The next Iran? Why Israel’s Turkey anxiety is becoming doctrine

On 17th February, addressing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, former prime minister Naftali Bennett delivered a line that has since become shorthand for a shift in Israeli strategic thinking: “Turkey is the new Iran.” He accused Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of seeking to “encircle Israel.” He charged Ankara and Doha with nourishing a Muslim Brotherhood axis modeled on Iran’s proxy network, this time anchored by a “hostile Sunni axis with nuclear Pakistan.” Coming from a man positioning himself for an electoral comeback this fall, the remarks could be dismissed as campaign theatre. They are not isolated.

Bennett’s framing echoes a document few outside Israel’s defense establishment have read closely. In January 2025, the Nagel Committee — a government-commissioned panel on long-term defense strategy — concluded that a Turkish-aligned Syria could pose a threat that “could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat.” That assessment has since filtered out of classified planning and into open political discourse, lending institutional weight to what might otherwise read as a politician’s bluster. Former defence minister Yoav Gallant added his own escalation on 27th February, urging Western states to reconsider arms sales to Ankara despite Turkey’s standing as NATO’s second-largest army.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not stayed above the fray. Facing slipping approval at home after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Iran, he announced a “hexagon” of regional partnerships — including Greece and Cyprus — explicitly framed to counter what he called an “emerging radical Sunni axis.” Both Greece and Cyprus carry long-running grievances against Ankara over maritime boundaries and Cyprus’s division — an alignment of convenience that lends the new doctrine institutional scaffolding without settling whether Turkey poses a threat genuinely comparable to Iran’s.

“Has the leadership in Turkey ever denied Israel’s right to exist, or threatened to wipe it from the map? No. It’s ridiculous.” — Alon Pinkas, former Israeli ambassador.

Turkey’s own posture has, so far, been a study in calculated restraint. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, asked about Ankara’s role in toppling Bashar al-Assad, called it “a grave mistake” to frame Syria’s transition as a Turkish takeover, insisting cooperation rather than domination should define the relationship. That restraint reflects an awareness — voiced by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack — that perceptions of encirclement run in both directions: Israelis read Ankara closing in from Syria and Gaza. In contrast, Turkish officials read Israeli expansion in the Golan and the Eastern Mediterranean as an encircling move.

Not everyone in Israel’s own security establishment is convinced the threat is being honestly assessed. Former ambassador Alon Pinkas offered a blunter diagnosis: Israeli politicians, he argued, “rely on the perpetual threat of war … it doesn’t matter who. There just always needs to be a threat.” His deeper point cuts against the comparison itself — unlike Iran, Turkey has never called for Israel’s destruction, and the relationship, however degraded, remains formally diplomatic rather than openly belligerent.

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Washington’s think tank ecosystem is nonetheless amplifying the narrative. Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute has openly speculated that, in a decade, Ankara will resemble Tehran today. At the same time, Bradley Martin of the Pentagon-linked Near East South Asia Center argued in The Wall Street Journal that NATO should reconsider Turkey’s membership altogether. Critics such as Sumantra Maitra counter that this amounts to “narrative manufacturing” — a coordinated effort to cast Erdoğan as the gravest regional threat since the Ottoman sultans, regardless of whether the underlying facts support such a claim.

So what are the actual odds that tension rises? High on rhetoric, lower — for now — on confrontation. The flashpoints are real: Turkish bases and missile systems in Syria, competing claims in the Eastern Mediterranean, and Ankara’s continued backing of Hamas all create friction Israel cannot ignore.

But neither side wants a NATO member and a nuclear-armed Israel in direct conflict, and Erdoğan’s deliberate silence on Syria suggests Ankara understands the cost of overplaying its hand.

What is clear is that the “Turkey is the next Iran” framework — born partly of electoral convenience, partly of genuine strategic anxiety — is no longer fringe commentary. It is fast becoming the working assumption of Israel’s post-Iran regional doctrine, whether or not Ankara has actually earned the comparison.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.