that terrorism is somewhere other than in Israel and that it is perpetuated by someone other than the Israeli administration.