Israeli Actions in Syria Are Bringing It Closer to a Military Confrontation with Turkey

A. Israel–Turkey relations have deteriorated dramatically since October 7. The Turkish government’s support for Hamas and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s harsh criticism of Israel have deepened the crisis and brought bilateral relations to one of their lowest points in decades.

B. But contrary to claims increasingly heard from some Israeli politicians, Turkey is not Iran. It continues to allow Azerbaijani oil to reach Israel, has not completely closed its airspace to Israeli aircraft, and maintains diplomatic representation in Israel. Moreover, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and intelligence chief İbrahim Kalın are well known to their Israeli counterparts. The relationship is deeply troubled, but channels of communication have not disappeared.

C. Israel’s strategic challenge, therefore, is to prevent Turkey from moving from a rival to an outright enemy. Turkey is a NATO member, Erdoğan maintains a close relationship with President Trump, and its military capabilities exceed those of any state adversary Israel has confronted in recent decades. A direct confrontation with Ankara would represent an entirely different level of strategic risk.

D. Israeli military activity in Syria is putting this already fragile relationship at greater risk, particularly in the absence of an effective mechanism to manage tensions and prevent military incidents. Rather than relying primarily on threats and strikes near areas of Turkish interest, Israel should establish a direct channel with Ankara aimed at reaching understandings over the rules of the game in Syria. It is also important to recognize that, contrary to a common perception in Israel, Ahmed al-Sharaa is not simply a Turkish proxy. He depends heavily on Ankara’s support, but there are also significant differences and tensions between the two sides.

E. Continued threats and military operations in Syria risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Israeli fears of hostile Turkish entrenchment could produce actions that lead Ankara itself to increasingly view Israel as a threat and deepen its military involvement. This does not mean Israel should accommodate every Turkish demand or compromise vital security interests. Restoring bilateral relations will be a long process and will depend significantly on the future of Israeli policy in Gaza. But military action without a parallel diplomatic track could unnecessarily accelerate the confrontation.

F. When the choice is between striking a handful of aircraft with limited operational value and seeking understandings with Turkey over the nature of its involvement in Syria, relying exclusively on military power risks undermining Israel’s own interests. Turkey is not going to disappear from Syria. If Ankara decides to arm al-Sharaa’s forces, it has the ability to do so whether Israel approves or not. The more important question is whether Turkish involvement develops within an understood framework and established red lines, or through an escalating cycle in which each side interprets the other’s actions as preparation for confrontation.

G. Contrary to another increasingly common argument in Israel, Turkey is not necessarily constructing a new “Sunni axis” designed to replace the Iranian-led Shiite axis. Ankara has substantial regional ambitions of its own, some of which clearly conflict with Israeli interests. But Israel and Turkey also share an important strategic interest: neither wants to see the return of a powerful, regionally dominant Iran. Israeli policy should recognize not only the areas of competition with Ankara but also the interests the two countries continue to share.

The bottom line is the need to think before acting. Precisely because Turkey is a major regional power, Israel needs to combine military deterrence with diplomacy and effective deconfliction mechanisms. In Syria, the distance between demonstrating strength and stumbling into a confrontation that neither country actually wants may be dangerously short.

حذر  الرئيس السابق لقسم إيران في شعبة الاستخبارات العسكرية الإسرائيلية، داني سيترينوفيتش٬ من أن القيادة الإيرانية تتجه إلى تبني نهج أكثر هجومية في مواجهة الضغوط الأمريكية، معتبرا أن طهران قد تفضل التصعيد على تقديم تنازلات تعتبرها استسلاما.
 تقديم تنازلات أو إجراء تراجع تكتيكي وحتى تغيير بعض سياساتها، لكنها، بحسب تقديره، تجد صعوبة بالغة في القبول باستسلام علني تحت الضغط.

وأضاف أن هذا السلوك يتعارض مع المبادئ التي تأسس عليها النظام الإيراني، ما يرجح، وفق قراءته، ارتفاع مستوى الإحباط داخل واشنطن خلال الفترة المقبلة، وخاصة لدى ترامب.

وخلص المسؤول الإسرائيلي السابق إلى أن الرئيس الأمريكي قد يجد نفسه أمام المعضلة التي واجهها خلال الأشهر الماضية، والمتمثلة في الاختيار بين تصعيد عسكري أو سياسي مكلف وغير متوقع، وبين القبول بشروط إيرانية قد تبدو مهينة لواشنطن، معتبرا أن الخيارات المتاحة أمام الإدارة الأمريكية باتت تدور بين "الأسوأ والأسوأ".

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להלן דוגמה לשימוש אפשרי בסימולטור @avner_vilan סביב שאלת ההכרעה מול איראן כפי שפירסמתי במאמר @IsraelHayomHeb .
הדוגמה ממחישה גם כיצד המלצות הסימולטור עשויות להיות מאותגרות במפגש עם העולם האמיתי. ועדיין, זו הצצה לאופן שבו עולם המחקר המודיעיני עשוי לשלב AI בעתיד הלא רחוק וליכולת לשלב תובנות משותפות של "אדם ומכונה"

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A change of government in Israel would not necessarily mean a change in Israeli foreign policy.

That is one of the lessons of the Bennett-Lapid government, the coalition that briefly replaced Benjamin Netanyahu before his return to power. Israel may eventually have a new prime minister, but the strategic assumptions that have defined the Netanyahu era could survive him.

For years, Israeli policy has rested on the assumption that military pressure, covert operations, economic isolation and the credible threat of force can prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But the record deserves much closer scrutiny.

