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“There are only two of us left among the leaders. For now, it’s me and Vladimir Putin.” That was the unscrupulous verdict handed down by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last week.
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump may challenge the Turkish president’s world rankings. However, at the regional level, Erdoğan rightly claims to be one of the two powerful leaders reshaping the Middle East. His hated rival, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, is the other.
President Erdogan’s current arrogance stems from his role in Syria. Turkey was the only regional power to fully support Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that overthrew Assad. Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin visited Damascus a few days after HTS took power.
President Erdogan has long aspired to restore Turkish power across the territory of the former Ottoman Empire. For him, toppling Assad opens new avenues for regional influence. It could also bring domestic rewards — weakening Syria’s Kurds, easing Turkey’s refugee crisis and aiding his bid to remain president beyond 2028.
Turkey’s alliance with Islamist groups such as HTS and the Muslim Brotherhood is seen as a serious threat by Israel and the conservative Gulf monarchies. Israel moved to destroy Syria’s military, bombing Syria’s navy and air force and seizing territory beyond the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
The Israeli government described its move as precautionary and defensive. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu, like President Erdogan, is looking to the opportunities ahead. “Something tectonic has happened here, an earthquake that hasn’t happened in 100 years since the Sykes-Picot agreement,” he said in a speech last week. The reference to the 1916 Anglo-French agreement that divided the Ottoman Empire seems significant. As the Middle East descends into turmoil, supporters of Greater Israel see an opportunity to redraw the region’s borders. Alf Ben of Haaretz newspaper wrote that Netanyahu “appears to be aiming for his legacy as a leader who expanded Israel’s borders after 50 years of withdrawal.”
The settler movement, represented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, wants Israel to reoccupy parts of the Gaza Strip. The incoming Trump administration may give Israel permission to formally annex parts of the occupied West Bank. And the “temporary” occupation of Syrian land may become permanent.
Further afield, Netanyahu will likely see an opportunity for a final reckoning with Iran. The Islamic Republic is in its weakest position in decades. It faces domestic opposition and will be destabilized by the fall of Syria’s dictatorship. The Iranian government has seen its allies Hamas, Hezbollah, and now Assad decimated.
Iran may accelerate its acquisition of nuclear weapons in response to the loss of regional proxies. However, it could invite an attack by Israel. After the Netanyahu government’s successful attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon, against which the Biden administration had warned, Israelis are in a confident and radical mood.
Over the past year, Israel has demonstrated its ability to fight simultaneously on multiple fronts, including Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, and now Syria. Israel is also the only nuclear-armed state in the region and currently enjoys almost full support from the United States.
After the catastrophic attack by Hamas on October 7, it seemed unlikely that Prime Minister Netanyahu would go down in history as a successful leader. He has been controversial both domestically and internationally, and is currently on trial in Israel on corruption charges.
Like Erdogan, Netanyahu is a ruthless political survivor. Each seized power decades ago and considers themselves to be their destiny. But their dreams of regional domination suffer from similar weaknesses. Israel and Turkey are non-Arab powers in Arab-majority regions. There is no desire in the Arab world to recreate the Ottoman Empire. Israel remains an outsider in the Middle East, feared, mistrusted, and often hated.
Türkiye and Israel also have too weak economic bases to seriously aim for regional dominance. Türkiye’s economy is ravaged by inflation. Despite its technological and military prowess, Israel is a small country with a population of less than 10 million people.
The competing ambitions of President Erdogan and Prime Minister Netanyahu could easily collide in Syria. With Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states also staked their interests there, it risks becoming a battleground for competing regional powers.
Last week, as Turks celebrated the fall of Damascus and Israelis annihilated the Syrian army, Saudi Arabia celebrated a more peaceful outcome by being chosen to host the 2034 World Cup.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states probably feel more directly threatened by Turkey’s Islamist alliance than by Israel’s territorial ambitions. But Riyadh knows that Israel’s attack on Gaza has stunned much of the Arab world. Approaching Netanyahu to thwart Erdoğan would be controversial, especially if Israel simultaneously seeks to kill the possibility of a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
Israel and Turkey have powerful militaries. But Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have economic firepower. Whatever course Riyadh takes could shape the Middle East even more fundamentally than the actions of Erdogan and Netanyahu.
