Turkey’s increasingly unscrupulous motives behind the arrest warrant for Netanyahu

The government in Ankara has announced that it has issued an international arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and another Israeli citizen, Afek Moskovich. The Turkish Minister of Justice, Akin Gurlek, explained that the decision was taken as part of an investigation into the interception of the Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza and the detention of the activists on board. This is the surface-level story: Turkey is joining the chorus of international accusations against Israel.

Then there is the hidden agenda – what really matters to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: maintaining domestic support by condemning Israel and seeking supremacy over Israel in the Middle East. Turkey is home to members of Hamas and much of Hamas’s business. After 7 October, the president, who had previously invested in relations with Israel, completely changed his stance so as not to lose public support. Relations between Ankara and Jerusalem have deteriorated recently, particularly with regard to Syria, where Turkey has become the de facto patron of Ahmad al-Sharaa’s new regime – a patronage that is primarily military in nature.

In Israel, there is a rule: confront the enemy outside your borders before they enter your territory. And it is this rule that guides Israel’s actions in Syria, where, this week, it struck the runway and depots at the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib province, 60 kilometres from the Turkish border. It was a message to Turkey, which has troops and equipment stationed in Syria. Furthermore, according to Israeli sources, the base may be situated near a route used by Israeli aircraft to fly towards Iran. Jerusalem cannot allow its capacity for action to be compromised, especially in a context where Erdogan has long since drawn closer to the regime in Tehran. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani has said that Damascus is willing to re-establish relations with Tehran, provided the regime acknowledges its role in supporting Assad. It is hard not to see Erdogan’s plan against Israel behind this move.