In September 2023, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met face to face for the first time. They decided that Netanyahu would visit Turkey, after which Erdogan would come to Israel in a reciprocal visit. The events of October 7 and their aftermath have changed this positive trend and caused Turkey-Israel relations to regress. Relations are now once again in crisis, as the situation had been for most of the last decade.
Similar to other countries in the region, Turkey has voiced harsh criticism of Israel. Humanitarian aid intended to reach Gaza via Egypt was sent, there were stormy demonstrations near the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, the Turkish parliament issued a joint declaration against Israel signed by all the parties in the parliament, three days of mourning were announced in Turkey, the Turkish media were active partners in spreading messages coming out of Gaza, and there are serious expressions of antisemitism on Turkish social media. In addition, a travel warning was issued in Israel by the National Security Council for all Israelis to leave Turkey immediately (level 4 – the highest level of travel warning). In future investigations on what happened on October 7, presumably much important material will be uncovered regarding the activities of Hamas from Turkish territory as part of the factors that made the deadly attack possible.
While many of the Turkish reactions have also surfaced in previous rounds of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, at the present time attention should be paid to the wide-ranging diplomatic activity of the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan. Turkey even took steps to be involved in the activity for the release of the kidnapped Israelis. In particular, the current thaw in Turkish-Egyptian relations allows Turkey to wield more influence than before on the responses of regional states to the events. Fidan has even called for the establishment of an interstate guarantee mechanism for the Palestinians (guarantorship), when the very idea of raising it can be interpreted as stemming from the recognition of Israel's weakness. The Turkish response to events is also accompanied by criticism of US President Joe Biden, with the American reaction seen as automatically pro-Israeli and harmful. It is interpreted as giving Israel the green light for widespread bloodshed in Gaza and not as an action whose main purpose is to deter Iran and Hezbollah from deteriorating into a regional war. This negative view joins the suspicion that existed even earlier toward Washington (just recently, on October 5, a Turkish drone was shot down by US forces in northeastern Syria), and thus the crisis between Turkey and the United States also fuels some of the negative Turkish reactions to what is underway in Gaza.
In September 2023, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met face to face for the first time. They decided that Netanyahu would visit Turkey, after which Erdogan would come to Israel in a reciprocal visit. The events of October 7 and their aftermath have changed this positive trend and caused Turkey-Israel relations to regress. Relations are now once again in crisis, as the situation had been for most of the last decade.
Similar to other countries in the region, Turkey has voiced harsh criticism of Israel. Humanitarian aid intended to reach Gaza via Egypt was sent, there were stormy demonstrations near the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, the Turkish parliament issued a joint declaration against Israel signed by all the parties in the parliament, three days of mourning were announced in Turkey, the Turkish media were active partners in spreading messages coming out of Gaza, and there are serious expressions of antisemitism on Turkish social media. In addition, a travel warning was issued in Israel by the National Security Council for all Israelis to leave Turkey immediately (level 4 – the highest level of travel warning). In future investigations on what happened on October 7, presumably much important material will be uncovered regarding the activities of Hamas from Turkish territory as part of the factors that made the deadly attack possible.
While many of the Turkish reactions have also surfaced in previous rounds of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, at the present time attention should be paid to the wide-ranging diplomatic activity of the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan. Turkey even took steps to be involved in the activity for the release of the kidnapped Israelis. In particular, the current thaw in Turkish-Egyptian relations allows Turkey to wield more influence than before on the responses of regional states to the events. Fidan has even called for the establishment of an interstate guarantee mechanism for the Palestinians (guarantorship), when the very idea of raising it can be interpreted as stemming from the recognition of Israel's weakness. The Turkish response to events is also accompanied by criticism of US President Joe Biden, with the American reaction seen as automatically pro-Israeli and harmful. It is interpreted as giving Israel the green light for widespread bloodshed in Gaza and not as an action whose main purpose is to deter Iran and Hezbollah from deteriorating into a regional war. This negative view joins the suspicion that existed even earlier toward Washington (just recently, on October 5, a Turkish drone was shot down by US forces in northeastern Syria), and thus the crisis between Turkey and the United States also fuels some of the negative Turkish reactions to what is underway in Gaza.