Syriasly? Turkey, Israel, and the Shadow War Brewing in Syria
đĄ Fifteen years after Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza, relations between (increasingly antagonistic) Turkey and Israel are once again spiralingâonly this time, the flashpoint isnât the sea, itâs Syria. What began as a diplomatic rupture is now veering into military brinkmanship
After more than a decade of civil war, youâd think Syria had run out of room, and patience, for more conflict. Since 2011, foreign powers have treated Syria like the Middle Eastâs chessboard. Not long ago, these two were on relatively polite termsâeven military allies in the late 20th century. But Syriaâs collapse has these two locking eyes across the ruins.
âł To understand the current standoff, it helps to rewind.
Turkeyâs stake: Early in the war, Ankara urged Bashar al-Assad to reform. When that failed, it backed the rebelsâsome secular, some decidedly not. Turkey opened its borders to opposition fighters (and âinadvertentlyâ to jihadists), hoping to see a friendly post-Assad neighbor. When that didnât materialize, Turkey sent in the tanks.
Israelâs stake: Israel preferred the devil it knew (Assad) to an ISIS caliphate next door. It kept its distance early on, intervening only to target Hezbollah-bound weapons convoys. But the fall of Assad has forced a shift. With a Turkish-backed Islamist government now in Damascus, Israel is now brazenly intervening out in the open.
Now, both powers are claiming to âprotectâ Syriaâwhile doing everything they can to undermine its sovereignty. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
đŹ From Suleiman Shah to T4: Two Flags, One Stage
đŠ Letâs start with the pretexts.
Turkeyâs direct involvement in Syria began in 2015, under the noble-sounding mission of protecting the tomb of Suleiman Shah, grandfather of the Ottoman Empireâs founder. When ISIS threatened the site, Turkey didnât send a diplomatic noteâit just rolled in the tanks. The tomb was relocated closer to the Turkish border, and with that symbolic operation came a new phase of Turkish boots on Syrian soil.
Since then, Turkey has launched multiple operations under different banners: against ISIS, against Kurdish militias, in the name of stability etc. Safe zones were created, schools rebranded, Turkish lira introduced. Critics say ErdoÄan is turning northern Syria into a vassal state. Heâd never admit to neo-Ottoman ambitions, but the map is starting to look suspiciously familiar.
Lately, Ankara has looked further south.
For weeks, Turkish officers had been touring Syrian airbases, including the T4 air base near Palmyra, preparing to install air-defense systems and drones. This wasnât humanitarian assistance. This was forward positioning.
Then, on April 2nd, Israel struckâbombing the T4âs runway and radar. Two more bases were hit the same night. The message was clear: this far, no further.
đĽ Kurds, Chaos, and Strategic Paranoia
The Kurdish question remains the biggest wedge between Israel and Turkey.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), formerly Americaâs key ally against ISIS, are now aligned with the new Turkish-backed interim government in Damascus. For Israel, they are ânatural alliesââa secular minority and disciplined counterweight to Islamist militias. For Turkey, theyâre just the PKK in a new uniform.
Israelâs warm words about the Kurds rattled Ankara so badly that Turkey quietly reopened negotiations with PKK leader Abdullah Ăcalan, still imprisoned. By March, the PKK announced a surprise ceasefireâa move widely seen less as peace but more as Turkeyâs attempt to preempt any Israeli-Kurdish alliance in Syriaâs northeast.
Each side sees the otherâs proxies as an existential threat. And theyâre acting accordingly. Which brings us to:
đĽˇđť One Manâs TerroristâŚ
At the heart of the Turkey-Israel feud is the question of who counts as a terrorist.
For Turkey, Israelâs flirtation with Kurdish groups is a provocation. The SDF may have fought ISIS, but Ankara views them as PKK-adjacentâand the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state for decades. Israeli support, even rhetorical, is interpreted in Turkey as foreign meddling in Turkeyâs domestic security.
For Israel, Turkeyâs hands are hardly clean. ErdoÄan hosts Hamas leaders in Istanbul like visiting dignitaries. His government supported rebel factions in Syriaâincluding some with links to al-Qaeda. In Tel Avivâs eyes, Turkey has played both arsonist and firefighter in Syria: backing Islamist groups while claiming to fight terrorism.
