Israel Passing Messages to Syria’s HTS, But Turkey’s Influence Is a Concern

Both Turkey and Israel backed regime change, but may spar over control of post-Assad Syria

Both Israel and Turkey were at the forefront of this month’s regime change in Syria. The takeover of Syria by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alters the landscape of the region, but Turkey and Israel may quickly find themselves at odds over who’s really calling the shots.

Israel has been engaging with the HTS, though officials say they’re passing messages and are not in “direct” contract with them. HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani has been loudly trying to reassure Israel that Syria won’t be used as a launchpad for attacks on that country.

HTS efforts to curry favor with Israel began even before its offensive even ended with the taking of Damascus, but the level of influence Tel Aviv can expect to have pales in comparison with that of Turkey.

Turkey very openly backed the HTS-led offensive, and Julani says that Turkey and Syria will now have close strategic relations. Moreover, Julani says that Turkey will have “priority” over all other countries in the reconstruction effort in Syria.

While Israel’s goal was to see Syria removed from the Iranian alliance of nations, it’s not much more comfortable with Syria becoming a client state of Turkey. Turkey is another regional rival for Israel, albeit not one with such overt military hostility as Iran.

Israel’s opposition leader Yair Golan expressed concern today that Turkey might end up too dominant in Syria. He couched this mostly as a concern about Sunni Islamists dominating Syria (though that clearly wasn’t a problem for Israel during the HTS takeover), but it also ended up being a call to back Syria’s Kurds to prevent Turkey from moving against them.

Israel is on relatively friendly terms with the Kurds, and Turkey plainly isn’t. Turkey’s backing of the HTS was less about getting rid of Assad and more about believing HTS would be harder on Kurdish autonomy. The HTS government is already talking about ending Kurdish autonomy. Turkey has launched multiple offensives against Syria’s Kurdish SDF in recent years, and evidence is they’re poised to begin another one.

That complicates Israel’s policy toward Syria, beyond seizing new territory in the southwest. They don’t necessarily have designs on picking a fight with a mostly compliant HTS, but backing Kurdish autonomy in the northeast would be an obvious way to limit Turkey’s influence over Syria. Navigating potential conflicts in those interests is going to be a challenge.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.