Three constituencies that agree on nothing else have converged on the same prophecy. That convergence is the story.
By Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias, TLF Chief Editor, Fellow Researcher in the Nicosia University
With the latest escalation in Syria, a growing number of analysts and international affairs specialists have started to market a single scenario: Turkey and Israel are heading for war. The thesis arrives dressed in the sober vocabulary of neorealism — balance of power, security dilemmas, spheres of influence — but the ethno-centric reflexes underneath are rarely well hidden. The narrative never varies. Since the Hamas attack on Israel, Ankara and Jerusalem have moved in opposite directions, and every indicator supposedly points to the same terminus: sooner or later, the two old allies will crash into one another.
Three distinct constituencies keep this hypothesis in circulation. They share no political language, no historical narrative and no vision of the region’s future. What they share is an interest in the prophecy itself.
The Chorus in Ankara
In Turkey, the loudest promoters are found among supporters of the conservative government, for whom the idea of Turkey leading a Muslim coalition — a kind of holy crusade against the “Zionist state” — carries obvious appeal. The group is remarkably heterogeneous: sympathisers of the Muslim Brotherhood tradition sit alongside nationalists, militarist academics and retired officers who spent much of their careers arguing the opposite. For all of them, the prospect of confrontation converts a difficult domestic moment into a civilisational mission, and regional overextension into destiny.
The Chorus in Jerusalem
In Israel, the mirror image is supplied by ultra-right politicians, allies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and media outlets such as The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom. Their message is that the hour has come to turn from one archenemy to the next: after Iran and the Islamist organisations, the Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In this reading, the Turkey of 2026 is a vital danger to Israeli stakes across the wider region. The Mecca Agreement, Ankara’s consolidation in post-Assad Syria and its expanding footprint in Africa are offered as proof that Israel has no option left but hard power — a limited strike in Syria, or even in Cyprus, being the preferred illustration.
The Chorus in Nicosia and Athens
In Cyprus and Greece, the dream team of the Turkish-Israeli war fantasy is made up of the usual suspects: veteran opponents of Turkey, nationalists, and neorealist analysts who have been forecasting the same collision for years under different names. The common denominator is a single proposition — sooner or later Turkey will fight Israel — and a single policy conclusion: Nicosia and Athens must line up behind Israel now, in order to collect supposed gains on a battlefront that has not opened and may never open.
Fishing in Troubled Waters
Which brings us to the question worth asking. What unites Erdoğan’s supporters with the champions of Zionism and with Greek nationalists — three camps that agree on nothing else whatsoever?
The answer is self-explanatory. None of them is describing the region as it is; each is describing the region it needs. A war that is permanently imminent and never arrives is an extraordinarily useful instrument. It disciplines domestic audiences, justifies budgets, marginalises dissent, and converts every foreign policy failure into evidence of an approaching showdown. It costs nothing and explains everything.
As an old Turkish saying has it, those who defend the interests of capital and of nation-states rather than the interests of ordinary people “like to fish in troubled waters” — bulanık suda balık avlamayı severler. The waters between Ankara and Jerusalem are murky enough as it is. The fantasizers did not make them so — but they have every reason to keep them that way, and none at all to tell us when, precisely, their prophecy expires.