Israeli and Turkish officials are once again threatening each other over an issue that has become its own genre in recent years.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged accusations last week after Erdogan said Israeli attacks on Syria and Lebanon threatened Turkiye. He committed ample resources to Israel’s destabilization efforts in Africa and the Mediterranean.
Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted quickly, managing to troll everyone in the process.
In response, President Erdoğan responded:
“Those who follow Hitler’s path must remember that their fate will be the same as that of other tyrants throughout history,” he said. “Under the current government, Israel has become a factory of suffering powered only by blood and tears, producing only instability and chaos,” he said, pledging to “make sure that the perpetrators of such atrocities are held accountable.”
I wish he was serious. While the media has focused on the latest verbal missile exchange, here’s what they’re not talking about. Türkiye’s democracy is failing, and the US is backing Erdogan at the same time as Israel has a target on its back. First, the scene within Tolkien.
On May 21, the leader of the main opposition center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), Ozgür Ezer, was dismissed by an Ankara court, invalidating the party’s 2023 leadership election. This is the latest episode in which Turkiye’s judicial system is being used to wipe out opposition. A year ago, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP’s presidential candidate, was arrested. Many CHP mayors have since suffered the same fate, while others have been persuaded to switch to President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party through threats and intimidation. These efforts nearly nullified the CHP’s victory in the 2024 local elections, which at the time was the biggest setback in President Erdoğan’s 20-year rule.
What was the reaction of Western capitals? Mostly crickets. Rather than using Erdoğan’s ongoing suppression of speech and opposition forces as an opportunity to further destabilize Türkiye, we see the “West” instead embracing Türkiye more deeply.
Now, we have to state the obvious. Washington and European governments have little interest in democracy, and their criticism is self-serving and often hypocritical. However, that’s not the point here.
That silence is telling, especially now that Turkiye is being held up by Israel as a future target, at least publicly.
Although the Trump administration has never been interested in issues surrounding democracy and human rights, democracy remains the most popular theme in the EU. But Brussels remains silent on the crackdown on democracy and comparisons between Erdoğan’s Israel and Nazi Germany, even as Kaja Kalas uses her mild comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa (one of the few half-true statements from her mouth) as an excuse to send her back to Estonia.
Trump, on the other hand, prefers to talk in terms of dollars and transactions. And what is happening there speaks volumes.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration checked another item on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s wish list by dismissing a criminal case against Turkish state bank Halkbank for allegedly helping Iran evade sanctions through an oil-and-gold scheme.
This was yet another reminder that while Israel and Turkiye may seek influence, resources, and supply chain positions across multiple theaters, there is continued cooperation in the imperial heartland of Washington – even if the Zionists control it. Let’s take some notes.
Last August, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) was created. The 43-kilometre corridor across southern Armenia will link Azerbaijan and the autonomous Nakhchivan enclave, which borders Turkiye, with Ankara the big winner of the whole plan.
Ankara and Baku are already working on building an electricity corridor to Europe through TRIPP. It is not surprising that the pipeline would follow the path of a power corridor, as both Turkiye and Azerbaijan have long supported such plans. A joint U.S.-Armenian company in which Washington holds a 74 percent controlling interest has just been established by the board of directors of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
TRIPP is helping Turkiye expand its influence in Azerbaijan and the Turkish State Organization in Central Asia. At the same time, if Azerbaijan is able to dramatically increase production (though unlikely), or if gas is somehow moved across the Caspian Sea in significant quantities (even less likely), it could help decouple Turkiye from Russian gas supplied by the Black Sea pipeline TurkStream.
Still, the Azerbaijani gas currently being sent to Turkiye via Georgia is also being sent to the EU, which also explains Brussels’ silence on Erdoğan’s moves and comments that would have drawn rebuke in the past. Turkiye’s ability to flood Europe with refugees doesn’t hurt either, nor does the country’s growing role in the EU’s “massive rearmament.”
On the gas topic, in September Turkiye signed a $43 billion 20-year LNG import contract in the United States. This follows a $1 billion 2024 LNG contract with ExxonMobil. The United States is also supporting the development of shale oil fields in Turkiye.
In January, the Empire brokered an agreement between Israel and Turkiye in Paris. From the cradle:
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attended Paris and played an active role in the negotiations. The request was clear. US support for the SDF must end and the so-called “David Corridor” must be closed. In return, Turkiye will not interfere with Israeli operations in southern Syria.
This was a transactional adjustment and it worked.
Cooperation continues in Iraq as well. US troops are moving from Baghdad and western Iraq to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which has dozens of military installations in Turkiye. Both Washington and Ankara played a major role in resolving the oil revenue dispute between Baghdad and the KRG, and oil exports to Turkiye resumed in September.
That oil can be used domestically to reduce imports from Russia, and it is also delivered to Turkey’s Ceyhan port, from where Turkey continues to export oil to fuel the same Israeli genocide that Erdoğan now likens to “Hitler’s path.”
