Erdogan’s Turkey is a threat to Israel and the West - Israel is the first target, but not the last.
Joseph Puder | April 23, 2026
Britain’s TV News Channel, GBNews, began an April 12, 2026 post this way: “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has issued a stark statement warning that Ankara would launch military operations against Israel over Israeli bombardment of Lebanon.” The same outlet broadcasted that the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, described Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as “the Hitler of our time due to the crimes he has committed.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu, responding to Erdoğan on X, wrote, “Israel under my leadership will continue to fight Iran’s terror regime and its proxies, unlike Erdoğan who accommodates them and massacred his own Kurdish citizens.”
Erdoğan, a megalomaniacal figure, considers himself the caliph and sultan of Turkey’s Sunni Muslim believers and has ambitions to expand Turkey’s influence beyond its borders, to resemble the former Ottoman Empire. Such aspirations pose a significant threat to Israel and to peace in the region.
President Donald Trump, who considers him a friend, should recall Erdoğan’s stances and reconsider this relationship. For example, Erdoğan betrayed NATO by buying the S-400 multi-layered surface-to-air missile system from Russia and, along with his proxies, has butchered Kurdish civilians and fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have been U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS.
Most recently, despite being a NATO member, Turkey sought neutrality and denies claims that it helped U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in allowing its airspace, territory, or bases to be used for military operations against Iran — clearly demonstrating the unreliability of today’s Turkey as an ally.
According to the Foreign Affairs Forum, a Dubai-based outlet, there are serious allegations of ethnic cleansing campaigns taking place against Kurdish residents in northwest Syria: a massive campaign to evict Kurdish residents from their ancestral homes and replace them with Syrian Arab settlers. Turkish assaults have reduced the Kurdish population in some areas, such as Afrin, by up to 60%. A settlement-building project, announced by Erdoğan in 2023 and financially supported by Qatar, aims to relocate one million Syrian Arab refugees into traditionally Kurdish areas.
Erdoğan seized on the coup that took place on July 15, 2016 to eliminate political rivals and consolidate power. According to Politico, 250 were killed by regime forces, 1,400 were injured, and 2,839 were detained in the failed coup. To further fortify his power, Erdoğan switched from being prime minister to president. In the aftermath, Erdoğan has shaken up the government, cracked down on dissidents, and restricted the news media. He has arrested and imprisoned journalists who criticize his policies, thereby “killing” freedom of the press in Turkey.
And, on February 20, 2026, NBC News reported that Turkish authorities had formally arrested investigative journalist Alican Uludag, charging him with insulting Erdoğan in a series of social media posts.
Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party have achieved what has long been the aim of Islamists in Turkey: to expand the role of Islam in Turkish society and its institutions. He has grabbed power from the country’s secularist parties and put his followers into various pivotal branches of government, including the judicial branch, commerce, and the media.
Following the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey was established on October 29, 1923 by a military commander and an imposing political figure, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk became Turkey’s first president, enacting reforms that came to be known as the Ataturk Reforms, or Kemalism. He focused on severing ties with the Ottoman past, which he viewed as backward and overly Islamist. Ataturk’s ideology, rooted in secularism, liberal republicanism, and a modern version of Islam, became the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, earning him the title “Father of Turkey.”
Erdoğan’s authoritarianism has replaced the Kemalist principles of secularism with Islamist fundamentalism in order to fulfill his desperate desire to revive the caliphate and become its caliph.
Columnist George Will spoke out on a YouTube video, warning that Erdoğan threatens to use its thermobaric “Gazap” mega-bomb against Israel. This is a bomb that can destroy a whole large city and its people. It contains almost a ton (970 kg) of high explosives and a high-fragmentation warhead capable of dispersing 10,000 metallic fragments upon impact, while generating massive overpressure waves and heat signatures that can incinerate enemy personnel and melt infrastructure in seconds.
Inasmuch as President Trump recognizes Israel as a loyal and dependable ally, he should be calling attention to this threat to Israel. The American and Western media have ignored this significant threat to Israel, while President Trump has neither mentioned it nor rebuked the Turkish dictator. The use of such a bomb by Erdoğan against an Israeli city would force Israel to retaliate with a nuclear bomb, which would bring hell on earth to the entire region.
It is time for the Trump administration to demand that Turkey end its threats against Israel, halt financing to Hamas terrorists and cease providing sanctuary to them, end the ethnic cleansing of the Syrian Kurds, transfer the Russian S-400 system to the U.S. so that the U.S. might learn how to make our F-35 fleet invulnerable to America’s enemies, and stop all aid to the Iranian economy. The U.S. must revisit the Biden administration’s decision to sell F-16 fighters until Turkey aligns with our interests and conducts itself as an ally and a member of NATO.
The U.S. must recognize that Erdoğan’s Turkey is not only a threat to Israel, but ultimately a threat to the West.