By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Coming Clash Over Syria Israel and Turkey Is on a Collision Course

In December, a consortium of rebel factions led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham unexpectedly toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for five decades. The new regime in Damascus inherited a country ruined by a 13-year civil war. HTS’s leader, Ahmed al-Shara, has taken charge of Syria, and foreign powers are hoping to steer his behavior. Two of the country’s neighbors, Israel and Turkey, have taken advantage of the power vacuum by establishing a presence there—and have already begun to butt heads.

Turkey has emerged as the dominant military power in Syria. Since 2019, HTS has held Idlib in Syria’s northwest, and for years, Ankara indirectly assisted it by operating a buffer zone in northern Syria that protected the group from Assad’s forces. Now Turkey wants even more influence in Syria so it can quash Kurds’ hope for autonomy, which flourished in the chaos of the civil war, and engineer the return of the three million Syrian refugees living in Turkey. 

Yet Israel wants more influence in Syria, too. Although it signed a U.S.-brokered disengagement agreement with Syria in 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Assad aligned closely in recent decades with Iran, Israel’s chief adversary. Under his rule, Syria served as a critical corridor for the flow of Iranian rockets and other weapons to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, aggravating tensions with Israel.

Given this decades-long enmity, Israeli leaders viewed Assad’s ouster as a strategic windfall and are racing to take advantage of his removal by establishing buffer zones and informal spheres of influence in southern Syria. Israel is particularly concerned by Turkey’s presence in the country because it fears that Ankara will encourage Syria to harbor anti-Israeli militants. Turkey has tried to spread political Islam and has a history of antagonism toward Israel. In his Eid holiday greeting on March 30, for instance, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “May Allah destroy Zionist Israel.”

Israeli leaders increasingly worry that Turkey’s ambitions in Syria extend beyond the Turkish-Syrian border into the interior of the country. On April 2, Israel bombed several Syrian military sites, including the Tiyas air base, known as T4, to prevent Ankara from establishing air defenses there. Israel cares deeply about its neighbors’ skies. Last October, it launched an airstrike against Iran that traveled through Syrian airspace.

Although Israel’s security concerns are legitimate, it should do what it can to avoid military confrontation with Turkey. Israel must ensure that its relationship with Ankara does not become a casualty of its rush to harden its military position in Syria. With its forces spread thin and its international reputation at its nadir, the last thing Israel needs is a new enemy.

 

Buffers And Bluster

During the 1990s, amid hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace, Israel enjoyed close relations with Turkey. But their relationship deteriorated as both countries became less secular. In 2010, for example, the Israeli military killed nine civilian activists and wounded 30—one of whom later died—when it intercepted a Turkish ship that tried break its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, causing Turkey to downgrade diplomatic ties. Turkey has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Last May, to protest Israel’s operations in the strip, Erdogan announced a ban on trade with the country. Israelis, meanwhile, accuse Ankara of letting leaders of the militant Palestinian organization Hamas, such as Saleh Arouri, a former deputy head of the group’s political bureau, plan attacks against Israel from Turkish soil. Yet for all their differences, neither Turkey nor Israel wants Iranian influence to return to Syria.

Turkey is clearly the power behind the new Syrian regime, largely because of its long-standing ties to HTS, and has helped Syria’s new leaders plan for reconstruction. Ankara also appears to be pursuing a defense pact with Syria that would expand Turkey’s influence, currently concentrated in the north, to the rest of the country.

Israel is deeply alarmed by this trajectory. Two competing schools of thought have emerged on how to manage relations with Syria’s new regime. One set of Israeli officials holds that Israel should try working with Shara before deciding that he is an enemy. But another set, which includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believes that a moderate, centralized Syrian government is unlikely to emerge under Sunni Islamist leadership and that Israel should prepare itself for hostility by establishing informal spheres of influence.

After Assad fled Damascus in December, Israel captured a buffer zone in southwestern Syria, adjacent to the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Since December, Israel has bombed hundreds of Syrian military sites that it fears will be used by Syria’s new government. And on March 11, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israeli forces would stay in Syria for “an indefinite period” to protect communities in northern Israel.