Since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear agreement, with strong encouragement from Netanyahu, Iran has dramatically expanded its nuclear capabilities. Whatever one thinks of the original agreement, the strategy that replaced it did not produce a stronger deal or a less capable Iran. Tehran moved closer, not farther, to the nuclear threshold.

That should force Israeli policymakers to confront an uncomfortable possibility: pressure intended to stop an Iranian bomb may ultimately strengthen Tehran's incentive to acquire one.

There is a similar problem with the recurring hope that outside pressure can produce regime change in Iran. Military strikes, cyber operations, covert action and information campaigns can weaken an adversary. They cannot manufacture a viable political alternative inside another country.

There is also a practical question that receives far too little attention in Israel: What is the endgame? Israel may be prepared to sustain a prolonged confrontation with Iran. It should not assume that future American administrations will be equally willing.

The American public has little appetite for another open-ended Middle Eastern war. Washington is simultaneously managing competition with China, Russia, commitments in Europe and challenges elsewhere. An Israeli strategy that ultimately depends on indefinite American military participation is therefore not much of an independent strategy at all.

The same problem applies to Israel's long-standing concept of "striking the head of the octopus" retaliating against Iran itself for attacks carried out by Tehran's regional partners.

Suppose Hezbollah launches another major attack on Israel. Would striking Iran deter Hezbollah and end the confrontation? Or could it transform another war in Lebanon into a broader regional conflict involving Iran and multiple armed groups?

Israel undoubtedly possesses the military capability to inflict enormous damage on Iran. But capability is not strategy. The relevant question is what happens afterward.

Is Israel prepared for months or years of attrition with Iran and its regional network if the United States declines to participate directly? And could repeated attacks on Iran ultimately persuade its leadership that acquiring a nuclear deterrent is necessary for the regime's survival?

The next Israeli government should therefore conduct a genuine reassessment of Iran policy rather than simply inherit Netanyahu's assumptions.

Diplomacy should be part of that reassessment. The nuclear agreement was deeply imperfect, but it demonstrated something military pressure has so far failed to demonstrate: that verifiable restrictions can place meaningful limits on Iran's nuclear program. A future diplomatic framework may look very different from the 2015 agreement. But dismissing diplomacy as weakness while treating perpetual military escalation as strategy is not a serious long-term policy.

Yet Iran may not even be the most consequential foreign-policy challenge facing Israel's next government. That distinction belongs to the Palestinian issue.

For Israeli leaders, focusing on Iran has always had a political advantage: it allows Israel to present itself to Washington and the West primarily as a strategic ally confronting a common external enemy. But Israel's international standing is increasingly shaped by Gaza, the West Bank and the absence of any credible political horizon for the Palestinians.

No Israeli government can indefinitely separate those issues from the country's relationship with the United States. Israel's standing among younger Americans and parts of the Democratic coalition has already become considerably more complicated. European governments face growing domestic pressure over their relationships with Israel. Investors and multinational companies also pay attention to political instability, prolonged warfare and international isolation.

That matters especially for any future Israeli leader who promises economic growth, foreign investment and deeper integration with Western markets.

You cannot indefinitely pursue regional escalation abroad, permanent conflict with the Palestinians at home and deeper international integration at the same time. Eventually those objectives collide.

The next Israeli government therefore needs something more ambitious than a different prime minister. It needs a foreign-policy review.

It should ask whether the assumptions that guided Israel over the past decade actually produced the outcomes they promised: Is Iran farther from a nuclear weapon? Are Iran's regional partners less dangerous? Is Israel's international position stronger? Is its relationship with the United States more sustainable? And is Israel closer to resolving, rather than merely managing, the Palestinian conflict?

If the answers are uncomfortable, changing the person in the prime minister's office will not be enough. Israel could enter the post-Netanyahu era while continuing to practice Netanyahu's foreign policy.

#iran

There will be no meaningful expansion of Arab-Israeli normalization without progress on the Palestinian issue. Israeli leaders should stop selling their public the illusion that the region can simply move on.

Egypt is not going to assume responsibility for governing Gaza. Saudi Arabia is unlikely to move toward full normalization with Israel without a credible political pathway for the Palestinians. And the regional map itself has changed: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have significantly improved their relations, while Egypt and Turkey have undergone their own rapprochement.

So what regional reality is this strategy actually based on?

For years, Israeli policy has increasingly embraced the idea that the Palestinian question could be bypassed — that Israel could deepen its integration into the Middle East, expand the Abraham Accords and eventually normalize relations with Saudi Arabia without making consequential political choices on the Palestinian front. That assumption looks increasingly detached from reality.

The Abraham Accords were an important diplomatic achievement, but they should not be mistaken for proof that the Palestinian issue has become irrelevant. Saudi Arabia is not the UAE, and the political environment after the Gaza war is not the Middle East of 2020.

This matters for Washington as well. An American strategy built around a grand Israeli-Saudi bargain cannot succeed simply by offering Riyadh enough bilateral incentives while treating the Palestinian component as an obstacle to be managed. Saudi leaders have their own domestic, regional and Islamic considerations, and those cannot simply be wished away.

If this is also the foreign-policy doctrine of Israel's next government, then a change of leadership will produce remarkably little change in policy.

Israel needs a genuine foreign-policy reset. That means abandoning strategies based on assumptions that no longer correspond to the region as it exists today. It means recognizing that Israel cannot indefinitely separate regional integration from the Palestinian question.

A serious strategy begins with the region Israel actually lives in — not the region Israeli politicians would prefer to imagine.