But Israel's own record deserves equal scrutiny if not outright condemnation. It calls out Turkish support for Hamas, while quietly forging tactical relationships with groups that advance its own territorial goals. Whether itâs the Druze, certain Kurdish factions, or anti-Iran elements, Israel plays the proxy game just as hypocriticaly and ruthlesslyâonly with better press coverage.
And letâs not forget the double standard:
When Turkey claims to be protecting âTurkish interestsâ itâs accused of neo-imperialism. ButâŚ
When Israel claims itâs acting âfor securityâ, the international community nods solemnly and moves on. Same game. Different narrative.
đŽđą Israelâs Druze Doctrine: Benevolence Or Else
While Turkey consolidates in the north, Israel is expanding in the south, near the Golan Heights. The stated purpose? Protecting the Druze minority from reprisals.
But in practice, Israelâs presence has looked less like peacekeeping and more like land-grabbing masquerading as punitive strikes. Dozens of airstrikes have hit Syrian positions linked to the interim government. In one incident, Israeli tanks fired on a Druze village after receiving what it claimed were âwarning shotsâ. Locals say they were defending their homes from an uninvited foreign army.
The logic is simple: Israel sees a Turkey-aligned Syria as a threat. With Assad gone and a potentially Islamist regime in Damascus, Tel Aviv is racing to establish facts on the ground. It calls it a humanitarian mission. Syrians call it something else.
Israel's military doctrine has always relied on overwhelming force and ambiguous legality. But in Syria, it's crossing into strategic adventurismâbombing infrastructure, shaping governments, and justifying it all under the banner of âself-defense.â
The irony? Thatâs the same playbook it condemns Iran for using.
đşđ¸ The TrumpâNetanyahuâErdoÄan Triangle
All of this tension spilled into Washington this week, in a photo-op that felt more like an episode of The Apprentice: Geopolitics Edition.
In a surreal White House reunion, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu traded praise, grumbled about Iran, and, unusually, spent a notable part of their meeting discussing Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan. That ErdoÄan was even on the agenda was no coincidence. It shows that Turkeyâs rising presence in Syria isnât just an Israeli concernâitâs a strategic headache for Washington, too.
Trumpâs advice to Bibi? âYou need to be reasonable.â (A tall order for a man wanted by the ICC).
This from the man who once described ErdoÄan as âvery strong.â The downgrade says a lot.
Washington doesnât want to referee a fight between two âfriendsâ, especially not two NATO affiliated friends, and especially not with Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah watching from the sidelinesâ
In response to recent tensions, both countries have agreed to setup a âdeconfliction lineâ. Itâs not peace, or containment, but just crisis management 101 in a move that feels the children were being scolded by America after having set the backyard on fire.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated on April 4th, that Turkey does not seek confrontation with Israel in Syria. He emphasized, "We don't want to see any confrontation with Israel in Syria because Syria belongs to Syrians."
A noble sentiment⌠carefully worded for deniability. đ
đ ErdoÄanâs Energy Hypocrisy
And then thereâs the gas.
President ErdoÄan brands himself as the defender of Palestine, the loudest anti-Zionist voice in the Muslim world:
Turkish media slams Israeli aggression.
Turkish drones patrol Syrian skies.
Turkish ministers meet with Hamas.
But while ErdoÄan condemns Israel with one hand, he helps power it with the other.
đŚđż Azerbaijani (a staunch ally of both countries) gas flows through Turkey into Europe via the TANAP pipeline. Some of that gas is quietly redirected to Israelâno speeches, no hashtags, no protests. I say âsome of that gasâ, but what I really mean is 41% of Israelâs gas transits through Turkey. 41%!
Shipments of oil and gas from Azerbaijan to Israel are delivered via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline directly to the port of Ashkelon in Israel. Similarly, Azerbaijan uses Turkish airspace to reach Israelâs Ovda airport, which is generally used for weapons and logistics.
In other words, while ErdoÄan denounces Israeli strikes on Gaza, his pipelines are keeping Tel Avivâs lights on. Why? Because energy transit fees donât have an ideology. They just pay.
