Turkey's Rising Power Worries Israel

 By Henry Srebrnik, Jewish Post, Winnipeg

It has long shared intelligence with Iran, and it remains the only NATO country to have refrained from sanctioning Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It is, along with Qatar, the main international sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its Palestinian branch, Hamas. Its poor human rights record consistently stir unease among NATO allies.

This is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. He wants his country to become the preeminent power in the Middle East. If Iran emerges from the current war with Israel and the United States weakened, whether politically, economically, or militarily, Turkey’s relative influence in the broader region will increase. Ankara has already consolidated significant influence in Syria and Azerbaijan, and it continues to pursue strategic connectivity projects across the South Caucasus.

Since Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2003, relations have steadily deteriorated. The Hamas victory in a legislative election in Gaza in 2005 felt in Ankara like a personal win for Erdogan, who had advised Hamas on its electoral strategy.

Three years later came the Mavi Marmara incident. A Turkish ship chartered by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) attempted to break Egypt and Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The vessel was boarded by Israeli commandos, resulting in nine deaths. Erdogan accused Israel of “state terrorism” and appealed to the “international community” in a speech to the Turkish parliament. Things kept going downhill and are now worse than ever.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recently remarked that “the Israeli authorities are a burden that humanity can no longer bear.” Fidan’s words came in a TV interview July 2 following Israel’s recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide: “Israel is not just Turkey’s problem, nor is it just the issue of our president, he said. “But everyone knows it, feels it, whispers it in hidden corners, and occasionally speaks openly. This is what we must call it.” True, he stepped back from those remarks in a later interview, contending that Turkey and Israel aren’t destined for conflict. Was this second comment perhaps made at Donald Trump’s urging?

After Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Erdogan emerged as one of Israel’s most outspoken international critics, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of committing grave violations during the Gaza conflict and intensifying Ankara’s diplomatic support for the Palestinian cause. Israeli officials have interpreted this rhetoric as evidence that Turkey increasingly views itself as a political counterweight to Israel across the region.

Already in December 2023, Erdogan had compared Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, and Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip to those of the Nazis. In March 2024, he referred to Netanyahu and his government as “modern-day Nazis” and called for bringing these “murderers” to justice under international law.

He subsequently accused Netanyahu of committing “genocide” in Gaza, claimed that his actions “would make Hitler jealous,” and even described the situation in Gaza as “worse than Nazi camps,” while portraying the West as standing aside and enabling the continuation of the “brutality.” In a speech posted on X on March 30 this year, Erdogan called on “Allah” to “damn Zionist Israel.”

The narrative accusing Israel has become a structural component of Turkey’s domestic political discourse. What is new is not the use of extreme imagery and Holocaust terminology, but the role they play. Unlike in the past, the rhetoric is no longer merely an expression of political anger or protest; it has become a component of Turkish policy, intended to lay a normative foundation through which Ankara seeks to deny Israel the moral legitimacy of its actions.

Turkey portrays Israel not as a state confronting a grave security threat from a murderous terrorist organization but as an entity that has crossed the bounds of humanity, committing crimes it equates with those perpetrated by the Nazis. This framing intentionally downplays the severity of Hamas’s actions and prepares the ground for collective action against Israel, including exceptional punitive measures against it. At the same time, it depicts any Western hesitation or lack of restraint regarding Israel as a moral abandonment of Gaza’s residents, expanding responsibility and blame to the international community beyond Israel itself.

On November 7, 2025, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office announced the issuance of arrest warrants against 37 Israeli figures, including Netanyahu and other senior officials, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Although these domestic warrants lack practical enforcement, their significance lies in the ongoing legal threat they create. They limit the movement of senior Israeli officials, discourage other countries and institutions from engaging with Israel, and enhance the criminal framing of Israel in the international arena.

Its identity as a Muslim state and a NATO member, but critical of the liberal-Western order, has allowed Turkey to position itself as a leading moral voice, strengthening its regional and international standing. In addition to the importance the Turkish government attributes to the Palestinian issue and the broad support for the Palestinian position among the Turkish public in general, and Erdogan’s electoral base in particular, this issue serves as a platform for positioning Turkey as a voice challenging the West and speaking on behalf of “the oppressed in the world.”

 Erdogan’s tenure has seen a systematic shift toward Islamization within Turkey. His government has expanded religious education, restricted alcohol sales, and promoted conservative social policies. These measures, coupled with the suppression of secular institutions, align with his stated goal of raising a “pious generation.”

Erdogan, from his comments, seems to consider himself the rightful leader of the entire Muslim world. In the interim, he evidently sees himself as the Middle East’s next great power broker, claiming leadership while chaos reigns.

Already entrenched in Syria, steadily expanding an indigenous defence industry capable of producing sophisticated drones, naval vessels, and eventually advanced fighter aircraft, while seeking a foothold in Gaza, Ankara increasingly appears intent on filling the regional vacuum Iran leaves behind. Tehran sought to surround Israel with a Shi’ite ring of fire. Ankara appears willing to create a Sunni one.

