( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Since October 7, 2023, Turkey has occupied an awkward and uncertain role amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza and the cycles of escalatory violence that it has precipitated. A NATO member with long-standing military, economic, and diplomatic ties with the West, Turkey has been forced to accommodate vociferous domestic criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza without jeopardizing access to Western largesse.
Up until now, Ankara has Israeli actions while avoiding rocking the boat with Israel’s allies, particularly the United States. Although Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel a month after October 7, Turkish diplomats continued to operate in Tel Aviv, even as other harsh critics of Israel, such as South Africa and Brazil, cut off diplomatic ties altogether. Likewise, although Turkey announced a trade embargo against Israel last May, Turkish-Israel trade has continued via loopholes, and Turkish ports have given safe passage to foreign ships headed to Israel, setting off a slew of protests by Turkish activists.
Turkey’s reluctance to move from rhetoric to action may be finally changing, however. Last week, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that his country would sever all diplomatic ties with Israel, heralding a new phase of tensions between Ankara and Tel Aviv. At the same time, Ankara has now declared that it will close embargo loopholes and will lobby the UN for a global arms embargo on Israel (a move supported by Beijing and Moscow). Last week, Ankara reportedly blocked top jets with Israeli officials from entering its airspace.
More than a year into the war, with Israel now bombing seven majority Muslim nations—Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran—Turkey’s changing stance towards Tel Aviv reflects the immense pressure from the Turkish public, a majority of whom are adamantly opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza. But it also indicates that, should the war escalate further, Turkey would find it more and more difficult to avoid direct involvement—not least because of the huge number of refugees that would almost certainly be forced into Turkey should the bombing of Lebanon continue and plans for mass expulsions of Palestinians take effect. Given the intense socioeconomic tensions set off by the presence of 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Erdoğan will be under enormous pressure as more Arab refugees move closer to Turkey’s borders.
“Erdogan v. Netanyahu,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / IbisPaint, 2024
The stronger line from Ankara coincides with an increasingly united front among Middle Eastern leaders, as old enmities have cooled in the face of the staggering human cost of Israel’s actions in the region, a toll that almost certainly exceeds the official casualty count. Indeed, news of Turkey’s decision came alongside major developments out of Saudi Arabia, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman throwing his support behind Iran and formally accusing Israel of genocide. Given the restoration of relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and the strengthening of ties between countries and Tehran, the statements out of Riyadh and Ankara amount to a one-two punch.
Turkey’s severing of diplomatic ties with Israel is not just symbolic. Turkey is not Honduras, Brazil, or Bahrain, to list some of the dozen-odd countries that have likewise broken diplomatic ties with Israel. A NATO member with a critical geostrategic position in the region and one of the largest land armies in Europe, Turkey is also the conduit for as much as 40 percent of Israel’s energy, piped in from Azerbaijan via Turkey. Should Erdoğan decide to cut off or restrict Azeri oil, then Israel’s already flailing economy, along with its energy-hungry and increasingly disaffected military, could collapse.
The most important question mark surrounding the severing of diplomatic ties may concern Iran. Will Ankara’s tougher line on Israel translate into direct or indirect support for Tehran in the event of a war with a U.S.-backed Israel? Although Turkey’s direct involvement in any such conflict is unlikely as long as Turkey remains in NATO, anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment has surged in Turkey. Should Israel attack Iran with American support, especially if Russia and/or China act to defend Tehran, Turkey could easily find itself pulled between historical loyalties to the West and growing ties with Eastern alternatives to the EU and NATO—namely, the BRICS economic union and the more defense-oriented Shanghai Cooperation Organization, both of which Turkey aims to join.
These developments are occurring in a radically changed geopolitical landscape in which Donald Trump will return to the White House in January 2025. Prior to the election, there was some hope in the Middle East that Trump, against all evidence, would move to deescalate tensions with Iran in line with his campaign promises to bring America out of foreign wars and prioritize “America first.” Trump almost immediately dashed those hopes, appointing a slew of pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian hawks to top positions in his incoming administration, which may have pushed Ankara and Riyadh to make their statements sooner than later. Seeing little hope for negotiation with the Trump team, Iran may now make good on promises to attack Israel in retaliation for Tel Aviv’s late October strike on Iran.
Should Ankara dial back the pressure on Israel, it will indicate that the United States can still influence Turkish policy, as it recently did in pushing Turkey to stop the sale of “military-linked goods” to Russia. But if Turkey and Saudi Arabia continue to up the ante, it will signal that the United States is losing control of countries once seen as, sincerely or under duress, deferential to Washington (and by extension Tel Aviv). With the world increasingly united against Israel’s U.S.-backed policies, Washington can ill afford any further defections.
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