Turkey’s Military Buildup in Syria Worries Israel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seeks to establish a permanent military presence in Syria, where pro-Turkish Islamists have installed a new government after toppling former leader Bashar al-Assad. Israel, which views Turkey as a potentially greater threat than Iran, has carried out air strikes in Syria to prevent an expanded Turkish military presence from developing there. The rising tensions between Turkey and Israel are increasing the potential for armed conflict between the two rivals.

Following the overthrow of al-Assad in December 2024, Ankara has been negotiating a defense pact with Damascus that would allow Turkey to fill the regional power vacuum left by Russia and Iran, which were ejected from Syria when Ahmed al-Sharaa was installed as Syria’s new president in January. Turkey aims to gain control over Syrian military sites, including the Hama Air Base and the Tiyas Air Base (also known as T4). A Turkish presence at T4, Syria’s largest airbase, would give Ankara air dominance over a large part of the country.

Turkey says it wants to provide military protection for Syria’s new government, which currently lacks any functioning armed forces. Turkish forces would install air defense systems and deploy armed drones at the Syrian airbases. Such moves would reduce Israel’s freedom of action in Syrian airspace and complicate its efforts to eliminate security threats emanating from there. Israel has bombed those sites to signal that it opposes a Turkish military buildup in Syria. Israeli strikes at T4 destroyed the runway, control tower, and hangars; but the attack alone seems unlikely to prevent Turkey from expanding its influence in Syria.

If Ankara succeeds in its quest to dominate Syria, Israel and Turkey will effectively share a border along the strategically important Golan Heights, creating a significant security challenge for the Jewish state. During a recent visit to the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained Israel’s conundrum: “We’ve had neighborly relations with Turkey that have deteriorated, and we don’t want to see Syria being used by anyone, including Turkey, as a base for attack against Israel.”

Turkish-Israeli relations markedly worsened after October 2023, when the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis. Since then, Erdoğan, an avowed supporter of Hamas, has spewed anti-Israel rhetoric relentlessly. At a mosque in Istanbul, he recently prayed for Israel’s destruction. “May Allah, for the sake of his name ‘Al-Qahhar,’ destroy and devastate Zionist Israel,” he said while condemning Israel’s military operations against Hamas in Gaza. In Islam, Al-Qahhar is one of the Arabic names of Allah and can be translated as “conqueror,” “vanquisher,” or “subduer.”

Erdoğan has also made increasingly provocative statements in which he seems to indicate that he wants to occupy Israeli territory that once was controlled by the former Ottoman Empire. During a speech commemorating the 110th anniversary of the beginning of the World War I Battle of Gallipoli, Erdoğan delineated “the four corners” of Turkey’s “spiritual geography,” which he said stretches from “Syria to Gaza, from Aleppo to Tabriz, from Mosul to Jerusalem.” He previously claimed that “Jerusalem is our city” because it was under Ottoman control for four centuries (1517—1917).

Erdoğan openly expresses his desire to restore the Ottoman Caliphate and position himself as leader of the Sunni Islamic world. Controlling Syria would bring that dream one step closer to reality.

Soeren Kern is a geopolitical analyst and managing editor of The Christian Worldview Journal.