‘Turkey wants to replace Iran and encircle Israel’

This strategy has included long-standing and overt support for the Hamas terrorist organization.

By Yaakov Lappin, JNS

Under the personal and ideologically-driven Islamist direction of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey aspires to actively construct a strategic encirclement of Israel, an Israeli terrorism expert has warned, days after reports emerged stating that the Trump administration is weighing allowing Ankara to purchase F-35 fighter jets.

Turkey’s willingness to back U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point truce plan has reportedly increased its chances of acquiring the stealth aircraft, though this has yet to be confirmed.

Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya and a member of the Israeli non-partisan group Coalition for Regional Security, told JNS in recent days, “If Erdoğan’s plan to take over Syria in the military domain succeeds and he receives approval for a military force, legitimacy and Qatari money for construction in Gaza, Turkey will largely replace the Iranian dream of enclosing Israel in a more dangerous military and political ring.”

Karmon warned that “when it comes to Israel, Erdoğan is the one who sets Turkey’s policy and he is personally responsible for the deterioration of bilateral relations between the countries for years. Erdoğan has strong anti-Israel feelings, based on deep-rooted religious beliefs. Erdoğan simply despises Israel.”

Karmon explained that this animosity is channeled through a calculated political strategy.

“President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attaches great importance to the Palestinian issue, presenting himself as the protector of the Palestinians and of the holy Islamic sites in Jerusalem,” he said.

“By exploiting the Palestinian issue, Erdoğan is trying to present Turkey to the Arab public as a leading power in the Middle East and to achieve Islamic legitimacy in the region.”

This strategy has included long-standing and overt support for the Hamas terrorist organization.

In March 2006, Erdoğan invited a high-ranking Hamas delegation to visit Turkey, immediately after its success in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, Karmon recalled, contrary to the advice of his advisers and the positions of the Turkish media.

“Since then, political and operational relations with Hamas have continued to grow,” Karmon said.

He noted that this backing became tangible when, in May 2010, the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship carrying a large Turkish militant group from the Foundation for Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), led an international flotilla that tried to break the Israeli security blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Ankara’s influence campaign has also extended into Israel itself.

“Relations with the northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel [itself banned in 2015] also strengthened, as both share a common ideology and their goal is to promote Jerusalem as an issue in the radical Islamic discourse,” Karmon stated.

“About 63 million dollars donated by the Turkish government were transferred to organizations in East Jerusalem dedicated to the protection and strengthening of the Muslim heritage and character of Jerusalem. Some of the money financed the Murabitun movement (which includes male radical Islamist activists) and the Murabitat (which includes female activists), who harassed and physically attacked Jews visiting the Temple Mount.”

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas, Erdoğan’s rhetoric reached a new level of vitriol.

“On Oct. 11, 2023, Erdoğan said that Israel’s siege and bombing of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack was a disproportionate response, a ‘massacre’ in his words, but he did not condemn the Hamas massacre of civilians,” Karmon said.

This escalated significantly when Erdoğan stated in March 2024 that Ankara “firmly supports” Hamas.

“‘No one can make us declare Hamas a terrorist organization,’ the Turkish president said in a speech in Istanbul, while comparing Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government to ‘Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, like the Nazis of today,’” Karmon said.

This rhetoric was followed by action, with Erdoğan severing all economic ties with Israel in April 2024 and joining South Africa’s ICJ petition accusing Israel of genocide.

Karmon warned that Turkey is now leveraging the collapse of the Assad regime to dramatically increase its influence in Syria, with direct implications for Israel.

“With the fall of the Assad regime and the decline in the status of its two major allies, Russia and Iran, in Syria, Turkey seized the opportunity to significantly increase its influence in the country in the field of defense (among others), in an apparent attempt to turn Syria into a Turkish protectorate,” he said.

He pointed to a January 2025 statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who declared that in this “new era … Turkey is the shepherd and protector” of all groups in Syria.

This ambition is backed by force, with some 90,000 fighters of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) operating in the country, an organization that surrounds Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and which has been accused of kidnappings, extortion and other crimes.

According to an Oct. 10 report by the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Erdoğan left a previous trip to Washington empty-handed on his request for F-35 fighter jets.

However, a report in The National Interest from Oct. 10 noted that Turkey is moving to purchase Eurofighter Typhoons from Qatar, signaling its intent to upgrade its air force regardless.

As part of the recent U.S.-brokered hostage deal, the American compensation appears particularly far-reaching.

According to an October 8 report in the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper, Erdoğan was promised the supply of F-35 aircraft, and he is slated to a legitimate player in the Gaza agreement’s implementation process.

Oded Ailam, a former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad and currently a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCSFA), has warned of Turkey’s destructive role.

In a recent analysis for Mako, Eilam argued that it “is difficult to ignore the deep aspirations of the current Turkish president,” which he described as the wish to resurrect the Ottoman empire and turn into a modern sultan.

He added that this is occurring alongside a strengthening of the Turkish–Egyptian military cooperation, which included meetings this year between the chiefs of staff of both countries and discussions on joint development of military industries, and maneuvers.

“In the past decade, Turkey has not only strengthened its fleet with purchases of advanced submarine types, developed a light aircraft carrier, and purchased naval attack weapons, it has also strengthened its cooperation with other countries in the Middle East,” Eilam said.

Israel is not the only country facing this neo-Ottoman vision, he said, naming Greece and Cyprus as others that must deal with increasing Turkish dominance.

“Israel can celebrate the [Gaza] agreement, but not fall asleep instead of standing on guard,” Eilam cautioned. “If the Mediterranean Sea is a game board, Erdogan has already placed more than a queen on it. He placed a whole fleet.”