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Turkey's Road to Middle East Hegemony Runs Through Gaza
(Ha'aretz) Zvi Bar'el - In the past decade, Turkey has become a regional power, competing with Israel not only in the Syrian and Palestinian arenas, but across the Middle East and beyond. Ankara has established dozens of army bases in Libya and Qatar, Somalia and Iraq. It has conquered territory in northern Syria and has erected training bases for the new Syrian army. Turkey has a military presence in Azerbaijan and Djibouti, and dozens of its soldiers serving in UNIFIL in Lebanon. Turkey is already deeply involved in Gaza. Turkish aid organizations such as the IHH, which initiated the deadly Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010, now deal, among other things, with clearing rubble from the streets of Gaza.