In Thursday’s newsletter, I mentioned the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s apparent threat to send troops to attack Israel. Erdogan specifically referred to Turkey’s interventions in Azerbaijan and Libya, where it sent not members of its armed forces but of a private security contractor with close ties to the government. Jonathan Spyer tries to make sense of these remarks:

The Turkish leader was hinting that the methods of proxy warfare which have characterized Turkish activity in the region over the last decade might be applied also to the Israel-Palestinian context. Erdogan is known for his rhetorical verbosity and extravagance. In this case, however, it would be a mistake to dismiss the statement as mere hot air.

Turkey’s continued domiciling of an active Hamas office and its provision of passports to Hamas operatives are a matter of public record. In July 2023, Israeli customs authorities intercepted sixteen tons of explosive material on its way from Turkey to Gaza, disguised as building material. Thus Erdogan’s, and Turkey’s, support for Hamas is already far beyond the realm of rhetoric.

Why does Turkey, a NATO member, think it can get away with this behavior? Benny Avni notes that Ankara played an important role as a mediator in securing the release of Evan Gershkovich and other American hostages held by Russia. But now that they are free, the U.S. can afford to take the gloves off:

Washington has tools to lean on Ankara, including by conditioning any new arms sale on ending threats to Israel and Greece. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is reportedly making contingency plans for the “nuclear option,” . . . redeploying America’s largest airbase in the region to a neighboring country from Turkey’s Incirlik.

Perhaps unconcerned about such drastic moves, Mr. Erdogan seems increasingly to deflect political pressures at home by lashing out at neighbors. His latest anti-Greek statements were made on July 20, which marked the 50th anniversary of Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus.

Ankara’s provocative statements should concern not just the U.S., but NATO as a whole, writes Ben Cohen. Not only because Greece is also a member of the alliance but also because of a recent comment from Turkey’s former ambassador to NATO, Fatih Ceylan, regarding Ismail Haniyeh’s death:

After dismissing the likelihood of similar operations on Turkish soil, Ceylan added that were one to happen, . . . “Turkey will certainly take this move to NATO.” . . . [W]hen Ceyhan breezily says that Turkey will raise any Israeli operations on its territory with NATO—hoping, no doubt, that doing so will trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which enshrines the principle that an attack on one member is an attack on all—one might reasonably expect, given this woeful record, that the other NATO members will proffer a middle finger in Ankara’s direction.

The negotiations that secured the release of Edan Alexander were conducted by the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, with reportedly little or no involvement from the Israelis. Amit Segal considers:

Does Edan’s release mean foreign-passport holders receive priority over those only with Israeli passports? He is, after all, is a dual American-Israeli citizen who grew up in New Jersey. While it may not be the intended message, many will likely interpret the deal as such: foreign-passport holders are worth more. In a country where many citizens are already obtaining second passports, encouraging even more to do so is unwise, to say the least.

Another bad look for Israel: Washington is freeing Edan, not Jerusalem. . . .

Then there’s the question of the Qatari jumbo jet. At this point we can only speculate, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as Hamas is set to release a hostage, Trump is also accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar worth around $400 million. Are the two connected?

Still, Segal reminds us that in one, crucial way, this deal is superior to those that preceded it:

The fact that Hamas appears to be freeing a hostage for nothing in return is indeed a victory. Don’t forget: in February, in exchange for the bodies of four hostages, Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners, not to mention the Palestinian terrorists—many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands—released in other deals during this war.

As serious as the concerns Segal and others have raised are, that last point makes me think that some of the handwringing about the deal by other commentators is exaggerated. The coming IDF offensive—tanks have been massing on the edge of Gaza in recent days—the many weeks during which supplies haven’t entered the Strip, and Israel’s declared plans not to allow Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian aid cannot but have made the jihadists more pliable.

And the deal was made on a schedule set by Israel, which said that it would embark on a full-bore offensive at the end of the week if the hostages aren’t released. Moreover, in the parameters Hamas has set forth until now, Alexander, a male soldier, would have been among the last of the hostages to be exchanged.

What of the claim that President Trump has achieved what Prime Minister Netanyahu couldn’t? Again, there is some truth here. But it’s worth noting that the Hostages Forum—a group representing most of the hostages’ families, consistently critical of Netanyahu, and supported by a broad swath of Israelis—has since at least January been demanding a deal where all the hostages are freed at once. (This demand is an understandable reaction to the sadistic games Hamas played with the weekly releases earlier this year and in the fall of 2023.) So Trump let them down too.

In fact, Trump previously promised that “all hell would break loose” if all hostages weren’t released. Neither has happened, so I’m not sure if Trump looks all that much stronger than Netanyahu.

My takeaway, though, isn’t a defense or criticism of either leader, but simply a cautionary note: let’s not jump to conclusions quite yet.