It’s a strange world.
In May, the KRG also signed major oil and gas contracts with two US companies to help increase output flowing through Turkiye.
Combine all this with the EU’s pledge to completely stop Russian fossil fuel imports by the end of 2027 (this time they’re really serious!), and it looks like Washington is making good on its 2022 Atlantic Council threat/promise that “Turkiye can become an energy hub, but not by going all in on Russian gas.”
All of this is happening as Turkish-Russian relations return to an old normal after a multi-year thaw, brought on by the Russian presence in Syria, the attempted coup in Turkey, US support for the Kurds, and the EU’s economic self-sabotage. The Turkish government now also has to worry about the strengthening of Russia (and Iran).
Is it any surprise, then, that President Trump ignores the rhetoric of President Erdogan and Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Reporter: Do you think there is a possibility of conflict between Israel and Turkiye?
President Trump: I really like President Erdoğan. He is a strong person…President Erdoğan respects me and I respect him, so I don’t think anything like that will happen to Mr. Turkiye as long as I am president. pic.twitter.com/qdwJAqbl73
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 10, 2026
This is similar to what Tom Barrack, Governor-General of the Middle East Empire, said in April.
Now: Tom Barrack, U.S. Ambassador to Turkiye:
So that Israel can ally with Turkiye, so that Israel can ally with Abu Dhabi, so that Saudi Arabia can ally with Israel, and for the prosperity of the Israeli people, that’s the answer for me.
So I think this rhetoric will go away. pic.twitter.com/dHLcPAjWCT
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) April 17, 2026
Barak also said at the Antalya forum that Turkiye is the key to Israel’s energy security.
“Everything is coming from Turkiye. It’s fiber optics. We’re talking about Azerbaijan and Armenia. Oil, gas, information, data, material is flowing. Where does it go? How does it get there?” he said.
These comments appear to be key to how Imperial centers are trying to place the pieces of the puzzle.
Washington wants Turkiye to focus his attention north on Russia and east on the Caspian Sea and Central Asia in order to weaken Russia’s influence in Turkey. Mr. Turkiye is obligated, putting Moscow in a difficult position. Although the Turkish government has not imposed sanctions on Russia, offers alternative gas routes to Europe and does not allow NATO warships to pass through the Black Sea, it has sought to undermine Russian influence across the Caucasus and Central Asia. Andrew Korybko recently commented on Russian Council of International Affairs Chairman Dmitry Trenin’s downplaying of the challenges raised by Mr. Turkiye:
[Trenin] “Moscow is closely monitoring Ankara’s efforts to bring various Turkish countries under the umbrella of the Turkiye-led organization,” he said, but added that it was “not particularly concerned.” Trenin further elaborated that “all Turkish-majority countries of the former Soviet Union pursue a multi-vector foreign policy, of which Turkiye is just one vector. Russia no longer takes the republics of the former Soviet Union for granted and has learned to compete with other powers to protect and promote its legitimate interests there.”
“Baku does not like to play Ankara’s younger brother. The geopolitical balance in the South Caucasus is very complex, but the countries of the region should not be seen as mere puppets of great powers,” Trenin said in an interesting opinion. It is true that Azerbaijan is not Turkiye’s puppet, but out of respect for him, he seems to downplay the strategic importance of the military alliance. Another constructive criticism of Trenin is that he ignores Armenia’s subordination to both countries.
“As things stand, it is not Turkiye but other NATO countries that are seen as a clear and present danger in Moscow,” he concluded, adding that Russia would appreciate Turkiye playing a greater role in the SCO and BRICS as a means to better manage the conflict between the two countries than it currently does. But Trenin is smart enough to know that Turkiye is leading NATO’s expansion of influence along Russia’s entire southern rim through TRIPP, so he is almost certainly downplaying this for diplomatic reasons.
Do you know who else has very close ties with Baku regarding the Azerbaijani alliance? The government follows the “Hitler path”. On June 5, CNN revealed what has been an open secret for years: Azerbaijan serves as a forward operating base for Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
During its war with Iran, Israel secretly sent elite military and intelligence forces to Azerbaijan as part of a network of covert locations across the Middle East to facilitate operations against Iran, four sources familiar with the matter said.
The forces operate in several locations in southern Azerbaijan, bordering Iran’s northern border and the closest point being only about 90 miles from the Iranian city of Tabriz, which Israel attacked during the war, two sources said.
Two other sources said special commandos were also sent to the location to carry out intelligence-gathering missions and drone operations, giving Israel a valuable perch from which to view northern Iran during the war.
Not surprising. Israel has long provided Baku with advanced weapons, which, along with Turkiye, enabled Azerbaijan to enjoy overwhelming advantages over Armenia in the 2020 war. This helped pave the way for TRIPP, another example of all the roads back to Washington.
