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“There are only two of us left among the leaders. Right now, it’s me and Vladimir Putin. ” This was the disrespectful decision of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last week.
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump may clash with the Turkish president’s ranking in the world. At the regional level, however, Erdoğan has a good reputation as one of the two most powerful leaders reshaping the Middle East. His bitter rival, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, is the other.
Erdogan’s pride at the moment comes from his position in Syria. Turkey was the only regional power to throw its weight behind Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist movement that toppled the Assad regime. Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkish intelligence services, he went Damascus days after HTS took power.
Erdoğan has been keen to rebuild Turkish power across the former Ottoman Empire. For him, toppling Assad opens a new path to regional influence. Also maybe they have a household income – to weaken the Kurds in Syria, reduce the refugee crisis in Turkey and help to maintain his presidency after 2028.
Turkey’s alliance with Islamist groups such as HTS and the Muslim Brotherhood is seen as a major threat to Israel and the conservative Gulf monarchies. Israel has moved to destroy Syria’s military power, bombing its navy and air force and seizing territory beyond the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
The Israeli government characterized its actions as security and defense. But Netanyahu, like Erdoğan, sees an opportunity ahead. Speaking last week, he said: “Something tectonic has happened here, an earthquake that has not happened in the century since the Sykes-Picot agreement.” That mention of the 1916 alliance between Britain and France that divided the Ottoman Empire sounds significant. With the turmoil in the Middle East, representatives of Greater Israel see an opportunity to redraw the region’s borders. Aluf Benn of Haaretz they write Netanyahu “seems to be seeking a legacy as the leader who expanded Israel’s borders after 50 years of retreat”.
The refugee community, well-represented in Netanyahu’s coalition government, is pressing Israel to take back some of the Gaza Strip. The incoming Trump administration could give Israel the green light to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. And staying “for a while” in Syria can be permanent.
Beyond that, Netanyahu sees an opportunity for a final reckoning with Iran. The Islamic Republic is at its weakest point in decades. It faces domestic opposition and will not settle for the collapse of the Syrian regime. Tehran has seen its allies – Hamas, Hizbollah and now Assad – destroyed.
Iran could respond to the loss of its regional proxies by accelerating the acquisition of nuclear weapons. But this would cause Israel to attack. After the Netanyahu government’s success against Hizbollah in Lebanon – a campaign that the Biden administration warned against – Israelis are confident and on edge.
In the past year, Israel has demonstrated its ability to fight several wars at once – including Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and now Syria. Israel is also the nuclear-armed power in the region and, at the moment, has the full support of the US.
Netanyahu’s chances of going down in history as a successful leader seem slim after the disaster of the October 7 coup by Hamas. A controversial figure at home and abroad, he is currently on trial for corruption in Israel.
Like Erdoğan, Netanyahu is a political survivor of brutality. Everyone came to power many years ago and sees himself as a future man. However, their dreams of territorial control have similar weaknesses. Israel and Turkey are non-Arab powers in a predominantly Arab region. There is no desire in the Arab world for a re-created Ottoman Empire. Israel remains an outside power in the Middle East, feared, distrusted and often hated.
Turkey and Israel also have weak economic bases that would like to dominate the regions. Turkey’s economy is suffering from inflation. For all its technological and military might, Israel is a small country of less than 10mn people.
The ambitions of Erdoğan and Netanyahu could easily clash in Syria. It will risk becoming a battleground for regional powers because Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states also have interests there.
Last week, the Turkish people rejoiced in the fall of Damascus and Israel destroyed the Syrian army, Saudi Arabia celebrated the victory of peace, being chosen as the hosts of the World Cup 2034.
The Saudis and the Gulf says that they may feel threatened directly by Turkey’s Islamic agreements than by the interests of Israel. But Riyadh knows that Israel’s attack on Gaza has shocked the Arab world. Getting too close to Netanyahu to stop Erdoğan would be controversial, especially if Israel immediately buried any hope of a two-state solution with Palestine.
Israel and Turkey have powerful armies. But the Saudis, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have economic power. Whatever Riyadh decides to do could shape the Middle East more than what Erdoğan and Netanyahu did.
