Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threat to Israel yesterday (Sunday) was one of the most severe ever heard from the Turks, and there were quite a few. “We must be very strong so that Israel cannot do these things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we cannot do,” said Erdogan, who in effect threatened to intervene in the war and invade Israel .
In Israel they were outraged by the threat and also by the silence on the part of allied countries, but they say that the Turkish army does not have the ability to threaten Israel and it is an idle threat, designed to score points at the expense of Jerusalem.
Turkey has been hostile to Israel for many years, since Erdogan came to power. But it never threatened to invade Israel with its army or arm the terrorist organizations with Turkish products. Yesterday it changed, and the very threat is what is so serious about this event, and the relations between the countries.
Special Forces of the Turkish Army Photo: YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images
In terms of the threat itself, it should be said that Turkey has a large army in terms of personnel and equipment, but one that is suffering from a serious crisis since the failed coup attempt against Erdogan, who carried out an extensive purge, in which he arrested or fired thousands of professional and experienced officers and soldiers.
The Turks have a huge regular army – the largest in NATO after the US army. In principle, it is a large Western army that trains a lot with NATO armies, another fact that makes its threat very serious, as one whose army trains with Israel’s allies.
Despite training with Western armies, the Turkish military has no experience in full-scale warfare. Unlike Israel, the last time Turkey participated in a full-scale war was in Cyprus, sometime in the 1970s. Even in the war it is waging against the Kurds, among other things in Iraq, the Turkish army fails to achieve major victories, suffers heavy losses and even commits serious war crimes.
The Turks do have a clear numerical advantage in tanks, APCs and cannons, but most of them are very outdated, what’s more, they don’t have a common border with Israel to invade from there. The IDF has a distinct technological and human advantage.
The Turkish commando Photo: tcsavunma, Twitter
In the naval arena, the Turks have a numerical advantage, and here for a change, the technological gap is narrowing. The Turks have a large amount of submarines, missile ships and means that Israel does not have, such as minesweepers and minesweepers and ships for landing land forces. The Turkish Navy has 52 landing ships and operates an independent marine brigade with 4,500 fighters and 3 battalions. Does this mean that the Turks can raise their land forces and sail to Israel? It’s a scenario that almost doesn’t exist.
It seems that Erdogan’s threats should be taken more in the direction of the possibility of arming the terrorist organizations, with Turkish products, mainly as UAVs, as they did in Nagorno-Karabakh in the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and in Libya, where they sent hundreds of aircraft of the “Bayercater” type. These require the training of Activators, and it takes time.
The Turkish UAVs, if provided to terrorist organizations, have the potential to penetrate Israel’s air defense system, but not to change the big picture of the war beyond what is happening today. In Israel, they analyzed the function of the Turkish UAVs in the same wars that Erdogan mentioned and also the function of those that were sent to Ukraine, and found that their percentage of usability was low and the number of malfunctions was high.
Turkish Bayraktar UAV | Photo: BIROL BEBEK/AFP, GettyImages
Let’s recall that Erdogan has been helping Hamas for quite a few years now. Senior officials of the terrorist organization are based in Turkey and operate from there to finance and carry out attacks in Judea and Samaria, and also assist from there in the fighting in Gaza, mainly through funding and media support. In Erdogan’s dictatorial country, nothing happens without his approval and that of his intelligence agencies.
Israel cannot pass in silence over such a threat, and must conduct an aggressive media and diplomatic campaign against Turkey. Let’s recall that already in 2018, the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Erdoğan announced that it was interested in establishing the “Army of Islam” to fight Israel. The Turks have been acting for years in total violation of the clause in the reconciliation agreement signed after the Marmara flotilla, which obliges them to prevent any terrorist or military activity against Israel. In Jerusalem they have to charge a price for it.
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