US Envoy Barrack Suggests Israel May Have 'Baited' Turkey With Syria Strike, Breaks With Washington on Golan
In a wide-ranging interview with broadcaster Mario Nawfal on X, Ambassador Tom Barrack floats a political motive behind Israel's Abu al-Duhur airstrike, says Israel still 'occupies' the Golan Heights, and calls for Iran and Hezbollah to be part of any Lebanon settlement — drawing a sharp rebuke from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz
US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack has suggested that Israel's airstrike this week on a Syrian military airbase near the Turkish border may have been a deliberate attempt to provoke Ankara ahead of Israel's autumn election, in a wide-ranging interview broadcast on X (formerly Twitter) that has reignited tensions between Washington's senior regional envoy and the Israeli government.
Speaking to Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur and broadcaster Mario Nawfal in an interview aired on Friday, August 21, Barrack — who holds the dual role of US ambassador to Ankara and special presidential envoy for Syria — offered what he described as two competing, unconfirmed theories to explain why Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria despite ongoing diplomatic contacts between Washington, Jerusalem and Damascus over the facility.
'One Theory Is They Simply Tried To Bait Turkey'
Asked to explain Israel's rationale for the strike, Barrack was careful to frame his remarks as speculation rather than an intelligence assessment. “One theory is they simply tried to bait Turkey,” he said. “It’s a very aggressive move, but one that might play well going into elections. That’s one theory.”
The ambassador linked the theory explicitly to Israeli domestic politics, noting that a confrontation with Turkey could prove “well-received” ahead of Israel’s October 27 election, and observed that election periods can sometimes produce what he called “irrational judgment.” He also invoked Turkey’s 2015 downing of a Russian fighter jet as a precedent for how quickly an unannounced military incursion near the Turkish border can spiral, describing fighter jets operating near a frontier without coordination or advance warning as “a very dangerous game.”
As a second, alternative explanation, Barrack raised the possibility of an internal breakdown within the Israeli security establishment, suggesting that the military, the Mossad and the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have been operating on differing assessments of the situation on the ground. “The unintended consequence of a mistake could be really consequential,” he said, adding that Turkish forces might have scrambled their own jets without understanding Israel’s intentions.
Us Intelligence Disputed Israel's Justification
Barrack also gave a detailed account of the diplomatic run-up to the strike, saying Israel had informed Washington roughly six days beforehand that its intelligence indicated there “might be Turkish movement” into the airbase — the justification Israel later cited publicly for the operation. According to Barrack, however, the United States reached a different conclusion after independently checking the claim. “We all did our due diligence. We went back to our respective intelligence agencies. The answer we got is, no, that’s not happening,” he said.
He further described a backchannel conversation lasting roughly two hours between Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Israeli officials in the period surrounding the strike, and confirmed earlier reports that Mossad chief Roman Gofman had separately spoken with al-Shaibani days before the operation to convey Israeli concerns about a Turkish deployment at the base.
The remarks build on Barrack’s public reaction earlier in the week, when he wrote on X that “the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Duhur Air Base constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability,” and told PBS NewsHour that the core failure was not simply a communications breakdown: Israel, he said, had believed it held a tacit understanding with Syria and had been in parallel discussions with Turkey over the same territory.
In earlier comments to the Jerusalem Post and to Reuters following the strike, Barrack had said Turkish forces were not aware Israeli aircraft were en route to the base or of their intended purpose, and “could potentially have been inclined to scramble their own jets” in the belief they were under attack — a scenario he said carried “a real risk of rapid escalation into a direct military confrontation between Israel and Turkey as well as Syria.” He said Washington is now working to establish a formal deconfliction mechanism among Israel, Turkey and Syria to prevent a recurrence.
Golan Heights remarks break with official US position
In a separate and, by several accounts, more consequential break with declared US policy, Barrack told Nawfal that Israel continues to “occupy” the Golan Heights and that the territory belongs to Syria. “They still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria’s,” he said.
The comment directly contradicts the position of the administration Barrack serves: Washington formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights during President Donald Trump’s first term. Israel captured the plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981, a move that has never been recognized by the United Nations, whose Resolution 242 calls for Israeli withdrawal from the territory along with other areas occupied in 1967, including Gaza and the West Bank. Some 20,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the Golan alongside roughly 26,000 native inhabitants, predominantly Druze who identify as Syrian.
Asked separately whether Israel intended to annex additional Lebanese territory, Barrack suggested any such ambition was ultimately unsustainable given shifting US backing: “No matter what they are doing. In the long run, I think they are looking and saying ‘that is probably unlikely that anybody is going to allow us to do that.’ America’s support is waning.”
Hezbollah And Iran 'Must Be Involved' In Any Lebanon Settlement
On Lebanon, Barrack argued that a durable settlement cannot be reached through negotiations with the Lebanese government and domestic factions alone, and must include both Iran and Hezbollah directly. “How is it going to go away if you don’t have Hezbollah and Iran involved?” he asked, describing Lebanon as entangled in the broader confrontation between Iran and Israel.
The interview drew an immediate rebuke from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said Barrack’s remarks were “full of inaccuracies” and contained “positions that contradict the position of US President Trump.” Katz maintained that the Israeli military had issued a direct warning to senior Syrian officials ahead of the Abu al-Duhur strike in an effort to head off the deployment, and that only after the warning went unanswered did he and Netanyahu authorize the operation, which he said “was carried out successfully.”
Netanyahu had earlier defended the strike in similar terms, saying: “We saw that Turkey intends to establish a presence in the airport south of its current lines. So we conveyed a message. The message went through, but it seems that they did not listen. And so we made sure that they understand it better.” Netanyahu separately described Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an “antisemitic dictator,” prompting Erdogan’s office to dismiss the remark as “a cheap political ploy aimed at gaining an advantage for Bibi himself in the upcoming elections.”
A Recurring Source Of Friction With Jerusalem
Friday’s interview is the latest in a string of episodes in which Barrack’s public commentary has unsettled Israeli officials, who have increasingly questioned both the substance of his remarks and the broader worldview he is seen as bringing to US regional diplomacy. Israeli officials have described Barrack as someone “considered someone who promotes Erdogan’s interests and those of the Syrian regime in the United States,” amid concern in Jerusalem over his perceived closeness to the Turkish president and his influence with Trump.
At the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in April, Barrack had already drawn criticism from Senate Republicans and conservative commentators after describing Israel and Hezbollah as “equally untrustworthy” partners in the fragile Lebanon ceasefire, praising Turkey’s refusal to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, and arguing that “the smartest thing that Israel could do is to entice and embrace Turkey” into the US-led international stabilization force for postwar Gaza — a proposal Israel has consistently rejected given Ankara’s ties to Hamas leadership and the collapse of Turkish-Israeli relations since October 7, 2023.
Turkey has suspended trade with Israel and Turkish carriers have halted flights to the country amid the broader deterioration in bilateral relations. In April, Turkish prosecutors reportedly filed indictments against 35 senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, over the 2025 Gaza-bound flotilla incident and Israel's military conduct, according to the Institute for National Security Studies.
Known for a level of public candor unusual for a sitting US official, Barrack has repeatedly weighed in on sensitive regional questions in ways that observers say do not always clearly reflect official Trump administration policy, leaving open the question of how his remarks on the Abu al-Duhur strike, the Golan Heights and Lebanon will be received within the White House itself.