The Mossad Head Suggests That Turkey Might Be More Dangerous Than Iran

Aug. 20 2020

Two years ago, Yossi Cohen—the director of the Mossad who has been praised for his role in making peace with the UAE and presided over such successes as the theft of the Iranian nuclear archive—commented that in the long run it may be Turkey, rather than the Islamic Republic, that poses the greatest threat to Israeli security and regional stability. Roger Boyes seeks to explain why:

“Iranian power is fragile,” [Cohen] reportedly told spymasters from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, “but the real threat is from Turkey.” His point . . . was not that Iran had ceased to be an existential menace but rather that it could be contained: through sanctions, embargoes, intelligence sharing, and clandestine raids. Turkey’s coercive diplomacy [and] its sloppily calculated risk-taking across the Middle East posed a different kind of challenge to strategic stability in the eastern Mediterranean.

At present, writes Boyes, the biggest problem lies in Ankara’s attempts to exploit oil and gas reserves located beneath Greek territorial waters:

Greece and its many islands are preparing to exploit the deep-sea gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean basin and thus turn the sea into a prosperous Greek lake. The ambitions of the Republic of Cyprus have also drawn Turkish anger: it surmises that Turkish-dominated Northern Cyprus will not be able to share in the Greek bonanza.

The dream of mutually beneficial wealth returning to this corner of the Mediterranean . . . is shared not only by Greece and Cyprus but also by Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Italy and even the Palestinian Authority. Yet Recep Tayyip Erdogan views regional energy co-ordination as a project designed chiefly to marginalize Turkey. Here, then, is why the eastern Mediterranean has become such a volatile mess: it is torn between Erdogan’s drive to make Turkey into the indispensable Eurasian power [and] Russian opportunism. . . . Neither the European Union nor NATO seems ready to calm the waters.

Read more at The Times

More about: Greece, Israeli Security, Middle East, Mossad, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023