Turkey, under the rule of the Justice and Development Party, seeks to achieve strategic influence in the Middle East by supporting Palestine, driven by a desire to restore its weight in the decisive issues of the Arab and Islamic worlds. What I present in these lines is not intended to undermine Turkey’s natural role in a geography close to it and historically tied to it, but rather to offer a calm reading of its position on the Palestinian question specifically.
It is well known that international and regional pressures — from the West and from the Zionist entity — place Turkey in an extremely sensitive position if Ankara wishes to maintain normal relations with major powers. Turkey’s adoption of the “two-state solution” discourse is meaningless in light of the Zionist entity’s insistence on relinquishing not a single inch of Palestine. Today it occupies more than 55% of Gaza and seeks to expand geographically toward Syria and Lebanon.
Turkey’s room for maneuver is exceedingly narrow. Even its strategic cooperation with the new Syrian government came after providing guarantees to the U.S. administration and to the Zionist entity. Thus, Turkey’s movement is restricted by transatlantic alliances that limit its role in Palestine and in the Levant as a whole.
Throughout two years of ongoing genocide in Gaza, President Erdoğan has not taken the step of fully freezing relations with the Zionist entity. And even when Ankara recently halted economic cooperation with the occupation, this applied only to the public sector, while the Turkish private sector maintained trade and economic exchange with the occupying state. Normalization between Ankara and Tel Aviv is old — in fact older than the normalization between Cairo and Tel Aviv. The years of Justice and Development Party rule have shown that the legacy of the secular Turkish military establishment, which approved normalization, is a heavy legacy that Erdoğan cannot easily overcome.
Turkey’s political and religious discourse on Palestine aims to attract popular support, but it is — frankly — insufficient to produce tangible change on the ground. Turkey’s support for Palestine at the diplomatic, media, and popular levels cannot be denied; however, this support remains constrained by precise geopolitical and economic calculations, making it ultimately symbolic support that does not lead to real transformative outcomes in the field of conflict.
*We will present further articles on the Turkey–Palestine file, God willing.*
The key elements guiding Turkish foreign policy on the Palestinian issue are Ankara’s desire to preserve its domestic, Arab, and Islamic popularity, along with a wager on a strategy of regional influence without military intervention, all while facing Western and Zionist pressure to maintain its relationship with Tel Aviv. Do these elements align with one another? The answer is: No.
Why? Because the situation in Palestine requires military confrontation, while Ankara’s reliance on direct negotiations between the Zionist and Palestinian sides has proven — over thirty years — to be ineffective. Tel Aviv has used negotiations as a pretext to expand settlements and tighten its control over Gaza and the West Bank. Therefore, the mediating role Turkey seeks to play in bringing both sides back to the negotiating table will not succeed so long as Tel Aviv is determined not to grant any opportunity for a two-state solution.
What, then, is Turkey betting on? If it is keen on maintaining its popularity regarding Palestine, Turkish policymakers know that their NATO membership will not allow any military intervention in Palestine. The U.S. administration will not permit a war between two NATO members, and the West would immediately close ranks against Turkey — not to mention the weight of the secular nationalist opposition that rejects any larger Turkish role in the Palestinian file.
It is also notable that all governments in the Arab and Islamic world, from Riyadh to Ankara — with the exception of Iran — refuse the only sound option: direct confrontation with Tel Aviv. This position completely weakens Turkish foreign policy. Even if President Erdoğan or a future successor decides to limit economic ties with Tel Aviv, the decisive step will remain untouched: severing relations between Turkey and the occupying entity.
The problem of Turkish foreign policy regarding the Palestinian issue lies in how to balance principles and interests. Ankara’s commitment to its Islamic–national identity clashes with its economic interests and its military alliance with the West through NATO. Moreover, the secular system established by Atatürk limits Turkey’s effective role in the Middle East and the broader Islamic world; it simply cannot enter into any confrontation with the Zionist entity because the cost would be extremely high — a cost neither the Turkish economy nor its population could bear. And although a young Turkish generation is enthusiastic about the Palestinian cause, there remains a wide gap between enthusiasm and actual effectiveness.
The rule of the Justice and Development Party — which seeks religious legitimacy — will not last forever. Presidential and parliamentary elections determine Turkey’s political trajectory, and the secular nationalist camp does not share the Justice and Development Party’s vision or diagnosis of the Palestinian issue. Many Turkish nationalists sympathize with Palestine, but at the same time they offer a strict assessment of the responsibility borne by Arab states in resolving the Palestinian file. They are not truly invested in solving the Palestinian issue as much as they are invested in Turkey’s role within its ethnic hinterland in Asia and in its military alliance with Western powers.
For these reasons, I say: it is extremely difficult for Ankara to invest deeply in the Palestinian file.
