[Salon] The Making of an Israel– Türkiye Cold War - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

The Making of an Israel– Türkiye Cold War Summary: in a fractious and volatile Middle East Türkiye and Israel are eying each other warily seeking to gain advantage as both jostle for the mantle of regional hegemon. We thank a regional contributor for today’s newsletter. As protests swept across Iran, the limits of Tehran’s regional project are becoming harder to ignore even as this latest popular revolt was crushed. Iran’s ambitions are not finished, but the balance of regional competition is shifting. Israel, long focused on containing Tehran, is increasingly turning its attention to a different challenger. The year ahead will be shaped by a deepening rivalry between Israel and Türkiye, one that will span diplomacy, security, and influence across multiple fronts. The Middle East has entered a new phase, one in which the opportunity to shape the region’s political and security architecture is once again up for grabs. While Israel and Türkiye have long quarreled, they were once close allies. But today they are increasingly becoming strategic rivals, with competing visions for Palestine, Syria, energy policy, and maritime access. Unlike Israel’s confrontation with Iran, tensions with Türkiye, a NATO member, pose a growing dilemma for the United States. The rivalry came into sharp relief after Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, which prompted an all-out Israeli war posture that has devastated Gaza and decimated the Palestinian population, drawing mounting accusations of war crimes. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has emerged as Israel’s most outspoken state critic, leveraging the Gaza war to reassert Türkiye’s claim to leadership in the Muslim world. Since the October 2025 ceasefire, Israel has moved to strip the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of diplomatic immunity and restrict its ability to deliver essential services in Gaza and the West Bank. The latest assault saw UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem demolished on Tuesday. Türkiye, by contrast, had opened a new UNRWA liaison office just a few days earlier. Erdoğan has called it “essential” for Muslim states to lead Gaza’s reconstruction. At the same time, Israel has pressed the United States to block Türkiye from joining the Board of Peace and the International Stabilisation Force in an effort to limit Ankara’s role in postwar Gaza. Yesterday, in a sign that Israel’s influence with Trump may be slipping Türkiye was among eight nations to agree to join Trump’s board. Israeli occupation forces destroyed the UN agency for Palestinian refugees' (UNRWA) main headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem Syria may prove an even more consequential front. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 and the rise of a new Syrian government with close ties to the Turkish military establishment has given Ankara a strategic foothold. Erdoğan has backed the consolidation of state authority under President al-Sharaa, while Israel has explicitly sought to prevent the emergence of a centralised Syrian state it views as hostile. Immediately after al-Assad’s fall, Israeli forces crossed into a UN-administered buffer zone in southern Syria. Since then, Israel has hit deeper into Syria, including strikes inside Damascus in July, in the name of protecting the Druze minority, elements of which had clashed with the new authorities. Tensions have since escalated further. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Kurdish political and military factions in northeastern Syria—backed by the United States in the fight against the Islamic State—of stalling integration talks with Damascus and coordinating with Israel. Recent clashes between Kurdish fighters and the central authorities in late December and early January in Aleppo have led to the displacement of tens of thousands and killed at least 24 civilians. Turkey has threatened military intervention of its own, warning that continued instability along its border is unacceptable. This raises the risk that competing interventions will entrench, rather than resolve, Syria’s fragmentation. And despite earlier promising support for Syrian Kurds Israel stood by as al-Sharaa’s Syrian Army forces routed the Kurds from much of the territory they had held east of the Euphrates River over several years. Meanwhile President Erdoğan was quick to hail the SDF defeat. From Ankara’s perspective, Israel’s expanding regional footprint increasingly resembles encirclement. In the Eastern Mediterranean, Israel’s deepening energy and military cooperation with Greece and Cyprus reinforces Turkish fears of being boxed out of gas development and maritime access through exclusionary alliances that challenge its claims and naval reach. Further south, Israel’s announcement that it would recognise Somaliland has heightened unease in Ankara. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar visited Somaliland in early January, signaling a move that gives Israel access to a critical Red Sea chokepoint, strengthening its ability to target Yemen’s Huthis and ensure security for its ships in the world’s busiest maritime trade route. For its part, Somaliland said it intends to join the Abraham Accords. As Somalia’s largest investor with close diplomatic and military ties to the federal government, Türkiye is alarmed by Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. It cuts directly across Turkish interests, threatening Ankara’s influence in the Horn of Africa and adding another front to an already widening rivalry. Taken together, these overlapping flashpoints point to a structural problem between the two regional powers. Israel and Türkiye are not simply clashing over individual crises, but rather trying to advance their own competing visions. For the United States, this shift presents an increasingly fraught dilemma. Israel remains Washington’s closest regional ally, while Türkiye is embedded in Western military, political, and economic institutions. Managing tensions between the two strains U.S. influence at a moment when Washington is less willing, and less able, to act as the region’s primary arbiter. While we should not expect outright conflict, the tense bilateral equilibrium will impact not only Israeli-Turkish relations, but the balance of power across the Middle East and its neighbouring regions.