Over the weekend, Jewish and Israeli media reported on the tragic disappearance, and now confirmed death, of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Chabad emissary in Abu Dhabi. While the story is still in development, the suspected perpetrators, three Uzbek men in the employ of Iran, were captured in Turkey and extradited to the Emirates. What’s interesting is that the suspects were caught in Turkey, where they had apparently fled to avoid extradition. Likewise, there have been reports that Hamas’s remaining political leaders have also fled to Turkey after their expulsion from Qatar. The U.S. designated terror group’s presence in Qatar has long been controversial, especially as the gulf petrostate has long served America’s interests in the region and was designated a major U.S. non-NATO ally in 2022. But why Turkey—an actual NATO member—is offering succor to Hamas and other Iranian interests, both rhetorically and now materially, is a whole other question with implications on Turkey’s relationship with the West, the U.S. and Israel.
The relationship between the Republic of Turkey and the State of Israel in particular is a long and complicated one. Turkey was the second Muslim-majority nation to formally recognize Israel—the first being Iran, but that’s another story—a consequence of the country’s longtime commitment to secularism derived from its idealistic foundations in the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. Until recently, in particular since Erdogan’s rise to national prominence in 2003, the relationship between the two states had been relatively warm, with robust military and economic ties—even today, Turkey has the largest Jewish population in the Muslim world. But in recent decades bilateral relations have soured, as both countries have become more religious and moved further to the right. This has taken the form not only of rhetorical vitriol—President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently went so far as to accuse Israel of having aims to invade Turkey—and material support for Hamas, but also more symbolic moves, like a recent Turkish decision to deny Israeli president Isaac Herzog use of its airspace on a trip to Azerbaijan.
Much of this diplomatic decay can be attributed to one man, Erdoğan, a charismatic leader who has transformed Turkey under the banner of his national conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP), an offshoot of the older Islamist Welfare Party. Originally the mayor of Istanbul, then prime minister (2003-2014), Erdoğan became president of Turkey in 2014 and swiftly remade the country’s institutional structure, transitioning the state away from its parliamentary roots and towards a more authoritarian presidential system with strong power invested in the executive. In turn Erdoğan dismantled much of Turkey’s institutional checks and balances, neutering parliament and the judiciary while silencing dissent and independent media. More recently, using the pretext of a failed coup attempt in 2016, Erdoğan’s government has sought to redo local elections, such as the 2019 Istanbul mayoral race, but popular majorities prevented it from overturning the election results.
It is in this context that Turkey has opened its doors to the political leadership of Hamas, just as the United States has pressured the Qataris to revoke the quarter the gulf state has long afforded the terrorist organization.
The first and perhaps most obvious reason for Turkey’s harboring of Hamas, and for Erdoğan’s vitriolic rhetoric when it comes to Israel, is political. Turkish public opinion has long been very much in favor of solidarity with the Palestinian people, notes Dan Arbell, a scholar-in-residence at the Center for Israel Studies at American University. “It’s not just a foreign policy issue,” says Arbell, “it’s domestic policy. It’s a tool that Erdoğan uses a lot in order to galvanize his base.” Despite public disdain for Israel, Turkey maintains diplomatic and economic ties with the Jewish state—although Erdoğan announced in November a cessation of diplomatic relations, a move the Israeli foreign ministry denies. And polls suggest Erdoğan has some reason to worry. Despite winning his previous reelection campaigns relatively easily, Erdoğan’s AKP party has been slipping in the polls to ultraconservative and Islamo-fascist parties to its right; the rhetoric towards Israel and harboring of Hamas may then be an attempt by Erdoğan to avoid being outflanked. Dutch Turkologist Erik Jan Zürcher, a professor at Leiden University and author of Turkey: A Modern History, notes Erdoğan’s pragmatic attitude where economic and military ties with Israel are concerned. This posture, says Zürcher, “has opened him up to fierce criticism from other Turkish Islamic parties that position themselves as successors to the Welfare Party and reject AKP’s pragmatism.”
If the motivation isn’t political, then perhaps it’s ideological. The Palestinian national cause remains a rallying cry for people across the Muslim world, and Turkey is no exception. Being anti-Israel and pro-Hamas could serve as a strong signal that Erdoğan is on the right side of the question. Likewise, Erdoğan’s AKP party shares some ideological common ground with Hamas and sees it as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. While the AKP disputes the claim that it is an Islamist party, due at least in part to Turkey’s historical devotion to secularism—the country’s constitutional court has banned overtly Islamist parties from standing for election in the past—its base is made up of conservative Muslim voters who may be more sympathetic to an Islamist political project. Just how much Erdoğan and the AKP’s leadership are driven by Islamist ideology is a matter of no small debate.
The impetus for Turkey’s harboring of Hamas political leadership may also be a means of political posturing, a type of signaling to the West and to NATO that Turkey is willing to assert its independence, even if that means poking its finger in Washington’s eye. “Erdogan’s ambition,” says Zürcher, is “to show that Turkey is an independent actor in the international arena and should not be taken for granted by the West.” Like its relationship with Israel, Turkey’s relationship with America, with Europe and with NATO has diminished in recent decades. Examples of this include Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria and its increasingly amicable relationship with Russia, actions demonstrating Turkey’s diverging interests from the United States and its increasing willingness to exhibit distance from its ally. Turkey’s harboring of Hamas could be just one more instance of this tendency.
Having established why Erdoğan has taken such controversial actions, the question remains how Israel will respond, and what the future relationship between the two countries will look like. Israel’s response to recent Turkish provocations have been more bark than bite. Back in July, then Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz called on NATO to expel Turkey over threats from Erdoğan to invade Israel. Likewise, current Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar suggested last month that Israel would strengthen its relationships with Kurdish groups in the region, a provocative statement given Turkey’s conflict with its Kurdish minority dating back to the state’s founding. But this, suggests Nimrod Goren, Senior Fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute, is mostly posturing. Turkish sanctions are already hurting the Israeli economy, and Turkish threats to block Azerbaijani oil deliveries to Israel via Turkey are deeply concerning to Israeli officials. Israel could still attempt to put pressure on Turkey via the new U.S. administration under Donald Trump, but, says Goren “Israel needs to practice professional and smart diplomacy, led by its career diplomats and involving behind-the-scenes work, rather than investing in populists threats and messages, which may appease a domestic audience but not impact diplomatic realities.”
Featured image: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (right) with Russian president Vladimir Putin (center) and former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani (left). Photo credit: Kremlin via Wikimedia (CC-BY-4.0).