{"id":23178,"date":"2020-06-11T09:24:27","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T09:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kedisa.gr\/israel-and-turkey-rebuilding-ties\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T22:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T22:31:05","slug":"israel-and-turkey-rebuilding-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kedisa.gr\/en\/israel-and-turkey-rebuilding-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel and Turkey rebuilding ties?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Giovanni Giacalone, Analyst KEDISA<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Israel and Turkey seem to be rebuilding ties after the diplomatic crisis that hit the two Middle Eastern countries following the 2008\/2009 Israeli operations in Gaza and the Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010.<\/p>\n

In December 2015 the two States initiated talks to restore diplomatic ties, but the Israeli support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, disagreements over energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean and the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018, with the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in Turkey, only prevented the achievement of any type of agreement. In a few words, the times when Israeli and Turkish military trained together seem today quite far.<\/p>\n

The energy deal in the Eastern Mediterranean<\/strong><\/p>\n

Officially, Israel is a partner in the EastMed pipeline project alongside Egypt, Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, in contrast to the Turkey-TRNC project, issued in December 2019 between Erdogan and the GNC leader, Fayez al-Serraj, with the objective of spreading Turkish sea hegemony all the way to Libya. An agreement strongly criticized by Egypt, France, Greece, Cyprus, the UAE, and Eastern Libya\u2019s LNA.<\/p>\n

An article of the Middle-East Eye<\/a> indicated how Israel did not sign the statement signed in mid-May by the anti-Ankara coalition, denouncing and condemning Turkish expansionism in the Eastern Mediterranean. The article also pointed out how Israel publicly stated its pride for Israeli-Turkish relations, confirming the membership in the Eastern Med Gas Forum but denying being part of the coalition formed by the countries previously cited, depicting it as related to the Libyan crisis.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s position on the issue raised questions about what is really going on and Turkish social media rumors about a meeting between Israeli and Turkish officials in order to close a delimitation deal between the two countries, similar to the one closed between Ankara and Tripoli, only contributed to more confusion. However, this story did not find any official confirmation.<\/p>\n

The common enemy in Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel and Turkey have an additional shared interest and that is the fight against Hizbullah in Syria. As a matter of fact, the Iranian proxy is not only Israel\u2019s arch enemy, but it also confronts Turkish troops and jihadist fighters in Syria. Bashar al-Assad and his government forces are in fact contrasted by both Israel and Turkey, as Israeli Airforce raids on Syrian soil have shown on several occasions.<\/p>\n

In addition, former Israeli army General Gadi Eisenkot has recently admitted<\/a> that Israel provided weapons to Syrian rebels in order to help them overthrow Bashar al-Assad\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

It is undeniable that the Iranian corridor that runs through Iraq and Syria, all the way to Lebanon, is a threat for Israel\u2019s security and as a consequence the Jewish State is propense to improve its relations with Turkey; a move that is supported by US envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, who is extremely pro-Turkey and anti-Assad and who has made some embarrassing statements in February, regarding the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham (former Jabhat al-Nusra), claiming<\/a> that \u201cit was possible to consider Hayat Tahrir al-Sham not a terrorist organization as such and that it would be possible under certain circumstances to enter into a dialogue with it since the organization hadn\u2019t conducted attacks outside of Syrian borders\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recently, Jeffrey welcomed<\/a> Turkey\u2019s new efforts against HTS in northern Syria: \u201cWe hope to see the Turks continue to put pressure on the terrorist organizations there, the most powerful of them Hayat Tahrir al Sham\u201d.<\/p>\n

Erdogan might be the real problem to a Turkish-NATO\/Israeli deal<\/strong><\/p>\n

The old strategy \u201cthe enemy of my enemy is my friend\u201d still seems to be working in this case, but is such a vision appropriate? There are three factors that must be kept well in mind:<\/p>\n