Juan Cole Informed Comment
The Turkish government has become an ever greater thorn in the side of the expansionist, far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. On Friday, Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek issued a Red Notice to Interpol asking that it help apprehend Netanyahu and one other Israeli official on Turkish charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and torture. In mid-July, Gurlek indicted Netanyahu and a colleague in Turkiye itself on those charges. Interpol does not itself issue warrants but rather implements those issued by member states. Turkiye joined in 1930, Israel in 1939. However, Interpol by its own constitution cannot seek to arrest heads of state, since they have diplomatic immunity, and so Gurlek’s request is a non-starter and will be immediately rejected by Interpol.
The warrants are based on the Israeli government’s attacks on an aid flotilla that set out from Turkiye in May, which the Israeli military illegally attacked in international waters, after which flotilla aid workers were imprisoned in Israel before being expelled from the country. The aid flotilla intended to bring food and medical supplies to Gaza, circumventing an Israeli blockade.
This politics of reputation is part of an increasingly tense relationship between Turkiye and Israel. President Tayyip Erdogan is a supporter of Muslim fundamentalist movements, including Hamas. Erdogan has been vocal in condemning the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and has branded Netanyahu a Hitler.
Netanyahu in turn called Erdogan an anti-semitic dictator, and is running this fall for another term as prime minister on his ability to fend off challenges to Israel from the Palestinians, Iran, Turkiye and . . . New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (sic).
Israel has suffered several reverses at Erdogan’s hands. He stopped NATO from doing joint exercises with the Israeli military, on the grounds that Israel’s military is engaging in behavior that violates NATO’s military code — by targeting civilians or showing complaisance toward a very high rate of civilian death in its military operations.
Erdogan also has the ear of President Trump, in part because Trump makes money off his hotels in Turkiye. In contrast, since Netanyahu sweet-talked Trump into the catastrophic Iran War, Trump has been cold toward Netanyahu, sending his vice president, J.D. Vance, out to bash the Israeli leadership.
Trump wants to sell Turkiye US F-35 stealth fighter jets, but Netanyahu has mobilized the Israel lobbies on the Hill against any such deal. Trump seems determined to go through with it, and is annoyed with Netanyahu for trying to stop the sale. The Israelis have a doctrine that no Middle Eastern government is allowed to purchase from the US more sophisticated weaponry than Washington provides to Israel.
Another arena of contestation is Syria, where a Turkish-backed, Muslim fundamentalist government swept into power late in 2024. The new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and many of his political allies, depended heavily on Erdogan’s backing during the Syrian Civil War that broke out in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring protests.
Turkiye would like to build Syria up as a pro-Islam, Sunni fundamentalist ally for Ankara’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). Netanyahu and his security apparatus are determined to keep Syria weak and undeveloped. Israel has therefore bombed most Syrian military bases, destroying billions of dollars in weaponry, in a bid to leave Damascus helpless, on the pattern of Lebanon and the Palestinians.
Israel has attacked Syria extensively, and even occupied territory there, in ways that do not acknowledge that al-Sharaa has said he wants good relations with Israel. The Israeli authorities gave some aid to al-Sharaa’s old al-Qaeda-linked guerrilla group, the Succor Front or Jabhat al-Nusra, when it was fighting the Shiite, pro-Iran Hezbollah militia near the Golan Heights. The Israelis would bring wounded Succor Front fighters over from Syria to Israel for medical treatment. Since al-Sharaa was not only at daggers drawn with pro-Iran Hezbollah but also with members of the heterodox Druze sect, and since Israeli Druze serve in the army, the Israeli Druze mobilized to lobby Netanyahu not to support al-Sharaa’s group.
To help the Syrian army rebuild under Turkish auspices, Turkiye was allegedly planning to station troops at a defunct Syrian base in Idlib in the north, only 70 miles from the Turkish border. Netanyahu forestalled any such plans (which Syria and Turkiye deny) by having the base’s airstrip bombed, preventing Turkish troop transport planes from landing there. Because the Israelis struck so close to Turkiye, Ankara took the action as a threat to its national security. The major nationalist politician, Devlet Bahçeli of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) an ally of Erdogan, slammed the Israeli action.
Photo by Salah Darwish on Unsplash
Because Turkiye is a NATO member, Netanyahu cannot bomb Turkish soil without risking the invocation by NATO member states of Article 5, “an attack on one is an attack on all.” But he can bomb any Turkish troops operating in Syria without much fear that NATO will react.
Israel and Turkiye used to have an extensive trade relationship. Because of the Gaza genocide, Turkiye placed a ban on Israeli goods. In 2025, Israel’s indirect imports from Turkiye fell to slightly less than $1 bn., down from $2 bn in 2024. Turkiye won’t ship anything directly to Israel anymore, so goods come via third parties, such as Greece. Even these indirect imports from Turkiye to Israel were halved last year. But Turkiye almost entirely cut Israel off with regard to imports. It had imported nearly $600 million of Israeli goods in 2024, but that fell to only about $10 million in 2025. Erdogan’s economic ban on Israeli goods has cost the Israelis dearly.
Benjamin Netanyahu stays in power by constantly demonizing and going to war with other countries and depicting himself as the only one who can save Israel from dire threats. Turkiye is not interested in a direct military confrontation with Tel Aviv. But maximalist Israeli demands to dictate Syria’s fate could over time prove so unacceptable to Erdogan that the two countries could fall into a hot conflict neither of them wants.
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