Every time Recep Tayyip Erdogan raises his voice against Israel, the world tends to take him literally.

Gaza, ‘humanitarian values’, accusations of genocide: the Turkish president’s rhetoric is bombastic, constructed to strike a chord with public opinion. But behind the statements of the Rais of Ankara there is not the centrality of the Palestinian issue, but rather a power strategy that has its heart elsewhere: Syria and hegemony in the Middle East.

Azerbaijani oil continues to flow through Turkish ports bound for Israel, effectively disproving the proclaimed trade ‘break-up’.
Turkey, the regional energy hub, remains a vital supply link for the Jewish state. Gaza therefore serves only as a megaphone, as an instrument of internal political propaganda and as a geopolitical picklock to affirm a much more concrete rivalry: that with Israel in the redefinition of Middle Eastern balances.

In this analysis, we will show why Erdogan’s focus is not on Gaza, but on consolidating his position in the new post-Assad Syria and standing as an alternative to Israeli dominance. A rivalry that is ideological, strategic, and communicative, and that downgrades the humanitarian narrative to a mere cover for national interests.

Gaza as an identity fetish for internal use

The centrality of Gaza in Recep Tayyip Erdogan ‘s rhetoric does not start today.
As early as 2008, with the episode of the Mavi Marmara – the Turkish ship, bound for the Strip, that was attacked by the Israeli navy – the Turkish leader had understood that the Palestinian issue could become a powerful instrument of political legitimisation. Not so much as a real commitment, but as a useful symbol to present himself in the Arab-Islamic world as a defender of an identity cause.

Well, that rhetorical choice has accompanied all phases of his presidency.

In 2023 and 2024, Erdogan further raised the level of communicative confrontation.
He declared that Hamas was not a terrorist organisation, but a movement of ‘liberators’. He described Israel as a ‘terrorist state’ and compared Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler. Words designed to strike the imagination of the Muslim masses and consolidate an internal identity consensus, but lacking any concrete strategic translation: as we have already mentioned, Ankara has never really stopped energy flows to Israel.

This distance between words and deeds reveals the performative nature of Erdogan’s political language. The Turkish president does not aim to affect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in real terms: he does not send troops, he does not block Azerbaijani oil transiting through Ceyhan, he does not put his economy at risk.
Rather, he constructs a self-righteous narrative that allows him to present himself as the ‘Islamic champion’, diverting attention away from internal authoritarianism and the economic crisis.

Emotions instead of bread

The link between Turkish domestic politics and Gaza is indeed direct.

In recent months, following the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and the CHP crackdown, Erdogan has found himself exposed to growing discontent.
Inflation above 35%, the weakness of the lira and capital flight have fuelled an unstable climate. Anti-Israeli rhetoric then becomes an outlet: it allows the conflict to be shifted to emotional ground, away from the day-to-day difficulties of citizens.

In this sense, Gaza is an internal projection: not a foreign policy objective, but an artifice to recompose the domestic front. Erdogan is well aware that pro-Palestinian sentiments are deeply rooted in Turkish public opinion, and he uses them as a weapon of mass distraction.
His ‘Islamic morality’ is functional to maintain power, not to change the balance of power in the Middle East.

The communicative dimension is central. Erdogan resorts to a hyperbolic lexicon, made of strong images – ‘genocide’, ‘terrorist state’, ‘betrayal’ – that feed a binary narrative: on one side the oppressed people, on the other the Zionist aggressor supported by the West. It is an artfully constructed grammar of consensus, in which Turkey appears as the only voice of truth, while the rest of the world ‘ignores basic humanitarian values’.

But the reality, we repeat, remains the opposite. Turkey has never broken off economic relations with Israel in a structural way, nor has it ceased to be the Azerbaijani oil hub that feeds the Jewish state. This gap between words and deeds shows the propagandistic nature of Erdogan’s strategy: exploiting Gaza as a symbolic stage, while the real priorities lie elsewhere, especially in Syria and in redefining regional spheres of influence.

After all, it is no secret that – in almost all cases – regimes in trouble focus on sensitive and identity-based topics to rebuild consensus. And Turkey, with Gaza, is no exception.

Syria is the real battlefield

If Gaza is the communicative façade, Syria is the substantive terrain where the rivalry between Turkey and Israel really plays out.
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad ‘s regime in late 2024, Ankara invested enormous diplomatic and intelligence resources to turn Damascus into a Turkish protectorate. The new Syrian president, Ahmad al-Sharaa – a former jihadist and now a leader in search of legitimacy – is directly supported by Erdogan, who aims to build a satellite Syria, useful to consolidate his regional influence.

In this framework, Israel is the main rival. Tel Aviv has never hidden its strategy: to keep Syria fragmented and weak, unable to pose a threat.
Israeli moves speak for themselves: systematic bombing of the new Syrian military structures, protection of the Druze minority, occupation of large portions of the Golan Heights. Indeed, from these very heights, Israel now has a strategic observatory that allows it to threaten Damascus directly.

