Yesterday’s predawn strike on a Syrian airfield wasn’t unusual in scale, but it carried a pointed message to Turkey: Israel won’t let Ankara expand its military footprint or move closer to the Golan Heights border.
2+Turkey already controls roughly 5% of Syrian territory. The Turkish military is positioned in the country’s north, but Israel won’t tolerate a creeping Turkish takeover inside Syria—a slow deepening of Ankara’s grip that could eventually push toward the Golan Heights. Israel received solid intelligence that Turkey was planning to seize control of—or at least establish a significant military presence at—an airfield near the city of Idlib in northern Syria. Behind the scenes, efforts were made through American mediation with both Syria and Turkey to shut down the situation before Israel moved to serious military action.
2+Message after message was sent from Jerusalem to Ankara through Washington, and from Jerusalem to Damascus through American intermediaries, but those messages went unanswered. So Israel decided to launch the strike—what you might call a Turkish ‘Deir Ezzor’ moment. The Turks are responding with words for now, not military action. Turkey is accusing Israel of stoking war in the region and endangering regional stability, and declaring that it will continue cooperating with Syria.
2+But what’s hiding behind those words and promises is President Erdoğan’s vision to revive the Ottoman Empire—in part by taking over Syria. For Israel, Turkish military expansion inside Syria is a scenario it can’t accept. It might start with slow, creeping advances, but if you don’t stop it while the presence is still small and distant, we could wake up one day to find Turkish soldiers on the Golan Heights border.