DANGER CLOSE: TÜRKIYE VS. ISRAEL WAR

Written by Michael Thervil

It seems as if Israel and Türkiye have been going at it back and forth since the beginning of this month. Just when you thought the situation in West Asia couldn’t get any worse, it looks like it just may have. Like the bully in west, America, Israel, the bully in West Asia just could resist the opportunity to cause even more chaos and devastation in the region again on April 5th when Israel executed what it calls a “strategic bombing campaign” on the airstrips of both the palmyra military base located in central Syria and it’s capital city of Damascus. There are several reasons Israel cited in their decision to strike first without warning. However, Israel may not be the only country in the mix looking out for their own self-interest as Türkiye has and still is doing the same.

It should be understood that Türkiye has close political ties with Syria as Türkiye has invited the new interim President Ahmed al-Shara former Sunni Terrorist and leader of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to Türkiye with an emphasis on not only fostering and strengthening diplomatic ties with Syria, but according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, wants to facilitate peace, prosperity, and security to Syria. Its sounds good as Syria has been essentially a wreck for a long time due to a multitude of reasons. But the secondary reason why President Erdoğan set out to build closer diplomatic ties with Syria was because he’s seeking to keep Kurdish Extremists both out of Türkiye and Syria.

This is truer now than ever as several months ago Kurdish Extremist launched a suicide bombing mission inside of Türkiye’s leading state ran aerospace faculties TUSAS. To read more about that situation click here. Speaking of Terrorists and Extremists, it should be known that Türkiye also has a good relationship with Hamas and senior leadership within its organization. This is proven by the fact that Türkiye invited the several leaders of Hamas to Türkiye for talks that appeared to have yielded positive results between the two.

There's also another reason why Türkiye has sought out to broker better diplomatic relations with President Ahmed al-Shara and that is to fulfill Erdoğan hopes to not only establish a neo-Ottoman Empire, but to expand it. Remember it was the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the first World War that ultimately led to the British and the Americans carving up real estate in the region for the creation of the state of Israel. Many geopolitical pundits and analysis suggest that it was because the carving up of real estate in the region is what has led to all the current chaos of destruction that the world sees today.

Türkiye also wants Syria to have a strong military that could defend itself against the rising number of ISIS fighters in the region – Türkiye longtime foe. To assist with this, Türkiye has already offered to send weapons to Syria. In return, Syria hopes to not only expand its influence in Syria and have Syria as a significant ally in the region, but to play a major role in the internal politics of Syria behind closed doors.

This brings us to Israel. From the perspective of the Israeli’s, Türkiye should not have any diplomatic ties with either Syria or the new interim president, but Syria should be partitioned or essentially broken up into sections where the Sunnis, Alawite, and the Kurds have their own “States”. As history has proven, statehood” in this region of the world simply does not work as the political context within this region of the world is too intricate and complex for a cookie cutter perspective to be applied.

Looking from the Israeli perspective, the reduction and boxing the Alawites into essentially a reservation simply will not because the Alawite are the majority in Syria. To reduce them to slightly less than 1/3 in Syria is to spark another war within the already war-torn country. Also keep in mind that the former President of Syria Bashar al-Assad was an Alawite as well and he still has a sizable number of loyal supporters in Syria. However, if you closely examine the Israeli perspective, it amounts to nothing more than the “divide and conquer” move that they have always played which has led to limited success on their end.

Israel also seeks to not only disarm Syria, but they seek to keep Syria disarmed for the foreseeable future in the indefinite because of national security concerns. The reason for this is because Israel fears the rearming of the various organizations such as “Hamas, Hezbollah, HTS, and others that are hostile to its presence in the region. With Israel ever expanding its presence in the region through the use of military force they also fear that their “settlements” would be attacked in retribution for their atrocities in the region with the same weapons Türkiye has given to Syria.

Israeli international condemnation and latest shortsighted bombing in Syria has done nothing more than accelerate and strengthen the diplomatic ties between Türkiye and Syria.