Diplomacy is normally a delicate dance in which both partners at least pretend to respect each other. The recent exchange between Israel and Turkey, however, was anything but respectful.

On Monday, Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkish envoy Oguz Celikkol to express displeasure with a Turkish TV show that depicted the wanton killing of innocents by Israeli security forces. Unfortunately Ayalon chose to convey this message in a rather petty way. Celikkol was seated on a low couch making him look like a small child sitting before his Israeli master, the Turkish flag was conspicuously absent from the table, and Ayalon refused to shake Celikkol's hand on camera.

I can see why the Israelis were peeved, especially considering Turkey's probable response if Israeli TV depicted Turkish soldiers as blood-thirsty murders (anyone remember a little thing called Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code?). But why did the Israeli Foreign Ministry stoop this level to convey its anger?

The answer has little to do with TV shows or couches.

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It is clear that there is a serious disagreement in Israeli's foreign policy elite about how to deal with Turkey moving forward. For much of 2009, relations between the two countries were on the rocks. The year started with Erdogan's infamous outburst at Davos and things only got worse. Certain elements in the Israeli Foreign Ministry don't seem to be ready to patch things up and move on in 2010.

What looked like a rather sloppy "screw you" was actually a carefully calculated move to undercut rapprochement in advance of defense minister Ehud Barak's visit to Ankara next week. According to a report from the Christian Science Monitor, the man who likely organized the move was Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, a hardliner who opposes the left-leaning Barak's attempts at diplomacy.

After a couple days of ambiguity and two apologies from Ayalon (the first of which barely qualified as such) Turkey has dropped its threat to recall its ambassador and appears ready to move forward with talks next week. It remains to be seen, however, if the two sides can start 2010 on better note than they did 2009.

The reality is that Israel and Turkey still need each other. Without leverage in Israel, Turkey can't be the Middle East power-broker it hopes to be and instead becomes simply another ineffective Middle Eastern country that likes to complain about the Israeli while doing very little. On the other hand, Israel relies on Turkey to provide intelligence and secure much of its access to Caucasus and Central Asian oil, to say nothing of the volume of arms trade between the two countries. Also, let's not forget their shared fears: terrorism and regional nuclearization.

There is still something left to save here. The test will be if the pragmatists can take back the debate from the ideologues on both sides.

-Evan