{"id":2384,"date":"2025-01-20T08:34:52","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T07:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/?p=2384"},"modified":"2025-06-10T14:27:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T12:27:43","slug":"israel-prepares-for-aggression-from-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/israel-prepares-for-aggression-from-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel prepares for aggression from Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Israel prepares for aggression from Turkey<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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Israel must prepare for a potential war with Turkey, warned the Nagel Committee, which advises the Israeli government on defense budget and security strategy decisions.
\nTurkey played a crucial role in the rise of former al-Qaeda leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani to power in Syria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The threat from Turkey via Syria could develop into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat, according to a new Israeli report. Photo: Pickpik<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>he committee warned that Turkey\u2019s ambitions to restore the influence of the Ottoman Empire could lead to increased tensions with Israel, which could potentially escalate into conflict.
\nIsrael must prepare for a direct confrontation with Turkey, according to a report on defense budget and security strategy, reported the Jerusalem Post in early January.
\nThe report highlights the risk of Syrian factions aligning with Turkey, creating a new and serious threat to Israel\u2019s security.
\n\u201cThe threat from Syria could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat,\u201d the report noted, warning that Turkish-backed forces could act as proxies and fuel regional instability.
\nThe committee\u2019s assessment comes amid Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s increasingly aggressive rhetoric and power-play in the region.
\nThe Nagel committee submitted its recommendations to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, outlining a comprehensive strategy for dealing with new threats.
\nThe committee proposed increasing the defense budget by up to 45 billion kronor annually over the next five years to ensure that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is equipped to deal with the challenges posed by Turkey, along with other regional threats.
\nCommenting on the report, Netanyahu said: \u201cWe are witnessing fundamental changes in the Middle East. Iran has long been our greatest threat, but new powers are entering the arena and we must be prepared for the unexpected. This report gives us a roadmap to secure Israel\u2019s future,\u201d writes the Jerusalem Post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seeking a new relationship<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The foreign ministers of Germany and France said they wished to forge a new relationship with Syria and called for a peaceful transition when they met with Syria\u2019s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, in Damascus, early January, on behalf of the European Union.
\nDuring the visit, Syria\u2019s new leader greeted only the male French foreign minister, but refused to greet the female German foreign minister.
\nWestern governments have gradually begun to open up contacts with the Sunni Muslim group formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and have also begun discussing whether to remove the group\u2019s terrorist designation.
\nHowever, up to now, the West has not lifted sanctions on Syria under al-Assad or remove the terrorist designation from al-Golani\u2019s organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), although the United States recently canceled a $10 million reward it had previously offered for information about al-Golani.
\nSenior American diplomats who visited Damascus just before Christmas met with Syria\u2019s new leader and then decided to remove the reward.
\nWestern leaders also initially saw Syria\u2019s former president Bashar al-Assad, \u2013 accused of genocide -as a positive force in the Middle East. In 2002, he visited Britain, invited by Queen Elizabeth and the then future King Charles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wants to liberate the Levant<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Al-Golani\u2019s organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham means \u201cOrganization for the Liberation of the Levant\u201d where \u201cal-Sham\u201d is the Arabic term for Greater Syria (sometimes also translated as the Levant), which historically refers to the area that includes the modern countries of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus and parts of Turkey. The name can therefore be seen as a claim to larger areas outside of Syria.
\nFollowing Assad\u2019s fall, Israel has moved into a demilitarized zone in Syria established after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, including a strategic post on Mount Hermon overlooking Damascus. Israel says the move is temporary, to ensure border security while it carries out attacks on Syria\u2019s strategic weapons depots. Several Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, condemned Israel\u2019s actions.
\nTurkey strongly condemned Israel\u2019s military presence in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria. The Turkish Foreign Ministry accused Israel of displaying an \u201coccupational mentality\u201d and warned of further incursions. Turkish President Erdogan, who has himself occupied large parts of northeastern Syria since 2016, stressed support for Syria\u2019s territorial integrity and vowed to act against any threats to the country\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Established a safe zone<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Abu Mohammed al-Golani also complained to the UN that Israel had established a safe zone to protect against future attacks by the new rulers in Syria, despite the fact that al-Golani himself \u2013 with the help of Turkey \u2013 had for years occupied nearly 9,000 square kilometers (which corresponds to more than a third of Israel\u2019s area) of northeastern Syria, which made the conquest of Syria possible.
\nIt was in practice Turkey\u2019s long-standing occupation of northeastern Syria that made the conquest of Syria by the former al-Qaeda fighters possible.
\nAnother prerequisite was that Turkey, Russia and Iran deliberately let al-Assad fall from power through direct and indirect support for the jihadists with a background in al-Qaeda. On the same day that Assad fell, the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Qatar to coordinate their response-actions.
\nIn mid-December, al-Golani also criticized Israel for \u201cunjustified escalation\u201d after Israel\u2019s airstrikes in Syria, a large-scale operation against over 350 sites across the country to neutralize Assad\u2019s military assets so that they would not fall into the hands of the new regime.
\nIn mid-December, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed that he never intentionally fled to Russia. In a post on Telegram, Assad claimed that he only left the capital on December 8 to meet with Russian forces in Latakia province \u201cto monitor combat operations\u201d as Syrian rebels stormed Damascus. In the midst of the attack, Assad wrote, he was forced to evacuate along with Russian troops, who took him to Moscow. This incident confirms the close coordination that existed between Turkey, Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erdogan helped former al-Qaeda leader to power in Syria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-did-you-know"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2384"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3508,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384\/revisions\/3508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}