Changing Israeli attitudes, strikes in Syria, Turkey may view Israel as regional rival - analysis

Turkey’s ruling AKP party has been hostile to Israel for many years. It wraps this hostility in support for the Palestinians but, Ankara’s policy is about more than just the Palestinians. It has a worldview and it has been sympathetic to Hamas over the years.

From Ankara’s point of view the reason for supporting Hamas boils down to the fact that Hamas has support among the Palestinians. However, Ankara’s support runs deeper than this and likely has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood ideology that influences both Hamas and the AKP.

These days Turkey’s view of Israel may be changing. Where once it could look at Israel primarily through the Palestinian lens and condemn Israel at international forums, Ankara may now see Israel as a potential regional rival.

This shift is not lost on Jerusalem. Increasingly voices in Israel and supporters abroad are depicting Turkey as an emerging threat, one similar to Iran. This can’t be good news for US policymakers who see Ankara as a NATO ally and see Israel as a key ally. On the other hand, the US in the past had to balance Saudi Arabia and Israel as allies in the 1980s and 1990s and they didn’t always get along.

A new article at Al-Jazeera notes that "Ankara views Israeli attempts to undermine the Syrian transition as having direct repercussions for its national security.” This was written after a recent Israeli airstrike in Syria that was intended to warn Turkey from expanding its role in Syria.

Israel's focus in Syria is on Turkish military involvement

Israel has shifted its Campaign Between the Wars in Syria from targeting Iranian entrenchment before the fall of the Assad regime, to being wary of Turkish entrenchment. “Therefore, Turkey is no longer seeing Israel solely through the prism of the Palestinian question. Rather, it increasingly sees it as a national security challenge, with Israeli regional revisionism threatening its interests,” the article notes.

Let’s recall how this development took place. Turkey and Israel have both been led by right wing and religious parties over the last two decades. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have had similar careers, in a sense. Erdogan is slightly younger.

Both have harnessed the politics of their countries and sought to mold a right wing and religious coalition to run countries that previously had been run by more secular center-left nationalist parties. That’s a trajectory all over the world, India has also gone down this path. In the case of Turkey and Israel it appears to have led to a clash, as opposed to partnership the way India and Israel get along.

In the past it was Turkey that appeared to have the upper hand in the region. Turkey’s population is eight times the size of Israel and it is 36 times larger. However, Israel’s economic power is quickly catching up to Turkey. In addition, Israeli defense companies are outpacing Turkish defense companies.

Population and geography matter, but Israel is the more dynamic economy and in the wake of the Abraham Accords and other developments, Israel may be seen as a rival on various fronts with Turkey.

Breakdown of Israeli-Turkish relations

Let’s go back a few years and recall that Turkey and Israel were once friends from the 1950s to the 1990s. However, the rise of the AKP and Israel’s continuing conflicts led to a rapid downturn in relations after 2009.

The Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara, resulting in the deaths of ten Turkish citizens, harmed ties even more. There were attempts at reconciliation. Israel’s president Isaac Herzog even went to Turkey in 2022. The reconciliation didn’t hold. October 7 opened up even more anti-Israel rhetoric from Ankara.

The real story in the clash may be found in Ankara’s foreign policy progress and Israel’s own shift. Turkey once had “zero problems” with its neighbors. The Syrian civil war led to Turkey invading parts of northern Syria. By 2019 Ankara was having a new crisis every week.

Turkey hosted Hamas leaders and gave them a red carpet and it threatened Greece and Cyprus. Ankara’s belligerent attitude in the eastern mediterranean helped push Israel, Greece and Cyprus closer together. Turkey also intervened in Libya. It threatened Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It backed Qatar in the 2017 Gulf crisis. It backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and was outraged by the death of former Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi in custody.

However, Ankara began to shift tact in 2022. It moved to reconcile with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and also to reduce tensions in Libya. Although Turkey was still mobilizing for a larger role in places like Africa, it also had to balance ties to Ukraine and Russia. In Syria, Turkey believed the Assad regime might remain. It was handed a new chance in Syria when the Assad regime fell in December 2024.

Turkey was used to being able to play a major role on several continents. It was a member of NATO and had a foothold in Europe. It once even considered joining the EU. Years ago I interviewed Yasar Yakis, who had been the Chairman of the EU Committee of the Turkish parliament.

Turkey's role in the Islamic world 

Ankara shifted its view from a European concept to one that sought to play a larger role in the Turkish speaking and Islamic worlds. As such, one can see in Ankara’s drive for power a desire to play a role in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As a country that inherits some of the policies of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate that once sat in Istanbul, Turkey naturally has a global view.

Israel’s foreign policy has not always been so global. It had a periphery doctrine once-upon-time in the 1950s and 1960s when it was ringed by hostile Arab countries. Later it was able to achieve peace with Egypt and Jordan and, with the Trump administration’s help, it got peace with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.

Even though Israel has friends in Asia, such as India, Singapore and other countries, and has ties in Europe, Africa and Latin American, Israel has always had to juggle its policies to focus on only a few issues at a time. This is symbolized also by the challenge Israel has in maintaining robust staffed embassies abroad, even in the countries where it does have ties. Israel punches above its weight, but even when reach exceeds grasp it doesn’t exceed that much.

The post-October 7 doctrine has changed things a bit. Israel now believes it will have a long-term role running half of Gaza, and a swath of southern Lebanon and also a buffer zone in Syria.

Airstrikes on Doha in 2025 raised eyebrows in the region. There is talk in Jerusalem now of concern about an emerging “Sunni” alliance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Syria and Egypt, and perhaps other countries, that are concerned about Israel’s rising power.

Turkey is shifting to view Israel as a regional rival

Turkey therefore is shifting from thinking that it can see Israel primarily through a lens where Israel is focused primarily on the Palestinians, to a regional rivalry. Turkey’s decision to tone down some rhetoric is likely due to this concern.Turkish officials such as Hakan Fidan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, are likely advising Erdogan to not rush into a confrontation now.

Gone are the days when Ankara would warn that it “might come suddenly one night,” the rhetorical flourish Erdogan would use when threatening other countries.

Turkey apparently sees the bombing in Syria and is wondering if it is Israel that may come “suddenly” one night. There is no doubt that cool heads are now seeing to tone down tensions.

The result will likely be a region where Turkey and Israel now eye each other across the table more as equals and less as in the past where Ankara appeared to have a kind Ottoman-like grasp over the Mediterranean and Middle East.