Turkey Sees What the IDF Has Done in Syria, and Has Chosen Prudence

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hothead and antisemite who rules Turkey with an iron fist, often issues bloodcurdling threats to the Jewish state. Two years ago, he was suggesting that Turkey would be willing to lead an all-Muslim army that would be able to crush Israel. In the last week, he prayed publicly to Allah to “destroy and devastate” the Zionists. But “the Zionists” — that is, the Jews of Israel — have sloughed off his attempts to scare them. The IDF has been relentlessly attacking military sites in Syria, which is now run by the victorious rebels, including those belonging to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS was for years supported by Turkey, and Turkey continues to support the group and its leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the leader of Syria’s provisional government. In return, those now holding sway in Damascus have not raised any objections to Turkey setting up military outposts in northeast Syria, where its troops intend to hold in check the Kurdish military forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces and, especially, to make sure the Kurds in Syria do not link up with the Kurds in Turkey.

While Erdogan has prayed on the last day of Ramadan at the largest mosque in Istanbul “May Allah destroy and devastate the Zionist state,” his foreign minister Hakan Firdan has adopted a softer tone. After all, he does not want to provide Israel with an excuse to target Turkish forces in Syria. Unlike Erdogan, he is realistic about the relative military strengths of Israel and Turkey. More on his remarks about the Israeli attacks on military assets in Syria can be found here: “Turkey wants no confrontation with Israel in Syria, foreign minister says,” Reuters, April 4, 2025:

Turkey wants no confrontation with Israel in Syria after repeated Israeli attacks on military sites there undermined the new government’s ability to deter threats, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Friday.

Of course Turkey wants “no confrontation with Israel.” The IDF has managed to devastate Hamas as a fighting force in Gaza, forced Hezbollah in Lebanon to pull back its operatives north of the Litani River, decapitated the leaders of both the military and political wings of Hamas and Hezbollah, and destroyed at least 80% of the weaponry left by Bashar Assad’s army when his regime fell and he fled to Russia.

In an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Fidan said Israel’s actions in Syria – where the administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa is a close Turkish ally – were paving the way for future regional instability….

Actually, Israel is not causing “instability” in Syria. Quite the reverse. By destroying huge quantities of arms left by Assad, Israel is essentially making it very difficult for the provisional government of jihadists, whose de facto ruler is Ahmad al-Sharaa, to threaten the Alawites, the Kurds, the Druze, or to force their militias to submit to being incorporated into the national army. Israel is a force for “stability” merely by its “demilitarizing” so much of the country.

It is Turkey that is currently the greatest source of “instability” in Syria. The Turks have set up bases in the northeast of the country, near where the Kurds hold sway, in order to thwart any efforts by them to attain more autonomy or worse still, to link up with the millions of Kurds in Turkey. It is the Turkish threat to the country’s largest minority that has lead to instability in post-Assad Syria. And as the military supporter of the jihadist regime, Turkey also makes more likely attacks by Sunni jihadists, belonging both to militias and to the national army, on the Alawites and the Druze, both of them regarded as heretics by Sunni jihadists.

Israel’s aim is clear: it is trying to destroy, by means of these unending preemptive strikes, as many weapons as possible, of those left by Assad’s army, that might otherwise be appropriated by the jihadists who now run Syria, and used at some future date against Israel. Turkey wants to turn Syria, as Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Defense Minister Israel Katz have both said, into a “protectorate” of Turkey. It has already established some military outposts, and has made plans to completely take over the strategically placed T-4 airbase. Israel’s latest attacks focused on destroying several airbases that the Syrians were about to take over, including the T-4 base. The IAF airstrikes “completely demolished” the airbase at Hama and put out of commission the airbase at Homs. Furthermore, the IAF destroyed a mysterious “scientific research facility” near Damascus, that may have been conducting research on chemical and biological weapons.

Asked about US President Donald Trump’s threats of military strikes against Iran, Fidan said diplomacy was needed to resolve the dispute and that Ankara did not want to see any attack taking place against its neighbor Iran.

Notice that Hakan Fidan at no time threatens to retaliate for these Israeli airstrikes that have done so much damage to Syria’s military and thwarted Turkey’s plan to take over two airbases in Homs and Hama for immediate use. He doesn’t want to make any threats that could prompt Israel to directly strike at Turkish military targets in Syria. Unlike Erdogan, Fidan won’t invoke Allah or call upon him to destroy the “Zionists.” Instead, he mildly suggests that the Syrian government can make its own arrangements or understandings with Israel — “It’s for them to decide,” according to Foreign Minister Hakan Firdan. Israel’s relentless and highly successful attacks on Syrian weapons warehouses and on its airbases have shown him that whatever Erdogan may think, Turkey is in no position to take on the Zionists.