Istanbul, Turkiye – Simply hours after Israel launched strikes final week in opposition to Qatar – a United States-designated “main non-NATO ally” and certainly one of Washington’s closest Gulf companions – pro-Israel commentators shortly shifted their consideration to Turkiye.
In Washington, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow on the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, urged that Turkiye may very well be Israel’s subsequent goal and warned that it shouldn’t depend on its NATO membership for cover.
Advisable Tales
record of three objectsfinish of record
On social media, Israeli educational and political determine Meir Masri posted, “At the moment Qatar, tomorrow Turkey.” Ankara responded sharply. In unusually harsh language, a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote: “To the canine of Zionist Israel … quickly the world will discover peace together with your erasure from the map.”
For months, pro-Israel media retailers have steadily escalated their rhetoric in opposition to Turkiye, portraying it as “Israel’s most harmful enemy”.
Israeli commentators have additionally framed Turkiye’s presence within the jap Mediterranean as a “risk” and its position in rebuilding post-war Syria as a “new rising hazard”.
With Israel’s regional aggression escalating and its conflict on Gaza displaying no signal of ending, Turkish Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan retaliated in August by suspending financial and commerce ties with Israel.
“In Ankara, this [anti-Turkish] rhetoric is taken critically, with Israel seen as looking for regional hegemony,” Omer Ozkizilcik, non-resident fellow on the Atlantic Council, informed Al Jazeera.
“Turkiye more and more feels that Israeli aggression has no limits and enjoys American help,” added Ozkizilcik.
The strikes on Qatar additionally probably underscored Ankara’s doubts about US safety ensures as a NATO ally. Regardless of Doha’s particular ally standing with Washington, Israel confronted no seen pushback from the US, resulting in questions over whether or not the US would really see any assault on Turkiye as an assault on itself, because the NATO constitution dictates.
In contrast to many Arab states, nevertheless, “Turkiye has way back understood that it can’t depend on the US or NATO for its personal nationwide safety pursuits,” stated Ozkizilcik.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself now more and more boasts of his nation’s regional expansionist goals. In August, when requested whether or not he believed within the thought of a “Larger Israel”, he replied: “Completely.”
For Ankara, such rhetoric is not only symbolic – it indicators an Israeli imaginative and prescient of dominance that stretches throughout the Center East, probably clashing head-on with Turkiye’s personal regional outlook.
On Sunday, Fidan informed Al Jazeera that Israel’s “Larger Israel” imaginative and prescient – which some non secular Zionists consider extends into modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan – goals to “hold the international locations within the area weak, ineffective, and particularly to go away Israel’s neighbouring states divided”.
Over the previous few weeks alone, Israel – along with persevering with its genocidal onslaught in Gaza and nearly-daily raids within the occupied West Financial institution – additionally attacked Yemen and Syria, and is accused of hitting the Gaza aid flotilla in Tunisia.
Towards this backdrop, Turkiye and Israel are already in a “geopolitical rivalry”, famous Ozkizilcik, including that Israel’s actions clashed with what the analyst views because the “Turkish agenda to have robust [centralised] states” somewhat than decentralised states the place a number of forces can maintain energy.
Regional hegemon
The sense that Israel is attempting to turn into the area’s sole dominant energy appeared to be confirmed in July when Tom Barrack, US ambassador to Turkiye and particular envoy to Syria, made a startling admission: that Israel would like a fragmented and divided Syria.
“Sturdy nation-states are a risk – particularly Arab states, [which] are considered as a risk to Israel,” he stated.
The subtext for Ankara was clear: Israel believes it must be the hegemon within the area to really feel safe.
Israel’s actions bear this out. It has bombed Syria dozens of occasions since December 8 – when former President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow – and grabbed Syrian territory within the quick chaos.
It decapitated a lot of Hezbollah’s leadership in 2024 and nonetheless occupies elements of Lebanon regardless of a ceasefire, lengthy looking for to weaken or destroy the group.
In June, Israel attacked Iran, sparking a 12-day conflict that struck Iranian navy and nuclear amenities, killing senior commanders and nuclear scientists, and dragged within the US.
The assaults aimed not solely to weaken Tehran’s defence and nuclear capabilities but additionally to push Washington in the direction of regime change, concentrating on certainly one of Israel’s strongest rivals within the area.
Israel could now view Turkiye as the subsequent potential problem to its regional hegemony, explaining its adamant stance that Ankara won’t be allowed to ascertain new bases in Syria that “may threaten Israel” – as Netanyahu has beforehand stated.