 

Brazil’s Forthcoming Election Bears Watching

 

By Henry Srebrnik, Saint John-Telegraph-Journal

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, on July 25 formally launched his bid to challenge President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) in ‌October’s presidential election, gaining support from Argentina’s President Javier Milei, an AI-generated message from his jailed father, and ‌a video address from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolsonaro, the candidate of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL), who is 45 years old, is the son of the disgraced former president, who is in jail after receiving a 27-year prison sentence for trying to overturn the result of the 2022 election. As for Lula, this will be the 80-year old’s seventh presidential campaign since he first sought Brazil’s top job in 1989, when he was 44. He is the standard-bearer of the Workers’ Party (PT), which founded in 1980.

Many on the right wanted Tarcisio de Freitas, the current governor of Sao Paulo, to run, but Jair Bolsonaro wanted his own son instead, and de Freitas respected Bolsonaro’s wish.

Flavio Bolsonaro began by pledging tax cuts and a tougher stance on crime and stressed his commitment to ​carrying forward his father’s political legacy. But his campaign has been filled with turmoil so far. He has been heavily involved in the Banco Master scandal, in which leaked audio messages revealed that he was receiving millions of reais, Brazil’s currency, from businessman Daniel Vorcaro, the bank’s major shareholder, to finance a movie about his father. The revelation shocked many allies.

The scandal, involving investigations into financial fraud, emerged in late 2025 with the launch of Operation Compliance Zero by the authorities and the liquidation of the financial institution, as well as Vorcaro’s arrest. It has been described as the country’s biggest ever banking fraud scandal.

The country’s recent past has been tumultuous. In 1961 Brazil’s voters elected left populist president Joao Goulart, but he was deposed by a military coup in 1964. A military dictatorship followed, marked by fierce anticommunism enforced with secret police, torture centres, and disappearances. I visited Brazil in the mid-1970s, when the army officer Ernesto Geisel was running the country. In 1985, the dictatorship finally gave way to civilian control and popular elections. But democracy remains a fragile shoot. Hence the important of this October’s presidential election.

Lula has many enemies, including the current leaders of the United States and Argentina. He and Trump don’t like each other, and that’s an understatement. Lula has argued that his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro’s 2022 bid to cling to power after his election defeat was reminiscent of Trump’s bid to remain in power in 2020. Tensions intensified after Flavio Bolsonaro took part in a pro-Trump Conservative Political Action Conference held in Texas on March 28.

The U.S. imposed a 25 per cent tariff on most imports from Brazil July 15, arguing that Brazil’s trade practices on a range of issues from digital trade to illegal deforestation were unfair. The tariffs affect about $6.6 billion in exports to the U.S.

Brazil has formally requested consultations at the World Trade Organization over the new U.S. tariffs on Brazilian exports, insisting the measures violate international trade rules under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Lula has called the tariffs interference in the election.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio maintained that the blame lay with Lula and his administration. He clamed that Lula’s economic policies are bad for Americans and bad for Brazilians. “For the past year, Lula has put his own ego ahead of making a deal for the welfare of the Brazilian people.”

Brazil on July 24 denied visa requests for two officials in Trump’s administration who planned to travel to the country to cast doubt on the integrity of its electoral system, according to Brazilian officials. A State Department spokesperson rejected any suggestion of a “ploy” to undermine Brazil’s elections.”

Now, the Trump administration has revoked the visa of Brazil’s top diplomat in the United States. The visa of the Brazilian ambassador, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, was canceled Aug. 4 in response to her country’s decision to stall the approval of President Trump’s newly appointed ambassador to Brazil and refuse entry to the other U.S. diplomats.

Another right-wing leader is also at loggerheads with Lula. Brazil’s foreign ministry summoned Argentina’s ambassador after inflammatory remarks delivered by Argentinian President Javier Milei about Lula, during the national convention of Brazil’s Liberal Party (PL), which nominated Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo July 25.

Milei denounced what he called the “tragedy of socialism” in Latin America, singling out Lula and Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court for intense criticism.

The Argentinian leader hailed Flavio Bolsonaro as the “only candidate who can stop Lula.” Milei was also angry at not being allowed to visit Jair Bolsonaro in prison. “I was not allowed to visit my unjustly imprisoned friend,” remarked Milei, a declared ally of the Bolsonaro family.

It escalated further when Brasilia on Aug. 5 requested the recall of Argentina’s ambassador and reduced diplomatic representation to Charge d’Affaires level after Milei called President Lula a thief.

Brazil has tremendous institutional problems, ranging from vote buying, organized crime, and systemic inequality to a very dysfunctional judicial system. Yet with Bolsonaro and Lula as the main candidates, regardless of who wins, this is unlikely to change.