On 29 August, Turkey took the decision to bar Israeli ships from docking in Turkish ports, closing its airspace to Israeli aircraft. The move follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official recognition, two days earlier, of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, making him the first Israeli prime minister to do so.
Relations between the two sides have steadily deteriorated since Israel launched its assault against the Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023. On several occasions, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described Israeli actions in Gaza as a genocide and called for zero tolerance of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. Turkish criticism of Israel grew harsher following Tel Aviv’s decision to re-occupy the entirety of the Gaza Strip while escalating its land confiscation and settlement policies in the West Bank.
In turn, the Israeli invective against Turkey grew increasingly strident in response to Ankara’s condemnations of its actions. On 30 March 2025, Israel’s foreign minister called Erdoğan a dictator and a threat to the region and his own people. The following day, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen attacked Erdoğan, calling him “ungrateful and antisemitic,” adding, “his regime will fall.”
Shortly before this, on 10 March, Tel Aviv called on NATO to expel Turkey from the transatlantic alliance, citing Turkish “obstructionism.” Turkey had just blocked Israel’s participation in NATO’s annual “Resilience and Emergency Preparedness” exercise. Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Ankara has repeatedly used its veto to bar all engagements between the trans-Atlantic alliance and Israel. In a press conference following the NATO Summit in July 2024, Erdoğan held that attempts within NATO to foster cooperation with Israel were “unacceptable” as Israel “has trampled on the fundamental values of our alliance.”
Developments in Syria since the fall of the Al-Assad regime in December 2024 have also been a source of mounting Turkish-Israeli tensions. On 1 April 2025, the Israeli media reiterated its concerns about possible Turkish moves to establish military bases in the Palmyra area of central Syria. Meanwhile, calls in Israel to support and promote the cause of Syria’s Kurds have provoked Turkish ire.
Turkey adamantly opposes any form of Kurdish autonomy in northern and northeastern Syria. However, reports and analyses by Israeli strategists suggest that strengthening Kurdish self-rule and other groups hostile to pro-Turkish militias could help neutralise Turkey’s presence in Syria and prevent Ankara from consolidating control along Syria’s border with Israel. In addition, backing a Kurdish counterweight to Turkey and Turkish-backed forces in Syria would help secure Israel’s control over the broader Golan Heights and other Syrian territories it has seized since the fall of Al-Assad.
While some observers have characterised Ankara’s ban on trade with Israel and Israeli access to Turkish ports and airspace as a direct response to Israeli’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide, others maintain that the timing is purely coincidental. They point to statements by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, explicitly linking his government’s actions to the situation in Gaza. Israel has been “committing genocide in Gaza for the past two years, ignoring basic humanitarian values right before the world’s eyes,” he said on 29 August at an extraordinary session of the Turkish Parliament on Gaza.
They also argue that Netanyahu’s recognition of the massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire 110 years ago as a genocide was merely another of his cynical attempts to deflect attention from the genocide in Gaza. They point up the fact that, for decades, Israel and pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US had opposed congressional efforts to promote official US recognition of the Armenian Genocide. It was not until 2021 that concerns related to souring US-Turkish relations overrode the lobbies’ pressures.
Despite the growing acrimony between the two countries, a complete severing of relations seems unlikely. In fact, some assessments suggest that Ankara and Tel Aviv might reach a compromise allowing their higher mutual interests to prevail over their current hostility over the situation in Gaza and Syria.
Several factors support this possibility. First, Washington is keen to mend the rift between Tel Aviv and Ankara, both of which are strategic US allies. If the US relationship with Israel is much closer, multi-layered and often described as “special,” Turkey has become increasingly important to the Trump administration against the backdrop of strained US-European relations, efforts to end the war in Ukraine, and plans for Syria in which Washington views Turkey as a stabilising force capable of helping to secure US interests.
Second, parties in both Turkey and Israel, especially in economic and investment sectors, are urging their governments to overcome political disputes and prioritise common interests. They argue that the economic difficulties faced by both sides require them to promote their bilateral relations. Indeed, despite Turkey’s May 2024 ban on exporting goods to Israel, trade has reportedly continued informally through intermediaries, with the tacit approval of both governments. Between January and May 2025, bilateral trade amounted to about $393 million.
Third, the two countries are tied together by joint energy projects. For example, Israel receives Azerbaijani oil via Turkey through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline.
Fourth, both sides understand how costly a full-fledged political and economic confrontation would be.
These factors strengthen the likelihood that the two countries will — with US mediation — try to defuse tensions or at least keep their disputes from escalating to the brink. It is noteworthy in this context that Nail Olpak, head of Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board, has indicated that trade with Israel may resume if a lasting peace in Gaza is achieved. His statement to this effect on 21 January 2025 was seen by some analysts as a significant shift and a signal of possible understandings or limited strategic agreements in the near future.
Therefore, while strained relations persist, moves and countermoves in the context of Gaza and Syria may inflict painful losses for both sides, but the tensions will probably not reach the point of complete rupture. Similar episodes in the past have shown that, at a deeper level, both countries are eager to manage their disputes to keep them from spiralling out of control. Still, it cannot be denied that, amid sweeping geopolitical transformations in the Middle East, Turkish-Israeli relations are shifting in a profound way.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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