 

Neighborhood Watch

Israel’s incursion into Syria seems to be driven in part by a desire to avoid repeating mistakes that culminated in the devastating attacks of October 7, 2023. Israeli leaders now see buffer zones as essential and hope to actively shape neighboring countries’ security environments rather than merely react to developments. The October 7 catastrophe has also led them to be wary of working with Islamists of any stripe. For years, Israel tolerated the presence of Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza. Sinwar cultivated a reputation as a sometime pragmatist by keeping his distance from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a more militant terror group, and allowing a number of Gazans to work inside Israel. But ultimately, Sinwar orchestrated the deadliest attack Israel has ever suffered.

The lesson that Israeli officials appear to have taken is that they cannot tolerate any jihadists near their borders. After Syrian forces clashed with pro-Assad Alawite insurgents in March, resulting in several hundred deaths, Katz said that Shara had “taken off the mask and exposed his true face: a jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school.” Although Shara has jihadist roots—HTS began as an offshoot of al-Qaeda— he has publicly renounced extremism, stating that he does not seek confrontation with Israel. But the Israeli leaders who expect an adversarial regime to consolidate in Damascus believe that Shara will say anything to get sanctions relief. They fear he will change his tune after he improves Syria’s dire economic conditions..

Yet October 7 is only part of the story. Netanyahu has also said that his strategy is driven by a wish to protect the Druze religious minority in southern Syria. Last week, over 100 Syrians died in clashes between Sunni Islamist fighters and Druze gunmen. On May 2, Israel bombed Damascus; Netanyahu and Katz declared that they would “not allow forces to be sent south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community.”

Israel’s approach to Syria is also influenced by concern about the durability of the U.S. military’s presence in the country. On December 8, the incoming President Donald Trump declared that “Syria is a mess” and that “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.” On April 18, the U.S. government announced that it would reduce the number of troops it has stationed in eastern Syria from around 2,000 to under 1,000. Israel fears that U.S. disengagement will allow Turkey to become more dominant in northern Syria—and possibly beyond.

A Family in Damascus, Syria, December 2024

 

Jaw-Jaw

But Israel should take care to avoid turning Turkey or Syria into an enemy and leave room for dialogue. It is valid for Israeli leaders to want to learn lessons from the strategic failures of October 7, but they have to balance security considerations with a long-term strategy. Israel might set clear benchmarks for Shara’s government on how it treats minorities and addresses issues such as weapons smuggling and chemical weapons disposal. If these benchmarks are met, Israel could then consider calling upon the United States and European countries to ease sanctions on Syria. Israel might also encourage European and Gulf states to invest there. Further, Israel should state explicitly that it has no territorial claims over Syria and that its buffer zone will be temporary, as long as the new government meets certain standards. An ongoing Israeli presence in Syria would strengthen the case of Israel’s adversaries, who claim that Israel is an occupier.

Israel’s relationship with the new Syrian government is crucial, but even more pressing is its relationship with Turkey. Both countries are U.S. allies with potent military capabilities. The Israeli bombing of T4 was a glaring reminder of how quickly things can escalate. The two countries should consider establishing red lines. At a minimum, they should agree to operate within different zones of influence in Syria so they can avoid hostilities.

Trump is confident than he can improve Israeli-Turkish ties and has told Netanyahu he has a “very good relationship with Turkey and with their leader.” Trump should dissuade Erdogan from deploying air defenses in Syria. Trump could also help Israel and Turkey find ways to deconflict. They might, for example, cooperate in countering Iranian influence and weapons smuggling.

Israel must use its defense and intelligence channels to communicate with Turkey and back channels to talk with the Syrians. So far, there has been at least one publicly confirmed meeting between Israeli and Turkish officials, which took place in April in Azerbaijan. Turkey and Israel should build on this dialogue, especially because both say they do not want a military confrontation with each other. Israel’s goal should be to assert legitimate security concerns without antagonizing Ankara or Damascus. This balancing act is especially important during Syria’s extraordinary period of flux. The new regime has not yet cemented its control over the country, and its political positions seem malleable. At this stunning moment in history, after the weakening of their mutual enemy Iran, Israel and Turkey should be striving to craft a mutually beneficial new regional order, not coming to blows.

 

 

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