The Israeli operation in Kiswah, only twenty kilometres from the capital, was an unmistakable signal. Dozens of Israeli soldiers carried out a ground incursion without encountering resistance, protected by aerial bombardment. It was not a tactical action, but a political message: Israel is willing to go all the way to prevent Syria from rebuilding itself as a unitary state and, above all, from falling under Turkish influence.

Israel, in short, has constructed a strategy of attrition. It does not want a political agreement with al-Sharaa’s Syria, at least until it has adamantine guarantees: a demilitarised zone, the protection of the Druze and above all the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Conditions unacceptable to Damascus, but functional to freeze its reconstruction. In this scenario, Erdogan is excluded: Turkey cannot present itself as a guarantor, because Israel sees Ankara as a hostile actor.

Turkey’s countermoves

For Erdogan, this is a direct challenge. Syria is at the heart of his regional projection: controlling it means breaking the Kurdish territorial continuity, but also resizing Iran and Israel at the same time. Any Israeli bombing of Damascus is therefore perceived as an indirect attack on Ankara, which sees its ambition of hegemony threatened.

Turkish communication reflects this tension. Erdogan uses Gaza as a stage, but it is Syria that is the real obsession. The bombastic declarations against Israel, the comparisons with Hitler, the accusation of genocide: all this serves to mask the fact that the central game is played on the Syrian spheres of influence, not on the Gaza Strip. Syria is the strategic front that can redefine the regional balance.

It is here that the Ankara-Tel Aviv rivalry takes on its clearest dimension. It is not an ideological dispute, nor just a conflict of narrative: it is a struggle for the reconfiguration of the Levant. Syria is the terrain where the two powers border each other, touch each other, strike each other by proxy. And it is precisely Syria’s vulnerability that makes this confrontation as fierce as it is structural.

Follow the money

Israel, for its part, tolerates Erdogan’s inflammatory rhetoric because it knows that the Turkish autocrat cannot afford to move from words to deeds anyway. It is well aware that Turkey will not impose real economic blockades. Trade continues, oil flows do not stop, and Ankara remains an indispensable player in regional logistics.
Anti-Israeli rhetoric serves Ankara more than Tel Aviv, which can afford to ignore it as long as energy flows are not affected.

The consequence of this duplicity is devastating in terms of credibility.
Erdogan presents himself as a defender of the Palestinians, but in fact guarantees continuity for Israel.
His performative communication is built on artifice: bombastic words for the masses, cold pragmatism for the stakeholders. It is an unstable balance, but one that has worked so far, thanks to the Turkish leader’s ability to manipulate symbols and sentiments.

Behind the moral language lies the material truth: Ankara remains the oil hub that feeds Israel. Gaza is the theatre, Ceyhan is the reality. And this contradiction will sooner or later become apparent even to its supporters.

A NATO member sui generis

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political path in recent years clearly shows his ability to transform himself into a fine equilibrist. Mario Draghi, Italy’s Prime Minister at the time, described him with his typical bluntness as a ‘necessary dictator’: authoritarian, controversial, but inescapable for European and Atlantic stability.

Erdogan is able to brandish moral language as a weapon, to portray himself as a defender of the Palestinians, to cry genocide in Gaza, but at the same time to keep intact energy and trade relations with the very Israel he publicly accuses.

An ability to manoeuvre that knows no impunity: Erdogan moulds narratives to his advantage, adapting them to the needs of the moment, and does so without paying immediate international costs.

Although a NATO member, Turkey has for years been moving seemingly above the Alliance lines, as if it enjoyed a greater margin of autonomy than other members.

In part, this can be explained by its geographical position: a bridge between Europe and Asia, guardian of the Straits, facing the Mediterranean and at the same time the Black Sea and the Middle East.

But geography alone is not enough. Erdogan has turned that advantage into political leverage, using the country’s strategic location to accredit himself as an indispensable actor, capable of directing migratory, energy and security flows. A move that allows him to challenge NATO’s collective discipline without suffering any real consequences.

Butrecklessness has its limits

Erdogan’s communicative power is undeniable. He is a leader capable of transforming every crisis into a narrative opportunity, every tragedy into a consensus lever, every conflict into a stage to re-present himself as a moral leader. But his skill as a Bosphorus tightrope walker must not be confused with strategic coherence. For the truth is that Gaza, in Erdogan’s vision, has never been the end. It has been, and remains, the instrument. The moon is elsewhere: it is the redefinition of spheres of influence in Syria and across the Levant.

The fools are left with the choice of what to look at: the finger pointing at Gaza, with its rhetorical power, or the moon shining in Syria and the new Middle East, where the future of the region is really being decided.

Erdogan, meanwhile, will continue to move between the two levels, a refined double agent, a skilful equilibrist, capable of transforming propaganda and silence into one great instrument of political survival.