đŹđˇ Meanwhile, Greece, Turkeyâs nemesis and long seen as Europeâs economic patient, is becoming Israelâs energy wingman in the Eastern Mediterranean. Through projects like the Great Sea Interconnector, Athens is linking its electricity grid with Israel and Cyprus, laying the groundwork for a regional energy alliance that conveniently skips over Turkish territory.
This isnât just an infrastructure projectâitâs a geopolitical message wrapped in copper and concrete. Add to that the long-simmering EastMed pipeline discussions, and itâs clear that Greece, once a peripheral player, is now actively shaping the regionâs energy future alongside Israel. While ErdoÄan talks about energy hub ambitions, Athens is building a parallel trackâone that turns Turkeyâs bypass into policy, not theory.
Behind the tankers and transmission cables lies a deeper fault line: Israel and its allies on one side, Turkey and its sphere on the other, each carving out influence through ports, pipelines, and proxy deals. And stuck between them, as always, is Syriaâthe unwilling corridor for everyone elseâs ambitions. Which brings us toâŚ
âď¸ The Wider Middle East Free-for-All
This TurkeyâIsrael showdown is just one subplot in the regionâs bigger drama:
đŽđˇ Iran lost its Assad-era foothold in Syria and is now watching both Israel and Turkey muscle in. Expect Tehran to quietly arm any militia that can make things messier for either.
đŞđŹ đ¸đŚ Saudi Arabia & Egypt distrust Turkeyâs Islamist ambitions, but theyâre not thrilled about Israel either. They officially condemn Israeli incursions, but unofficially theyâre happy to see Ankara checked.
đśđŚ Qatar, Turkeyâs closest Arab ally, still dreams of reviving a QatarâTurkey gas pipeline via Syriaâonce blocked by Assad. With a compliant regime now in Damascus, that idea is back on the table. But Israeli airstrikes in southern Syria could derail the project before it even begins.
đşđ¸ The U.S. has around 900 troops still in Syria, guarding oil fields and managing fragile Kurdish alliances. It doesnât want a shooting war between its NATO ally (Turkey) and its closest regional partner (Israel). But as tensions escalate, it may not get a choice. Even Trump, in his meeting with Netanyahu, half-joked: âIf you ever have an issue with Turkey, I can help... but you need to be reasonable.â That might age well.
âď¸ Syria, Forever the Pawn
đšđˇ Itâs worth remembering: both modern Turkey and modern Israel are, in a way, children of the Ottoman Empireâs dismemberment. One inherited the imperial throne, the other emerged from the imperial vacuum. Syria was carved apart by colonial pencils, the Balfour Declaration was signed while Ottoman troops were still retreating, and a century later, the regionâs power players are still tracing over the same fault lines
Syriaâs civil war may be over, but its sovereignty is still fragmented. The country is now sliced into de facto zones: Turkey in the north and east, Israel in the south and west, America scattered somewhere in between. Foreign powers are back, claiming to protect, and taking whatever they can.
Neither Ankara nor Jerusalem is backing down. For ErdoÄan, Syria is a legacy project. For Netanyahu, itâs a buffer zone. Both leaders are pursuing regional dominance, and both believe they have historyâand firepowerâon their side.
â ď¸ The danger is that miscalculation becomes escalation. A drone here, a patrol there, and suddenly youâve got two heavily armed, nationalist governments in a shooting war.
The interim government in Damascus, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, is already being dismissed by Israel as a jihadist puppet (as Israel always does). Turkey sees him as a legitimate partner. Israel wants to weaken Syria, potentially seeking federalism (read: cantonization); Turkey wants a strong presidency and a (compliant) ally next door. Both are using drones and diplomacy to shape Syriaâs future.
Neither is asking Syrians what they want.
Ordinary Syrians can only watchâweary, cynical, and increasingly voicelessâas foreign flags are raised over their cities once again.
The names change. The missions change. But the war, somehow, never ends.
âď¸ Also Worth Noting
Israeli military team had to bypass Turkey to land in Baku, Azerbaijan to hold first ever âdeconfliction lineâ meeting
