March 2025 marks the 76th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel. While over seven decades of ties have experienced tensions and thaws, the current state of relations, or lack thereof, is in many ways wholly unprecedented.
Turkey-Israel ties have, to put it mildly, certainly seen better days. Turkey is furious with Israel for its conduct in the war in Gaza, while Israel is continually frustrated by Turkey’s ties with Hamas.
Since the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel and Turkey have been on a collision course, with Turkey establishing close ties with the new government in Damascus, which Israel says is a threat.
Furthermore, the Israeli government-established Nagel Committee recently warned in its report that Israel’s military must prepare for a direct confrontation with Turkey. It went so far as to say that the Turkish-backed “threat from Syria could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in July 2024 that Turkey may intervene in the Gaza war by entering Israel, comparing such a scenario to Turkey’s intervention in conflicts in Libya and the South Caucasus. In September, he called on Islamic countries to form an alliance against “the growing threat of expansionism” from Israel.
“We, as the Republic of Turkey and its government, have currently severed all relations with Israel,” Erdogan told reporters in November. Turkey also blocked NATO-Israel cooperation and vows to continue doing so until the Gaza war ends.
There were tensions in Turkey-Israel relations from the early days of the relationship, but they were invariably short-lived and eventually overcome. It’s unclear if both countries can walk back the current state of relations.
Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel back in March 1949 and granted exit visas to Turkish Jews wishing to emigrate to the new state. They signed a trade agreement for $840,000 of goods in July 1950. Immigrants from Turkey to Israel named a new forest being planted south of Haifa after Turkey’s first president and founder, Kemal Ataturk, in 1953.
One of the first signs of trouble in the fledging relationship occurred in 1956 when Israel joined Britain and France in an attack on Egypt, sparking the Suez Crisis that enraged the region and the US. Turkey decided to cool relations with Israel to placate angry Arab states, recalling its minister from the country and announcing a “cool phase” in relations. However, Ankara clarified to Israeli Minister Maurice Fisher that the move would not impact commercial ties.
Then-Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes seemingly hoped to placate Arab countries like Iraq, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia with the move and limit the influence of Soviet-aligned Syria and Egypt.
The latter two countries entered a brief political union in 1958, which lasted until 1961. In October 1957, the Syrian Army chief of staff made an “open warning” to Israel and Turkey by welcoming Egyptian troops on its soil after accusing them of “massing troops along our northern and southern borders.” By the end of the year, Soviet propaganda depicted Israel and NATO member Turkey as “instruments of foreign powers incessantly plotting imperialist conspiracies against the Arab world.”
Perhaps conscious of its standing in the Middle East, Ankara sought to improve ties with Arab states in 1958, including Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and Iraq. Iraq, in those days, was Turkey’s fellow member, along with Iran and Pakistan, in the Baghdad Pact alliance—which led Cairo to accuse Iraq of effectively aligning with Israel, given Turkey’s diplomatic relations with it. As part of this thaw, Turkey ceased broadcasting propaganda against Nasser’s Egypt. Cairo and Damascus reciprocated, ending frequent radio attacks denouncing Turkey.
Despite Turkey’s efforts, Iraq’s monarchy was overthrown on 14 July 1958. Iraq withdrew from the Baghdad Pact and subsequently aligned itself with Moscow. That same year, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion secretly met with Menderes to discuss military cooperation via Israel’s nascent alliance of the periphery. As its name suggests, that alliance saw Israel cultivate relations with non-Arab states on the region’s periphery. It also included Ethiopia and Iran under the last shah.
Turkey began the 1960s with a military coup of its own. The Menderes government was overthrown in May 1960, and Menderes was hanged the following year. The succeeding government of General Cemal Gursel sought “friendly relations” with its Arab neighbours but insisted that wouldn’t necessarily affect relations with Israel.
Turkey and Israel agreed in 1961 to cooperate in attracting tourists to their countries. The cooperation entailed joint campaigns targeting Americans and Europeans, encouraging them to visit Israel and Turkey, emphasising the connectivity between the two countries that made it easy for tourists to the region to explore both.
Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Inonu declared in April 1963 that Turkish-Israeli ties were “developing fully” and that Turkey’s “relations with Israel operate independently, and are not subject to other policies.” The following year, Inonu met Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in Paris and discussed exchanging ambassadors after years of maintaining relations at the level of charge d’affaires.
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War, which saw Israel conquer the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza along with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights, upended the Middle East. Turkey’s balancing of relations between the Arabs and Israel faced their greatest test yet. Ankara joined the chorus of Arab countries demanding Israel withdraw from the occupied territories but didn’t condemn it as an “aggressor state” nor heed demands to sever relations.
Turkey notably denied the US use of its bases or airspace to resupply Israel during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
It again sought closer ties with the Arab World in the mid-1970s, including new relations with Libya. In a joint communique, Ankara and Tripoli called for Israel’s “unconditional” withdrawal from the occupied territories. They even denounced it as “expansionist,” a significant departure from Turkey’s more measured rhetoric hitherto. Turkey voted in favour of the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which determined “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” in 1975.
After Egypt signed its landmark peace agreement with Israel in 1979, four Palestinian militants stormed the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara. They took 17 hostages, resulting in a 45-hour standoff, before surrendering to Turkish authorities. They had demanded Turkey sever relations with Egypt and Israel. Turkey allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization to open a diplomatic office in Ankara that same year.
