Israel bombed a neglected Syrian airfield to prevent a Turkish deployment, which Damascus says was never planned. The runway was damaged, no one was killed, and one Israel Air Force source described the effect on Israel’s freedom of action in northern Syria as “minor.” Politicians and commentators have nevertheless manufactured a near-hysterical strategic crisis with Turkey, a conflict unlikely to advance Israeli interests.
Eight strikes hit Abu al-Duhur airbase in north-western Syria on August 18. The Prime Minister’s Office said Syria was about to breach a security understanding by allowing Turkish forces to deploy there. Damascus acknowledged that Turkish officers had visited for training and advice but denied plans for a base or deployment. Ankara said no personnel were present when Israel attacked. Israel has published no evidence of an imminent deployment or threat.
Israel’s own accounts do not align. One Air Force source told Mako TV that the IDF presented several options, including non-military ones, and made no unequivocal recommendation to attack. The source said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz chose the strike, saying the effect of Turkish systems on Israeli freedom of action was minimal. Katz insists the IDF repeatedly recommended an attack. The classified record may vindicate him; public evidence does not show that the bombing was an obvious operational necessity.
Within hours, the online version of Abu al-Duhur bore little resemblance to the physical one. A Syrian base became a Turkish base; unconfirmed deployments of fighters followed. Columnist David Weinberg wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel should be ready to strike “from Idlib to Istanbul.” This is an idea so hare-brained and improbable that it does not bear any serious weight. Ibrahim Karagul of Yeni Safak, a conservative, Islamist daily newspaper published in Turkey, declared that war had begun, and called for the destruction of Tel Aviv in a similarly bellicose article.
Calls to expel Turkey from NATO soon followed. A disputed visit was now being sold as the opening move of a war. Contrived outrage can still produce the real thing. This whole discussion is deranged.
Turkey’s calculus
Of course, there is much to condemn in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Ankara hosts Hamas figures; its anti-Israel rhetoric has been shameful; and Turkish forces and their Syrian clients have inflicted appalling violence on Kurdish and other minority communities in Syria. Erdogan treats alliances as bargaining chips, and Turkish foreign policy is frustratingly committed to playing all sides for gain. However, this grim record does not explain what Turkey has been trying to achieve in Syria.
In 2011, Ankara wanted Bashar Assad gone and backed the opposition. By 2015, its attention had shifted to the Kurds: the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Turkey’s border, followed by pressure to return millions of refugees. Assad’s fall in December 2024 changed the calculation again. Ankara wanted a friendly government capable of stabilizing Syria and absorbing armed factions. It also wanted to reduce Russian and Iranian influence.
Reconstruction offered leverage, while its dispute with Washington centered on American support for the Kurdish SDF. Israel only became a serious variable much later, when the two states’ operating areas began to overlap.
Iran built a military corridor across the Levant and stationed armed proxies along Israel’s borders. By contrast, Turkey has used forces and clients along its own frontier, squeezing the SDF and gaining leverage over Damascus. These methods have often been brutal, but they do not constitute an equivalent to Iran’s encirclement strategy.
Turkey recognized Israel in 1949, opened its first mission the following year, and has never joined an Arab war against it. The Mavi Marmara rupture ended with normalization in 2016; ambassadors returned in 2022. The governments repeatedly reopened channels after diplomatic ruptures.
Reducing Turkish policy to “Erdogan wants” is also poor analysis. Erdogan is plainly the decisive authority, yet his rhetoric alone does not explain policy. Hakan Fidan’s Foreign Ministry, Ibrahim Kalın’s intelligence service, and the armed forces translate political direction into action under pressure from refugee politics, the PKK conflict, and a strained economy.
Turkey arms Ukraine while trading with and competing against Russia. It uses NATO for leverage while courting the EU, maintaining channels to Hamas, and creating the Mecca Alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The point of all of this is solely to preserve Turkish freedom of maneuver and maximize strategic opportunities.
Ankara increasingly views Israel’s defense ties with Greece and Cyprus as an attempt at Turkish containment. Turkish officials also suspect Israel of using Syrian Kurdish groups as leverage, even as the PKK disarms and Damascus presses the SDF to integrate. Palestine still poisons the relationship, but no longer fully explains it. In this broader strategic context, Abu al-Duhur will only strengthen Ankara’s view of Israel as a military competitor in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.
Avoiding escalation
In this dispute, any talk of NATO is largely a red herring. Article 5 does not apply to Turkish ground forces simply because they are Turkish; Syria lies outside the treaty’s geographical scope. Article 4 consultations remain possible, but there is no automatic path to war. The treaty only becomes directly relevant if Israel attacks Turkey itself or Turkish aircraft and vessels in the Mediterranean. Israel has no strategic reason to strike Turkish soil. Doing so would be insanity.
Israel has air superiority, but air strikes cannot remove Turkey’s geographical weight in Syria or install a friendlier government in Ankara. Destroying Turkish radar or air defense systems might buy temporary Israeli freedom of action but would encourage Ankara to harden its position, and prompt Damascus to become more hostile. Israel needs a direct military channel to Ankara and precise red lines around the systems and locations that demonstrably threaten its aircraft, agreed before either air force launches.
A conflict with Turkey in Syria would create chaos, offering Tehran and Moscow a route back while likely leaving Turkish power firmly in place. Netanyahu and Katz bombed Abu al-Duhur to make a point, but raised the risk of escalation.
Ignore the poorly informed hysteria over Ankara. Israel spent years dismantling Iran’s position in Syria; replacing it with a permanent conflict with Turkey would be strategic lunacy.■
The writer is a former British Army officer, senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, and cohost of The Brink podcast.