Zman Yisrael

By Pinhas Inbari

The problem with the recent Israeli Air Force strike on the airbase in northern Syria isn't necessarily the strike itself. On the merits, there may well have been a need for it. The problem arose when the Prime Minister's Bureau immediately engineered it for political purposes.

The problem arose when the Prime Minister himself, Benjamin Netanyahu, provoked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, giving him a “don't” — as though he were U.S. President Joe Biden mobilizing the fleets of the world's mightiest power to deter Syria and Iran from attacking Israel after the Gaza-envelope massacre.

Facing the U.S. fleets was a rather feeble strike on some runways and a building or two — the kind of damage that can be repaired at once.

After we all watched the tweets of the Qatargate heroes over the weekend — the way they “stir” the news to the Prime Minister's advantage — this incident, too, the strike in northern Syria, should be treated as a product of the blender manufactured by the well-known spin-doctors.

After we all watched the tweets of the Qatargate heroes over the weekend — the way they “stir” the news to the Prime Minister's advantage — this incident, too, should be treated as a product of the blender manufactured by the well-known spin-doctors.

Just as the “stirrers” of Qatargate sought, it seems, to create tension between Israel and Egypt in Qatar's service, so in this new stirring they appear to be seeking to create tension with Turkey.

The Bureau understands spin, not facts. So, for the facts: the Turkish army has no ambition to move south. There are Turkish units stationed along the Syrian side of the border in the Idlib control zone, but the trend is to bring them back to Turkey, not to deepen their presence in Syria.

Erdoğan's military power in Syria is expressed through Turkmen militias, not through the regular Turkish army.

Whereas in the original Qatargate the goal, apparently, was to stir up Israeli-Egyptian relations for Qatar's benefit, here it isn't clear what the goal of stirring things up with Turkey is. Or perhaps one actually can guess the goal — finding a new active front ahead of the elections, now that U.S. President Donald Trump has shut down the Iran and Gaza fronts for them. The intensive effort to ignite the West Bank, and the troubling reports of an attempt to take over the Muslim market in Jerusalem's Old City, point in the same direction.

As for Egypt, it certainly has no plans against Israel, nor has it ever had any. What worries Egypt are mainly the plans to build a giant dam in Ethiopia that would dry up the Nile, the Houthis' closure of Bab al-Mandab, and the danger of the Muslim Brotherhood, backed by that same Turkey and Qatar. Not only does Egypt have no interests that clash with Israel's — on the contrary, the interests align.

It appears the stirring with Turkey is meant to find a new front ahead of the elections, now that Trump has shut down the Iran and Gaza fronts. The effort to ignite the West Bank, and the reports of an attempt to take over the Muslim market in East Jerusalem, point in a similar direction.

In the West Bank too, Abu Mazen is displaying considerable wisdom by restraining Fatah from opening a war with Israel. Fatah understands this serves Netanyahu and his government, and its people are holding back. Meanwhile, they are harvesting the propaganda gains that Jewish terror hands them.

Setting aside the Prime Minister's Bureau's blender, there may in fact be an Israeli interest in the division of Syria — between a north that falls under direct Turkish influence and a south already under direct Israeli influence.

As for northern Syria, the trend is for U.S. forces to withdraw from the Kurdish areas — and, incidentally, from the Iraqi side of the border as well — which compels the Kurds to integrate into the Syrian army. That is the move underway now, but it is highly problematic. The Kurds want to integrate as a separate unit, keeping their own weapons — which isn't really integration at all. We'll see what the Turks have to say about that. This has been discussed before, but the new variable today is that the United States is abandoning the Kurds.

At the same time, the Druze leader in Sweida, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, said a few days ago that the province is an inseparable part of the State of Israel. With that, a process was completed that began with an Israeli decision to focus only on the Druze and on southern Syria, at the expense of Israeli involvement in central and northern Syria. The implication is that there is Israeli potential to complete Turkish entrenchment in the north in exchange for Israeli entrenchment in the south.

In the West Bank too, Abu Mazen acts wisely by restraining Fatah from opening a war with Israel. Fatah understands this serves Netanyahu and his government, and its people are holding back. Meanwhile they are harvesting the propaganda gains that Jewish terror hands them.

Israel the state — not Israel the blender — shares an almost complete identity of interests with all its natural partners in the Levant: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf.

For those shared interests to materialize, the government needs to be told to keep quiet. There was already, in the past, a division between Yitzhak Rabin's government and Syria's Hafez al-Assad of spheres of influence in Lebanon — a division that could hold only on condition of silence. Tacit understandings do not sit well with a big mouth.

From this, perhaps the strike on the Syrian air-force base was meant to demarcate spheres of influence — no Turkish military presence in areas where Israel would turn a blind eye to Turkish entrenchment, while preserving the Israeli Air Force's freedom of action in Syrian skies. But these may be state-level considerations that got mixed into the blender of the Bureau's spin-masters.

Either way, dividing Syria into spheres of influence does not sit well with Erdoğan's vision of an Ottoman caliphate.

Erdoğan wants to reach Jordan and topple the Hashemites, who for their part toppled the Ottoman caliphate together with Lawrence of Arabia — and to topple the House of Saud, against whom the Ottoman Empire fought alongside the Tamim tribes now represented by Qatar. Along the way, Erdoğan aspires to “liberate” al-Aqsa in order to crown himself caliph.

Israel the state — not Israel the blender — shares an almost complete identity of interests with all its natural partners in the Levant: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf. For those shared interests to materialize, the government needs to be told to keep quiet.

And here, Israel's big mouth could cause great damage — in the Ottoman conception, the Jews are a submissive community, not a power blocking the caliphate's path. The big mouth really could set Turkey's armies marching south. That may be good for the stirrers. It is very bad for the state.