In late 1980, Turkey withdrew high-level diplomats from Israel, imploring Israel to do the same, and sought to maintain relations at a “symbolic level” after Israel declared the entirety of Jerusalem its “eternal capital.” Interestingly, Turkey was the only Muslim-majority country alongside Egypt that didn’t vote in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Israel’s unilateral annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981.
Turkish Foreign Minister İlter Turkmen told Turkish businessmen the following year that Ankara wanted to serve as a bridge between the West and Muslim countries and was not considering severing diplomatic ties with Israel. “There are certain sensitive balances in our foreign policy,” he said. “We have to assess our external relations as a whole. Arab countries are understanding about the difficulties we would have in cutting off relations with Israel entirely.”
Ankara appointed a senior diplomat to Tel Aviv in 1986, showing that, amidst disagreements, it still valued continued relations.
Turkey sought continual balance when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heated up once again. During the First Intifada, 1987-93, Israel’s Foreign Ministry expressed “sorrow and disappointment” when Turkey supported a call by the PLO to establish a Palestinian state.
In December 1991, Turkey upgraded to embassy status the diplomatic missions of Israel and the PLO in Ankara simultaneously, another example of its attempt to balance relations between Israel, on the one hand, and the Palestinians and Arab states on the other.
In retrospect, the 1990s were arguably the honeymoon period of the relationship. With the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO seemingly paving the way for a future Palestinian state, Turkey was able to justify more open relations with Israel. The peace agreement between Israel and Jordan in 1994 reinforced optimism for regional peace. Tansu Ciller became the first Turkish prime minister to visit Israel for three days in November 1994. And while almost no Israelis visited Turkey in 1991, approximately 300,000 were visiting annually by 1996.
In February 1996, they signed a training and cooperation deal, allowing Israeli fighter jets access to Turkish airbases and Turkey’s enormous airspace for training, followed by a Defence Industry Cooperation Agreement in August 1996, which saw Israel upgrade and modernise Turkey’s older American-made F-4 Phantom II jets and M-60 Patton tanks. While substantial, this cooperation fell short of a full-fledged military alliance. And it had its opponents in Turkey.
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel escaped an assassination attempt by a man angry with this cooperation in May 1996 unharmed. The brief tenure of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1996-97, who advocated, among other things, an Islamic NATO, did not threaten burgeoning ties with Israel, nor did the concurrent election of the first hard right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace dimmed by 2000 with the onset of the violent Second Intifada, but Israeli-Turkish relations endured, despite challenges.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon received a warm welcome in Turkey during his visit in August 2001. His Turkish counterpart, Bulent Ecevit, said Ankara “will be happy to see you in our country frequently.” Still, Ecevit gently urged the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, warning Sharon that Turkish-Israeli ties would suffer from diminished hopes for peace in the region. “Of course, we would not like this, we give importance to our relations both with Israel and the Palestinians,” Ecevit told Sharon.
Turkish then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later criticised Israel’s killing of Ahmed Yassin, the almost blind, quadriplegic founder of Hamas, in a March 2004 helicopter strike, describing it as a “kind of terrorism.” Erdogan also criticised the subsequent Israeli siege of Gaza’s Rafah in May 2004.
Ties cooled again after the death of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat the following November.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul visited Israel and the West Bank with a large delegation in January 2005 to repair strained relations. The following May, Erdogan visited Israel, becoming the second Turkish premier to do so. With the Second Intifada over, it seemed the countries could turn a new page again.
In 2008, Turkey served as a mediator for indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria. On 27 December 2008, Israel launched a three-week military operation against Hamas in Gaza, codenamed Cast Lead, that left more than 1,000 Palestinians dead and devastated the narrow coastal enclave.
Erdogan was outraged. He stormed off the stage after a 29 January 2009 exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum became heated. The following October, Turkey cancelled an international military drill with the US and NATO because it opposed Israel’s participation.
Things got even worse in 2010. In May of that year, Turkey’s IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation organised a flotilla to break Israel’s Gaza blockade. Israel’s military intercepted them in international waters and boarded their vessels. On one ship, the MV Mavi Marmara, Israeli commandos shot nine activists dead, eight of them Turkish citizens and the ninth a dual Turkish-American. Erdogan was livid. He recalled Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, downgraded diplomatic ties over a year later, and wouldn’t settle for anything less than an apology.
In 2013, Netanyahu apologised for the incident, and Israel compensated the families of those killed with $20 million in payments three years later. By the end of 2016, Israel had an ambassador back in Ankara for the first time in six years.
Wars and violence in Gaza often strained relations. Erdogan condemned Israel’s 2014 Protective Edge operation, declaring Turkey would push to have Israel “tried at international courts.” Erdogan later threatened to cut ties in 2017 after the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital during Trump’s first term. Things got heated the following year. After the Israeli Army fired on demonstrators on the Gaza border, Erdogan called Netanyahu both an occupier and a terrorist, while Netanyahu slammed Erdogan for bombing Kurdish civilians.
Ties slowly began improving in the ensuing years, culminating in Erdogan and Netanyahu meeting in person for the first time at the UN General Assembly in September 2023 and having a friendly exchange. It seemed the two countries were on the cusp of a renewed period of positive relations. It wasn’t to be. The 7 October attacks and the ensuing war on Gaza mere weeks later changed everything and the rest is history.
Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan who writes about Middle East affairs
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