“The primary manifestation of Turkish-Israeli friction will most definitely seem within the Syrian entrance within the land and air,” warns Cem Gurdeniz, a retired Turkish admiral and architect of the Blue Homeland doctrine, a maritime technique that requires Turkiye to claim its sovereignty and safeguard its pursuits throughout the encompassing seas – the Aegean, Japanese Mediterranean and Black Sea.
“In parallel, Israel’s deepening navy and intelligence footprint in Cyprus, tightly woven with Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration underneath American auspices, is perceived in Ankara as a deliberate try to fracture and comprise the Blue Homeland,” Gurdeniz informed Al Jazeera.
“To Ankara, this isn’t a defensive posture by Israel however an offensive encirclement technique that would threaten each Turkish maritime freedom and the safety of the Turkish Cypriot folks,” he added, referring to Turkiye’s ties to the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is simply Turkiye recognises, somewhat than the remainder of Cyprus, which is dominated by Greek Cypriots.
The division of Cyprus is a significant supply of discontent between Turkiye, Greece and Cyprus.
Experiences that Cyprus acquired Israeli air-defence methods final week are prone to increase alarm in Ankara.
In tandem in Syria, Israel has made no secret that what it considers to be a steady Syria “can solely be a federal” one with “completely different autonomies”, Israeli Overseas Minister Gideon Sa’ar informed European leaders at a gathering in Brussels in February.
Turkiye, then again, backs the brand new Syrian administration, which insists on a centralised and unitary state.
For now, tensions between Israel and Turkiye could be described as “managed”, says Gokhan Cinkara, director of Necmettin Erbakan College’s International and Regional Research Centre in Turkiye.
“At current, the riskiest situation for Turkiye can be an uncontrolled outbreak of intergroup battle in Syria. Because of this, Ankara is probably going advising the brand new Syrian administration to behave with a level of rational pragmatism,” Cinkara informed Al Jazeera.
“The immaturity of Syria’s safety equipment makes any potential intergroup clashes tougher to comprise, and dangers turning it into protracted ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Within the brief time period, subsequently, adopting a unitary mannequin appears tough,” he added.
Crimson traces and dangers
Netanyahu, for his half, is pushing for a “Balkanised” Syria, divided alongside ethnic and spiritual traces, demanding the demilitarisation of much of southern Syria, principally populated by the nation’s Druze inhabitants.
That may be a transfer that, if carried out, may gentle the touchpaper and ignite calls for from members of different teams within the nation, together with the Kurds and Alawite, for their very own tailor-made variations of de facto autonomy.
“Turkiye, nevertheless, has clear crimson traces in Syria,” says Murat Yesiltas, director of international coverage analysis at SETA, a suppose tank in Ankara with shut ties to the federal government.
“The US and Israel’s try to reshape the regional order carries numerous risks and dangers, deepening fragmentation within the Center East,” Yesiltas informed Al Jazeera.
In March, Israel’s most influential safety suppose tank, the Institute for Nationwide Safety Research (INSS), printed a bit that warned in opposition to the nascent peace course of between Turkiye and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is looking for to shut a chapter on a four-decade armed marketing campaign in opposition to the Turkish state in a battle that has killed greater than 40,000 folks.
The INSS warned that this might “weaken the power of the Kurds in Syria to proceed to function autonomously” and contribute to Ankara “increasing its affect in southern Syria, in a means that would enhance the risk to Israeli freedom of motion”.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz made clear that swaths of newly occupied territory in southern Syria shall be held for an “limitless period of time”.
As Turkiye scoped out potential navy bases in Syria’s Homs province and the principle airport in Hama province in coordination with the newly established Damascus authorities, Israel bombed the websites.
“If Tel Aviv persists on this path, a battle between Ankara and Tel Aviv will turn into inevitable. Turkiye can’t settle for insurance policies that perpetuate instability on its southern border,” stated Yesiltas.
However full-blown rivalry is “not inevitable” as either side recognise the prices of confrontation, notably given financial interdependence, Andreas Krieg, affiliate professor of safety research at King’s School London, informed Al Jazeera.
“Israel’s risk to Turkiye will not be typical navy aggression however somewhat the concentrating on of Turkish pursuits through oblique means,” stated Krieg, talking about Ankara’s pursuits in Syria, the Japanese Mediterranean and the South Caucasus.
Given Washington’s full and seemingly unconditional help for Netanyahu’s bid to “reshape the area”, Krieg says Ankara’s prescription is to “strengthen strategic deterrence, particularly by expanded air-defence, missile methods and intelligence capabilities” and to pursue regional coalitions with Qatar, Jordan and Iraq whereas sustaining open channels with Washington to “keep away from full strategic isolation”.
“Ankara should recognise that future flashpoints usually tend to emerge within the gray zone – covert operations, air strikes, and proxy competitors – than in formal declarations or diplomacy,” he added.
