Israel has made it clear that Turkey is on its crosshairs. Former Israeli prime minister, Naftalli Bennett, said recently:

“A new Turkish threat is emerging,” Bennett said. “We must act in different ways, but simultaneously against the threat from Tehran and against the hostility from Ankara.”

As a response to the American-Israeli attack on Iran, the former prime minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, declared:

“Those who remain silent about the attacks against Iran, using the logic of ‘let the snake that doesn’t touch me live a thousand years,’ should realize that everyone will be next”

Turkey is saying: we are next. The Israeli aggression is happening against Iran, risking massive instability boiling over across the border into Turkey. Turkey will be put into a corner and left with a choice: do we do nothing and let the Israelis further dominate and destabilize the region, or do we fight Israel? The Turks will choose the latter. They are a rising power, are a major ally to the US, are developing their own military industrial complex and have expanded their influence into Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and are expanding their influence into the Central Asian Turkic nations. In order to show that they are a rising power and not a victim, the Turks will have no choice but to clash with the Israelis. Iran is Turkey’s only direct land route into Central Asia, and in its aspiration to establish a pan-Turkic bloc (consisting of the Central Asian Turkic countries and Azerbaijan led by Ankara), Turkey cannot allow its only land route into Central Asia to be destabilized and dominated by Israel. Moreover, Israel is trying to control Syria and is trying to push Turkey out of that country. Turkey sees Syria as part of its sphere of influence; part of its mission of becoming the Neo-Ottoman Empire is to control Syria, and thus it will not allow Israel to dominate Syria without a fight. Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler gave a warning to Israel about Syria, saying:

“The decision to withdraw from those areas will be made by the Republic of Turkey. We don’t care what others say … We have no agenda for withdrawing or leaving those areas”

Netanyahu responded:

“Terrorist armies will no longer sit on our borders. We will not tolerate the presence of jihadists near [the borders]. The buffer zones, or demilitarized zones running a few kilometers deep along the country’s borders, are essential to reduce the risk of a ground invasion. And we insist on this. In light of all of this, the IDF remains in the buffer zones in Lebanon and Syria”

So both Israel and Turkey are saying that they refuse to leave Syria. They are both vying over Syria and cannot both be the dominate power in Syria at the same time. Thus, a Turkish-Israeli clash is inevitable. Murad Sadygzade wrote an article for RT talking about how Turkey is being pulled into this conflict in Iran:

Ankara sees in the current war not only an attempt to break Iran, but also preparation for the next round of pressure directed toward the Turkish vector. For the Turkish leadership, this means something very simple. In Israeli strategic logic, the defeat of Iran does not conclude the chain of conflicts. It merely brings closer a new stage in the struggle for regional dominance, one in which Türkiye may become the next target.

That is precisely why Türkiye is doing several things at once. It condemns the strikes on Iran as violations of international law. It warns of the risk of regional and even global destabilization. It underscores the threat to civilians and to regional stability. It seeks to launch mediation formats and keep diplomatic channels from collapsing altogether. And finally, it is strengthening its own defensive preparedness, because it already understands that if the conflict continues, Turkish territory, the Turkish economy, and Turkish strategic interests will come under direct pressure. In this sense, Turkish policy is not contradictory, but consistently pragmatic. Ankara’s condemnation of the Israeli-American campaign against Iran is fully compatible with its determination not to be drawn into this war and not to allow it to cross onto its own territory.

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Türkiye understands that, in the event of further escalation, it will no longer be possible to separate the military front clearly from the economic one. War will immediately turn into surging energy prices, disruptions to logistics, investor anxiety, weakening currencies, rising security expenditures, blows to exports and tourism, and ultimately heightened social unease within the states of the region.

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And so today Ankara is telling the world something very simple, yet profoundly important. War against Iran will not bring pacification to the Middle East. It will bring the collapse of existing restraints, new front lines, new economic shocks, and a new logic of endless escalation. And once Iran disappears as a major restraining center, the next phase of regional repartition will inevitably draw closer to Türkiye – first to its interests, then to its positions, and in the worst case to its security itself.

Turkey does not want to be the next victim of Israel, and thus a Turko-Israeli war is inevitable.