Turkey Intensifies Covert Campaign Against Israel and Jews

The ruling Islamist party in Turkey, along with its far-right nationalist ally, has launched a covert plan to target perceived Israeli and Jewish interests, which they deem an existential threat to their political survival and grip on power in a nation of 88 million predominantly Sunni Muslims.

The multifaceted and layered plan, confirmed to Nordic Monitor by multiple sources, entails crafting a hateful narrative to vilify Israel through the predominantly government-controlled Turkish media, launching a crackdown on Jewish networks and their affiliates via judicial and administrative measures and issuing confidential circulars across government agencies to obstruct the activities of Jewish businesspeople and their associates.

The plan proposes a range of actions, including scapegoating and conflating Jews with the Israeli government, deliberately spreading misinformation, conducting mass surveillance of Turkey’s Jewish minority and Israeli nationals visiting or transiting the country and orchestrating the persecution of Jews.

The public outline of the plan was indirectly signaled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who since last year has spoken about Israel as a national security threat, claimed that the Jewish state intends to target Turkey following the Gaza conflict and praised Hamas as defenders of Turkey’s territory.

Although Israel has denied any intention of attacking Turkey, and the Turkish government has yet to provide evidence to support such claims, the Erdoğan regime seems determined to deliberately fuel these fears. This appears to serve as a justification for its current and potential actions against Israeli and Jewish interests.

Erdoğan and his nationalist ally, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), believe that Israel has mobilized its regional and global resources to undermine their hold on power in Turkey. Their paranoia has been further exacerbated by what they view as a more pro-Israel stance under Donald Trump’s second presidency in the United States.

To counter this perceived threat, Erdoğan has tasked the country’s top national security agency with formulating a framework policy on Israel in particular and Jews in general that would have wide-ranging implications across various government agencies and institutions.

Efforts to classify Israel as a national threat have been underway for some time at the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi, MGK), a powerful body often described as a shadow government, responsible for shaping interagency policies on domestic and external security issues.

The first indication of Israel being designated as a primary adversary came from Erdoğan during his opening speech for the new legislative session on October 1, 2024. The parliamentary venue was deliberately chosen to maximize the platform’s reach, as it represents multiple parties elected by the broader population.

“After Lebanon, the next place Israel will set its sights on, let me say it openly, will be our homeland. [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu is including Anatolia [Turkey’s main territory in Asia] in his dreams. To those who say, ‘Turkey should remain neutral,’ and to those who call Hamas a terrorist organization, I say this: What we are facing is not a state, but a bloodthirsty gang of murderers,” the president said.

To lend further credibility to Erdoğan’s claims, the Turkish Parliament was directed to hold a closed session on October 8 to discuss Israeli threats to Turkey, with briefings from Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Defense Minister Yaşar Güler. The minutes of the session have been sealed under a confidentiality order, as is customary for such rare assemblies in the Turkish legislature.

Erdoğan continued to echo similar remarks in subsequent speeches, further embedding the narrative of Israel as Turkey’s enemy in the national psyche and reinforcing an artificially constructed new threat. On November 10 he went as far as claiming that Israel posed a nuclear weapons threat to Turkey.

“A catastrophe, a crime against humanity, is unfolding in front of the entire world. The ones [Israelis] seizing the lands the Palestinian people have lived in for thousands of years have created a state [in Israel] with a controversial history of only 75 years. Not content with this, they are also threatening to use nuclear weapons, including our country in their promised land and challenging our patience with their technological superiority and oppression,” he said.

The Turkish president warned that Israel would soon face consequences and wake up from its immature dreams. This was the first time Erdoğan made reference to a Zionist conspiracy, suggesting the establishment of a promised land where a greater Israel might eventually annex parts of Turkish territory.

He repeated the same claim in a broader context on November 11, delivering a speech in Riyadh during the extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit convened to discuss the Israeli-Hamas conflict. “The expression of unfounded notions about promised lands that pose a threat to the territorial integrity of many countries in the region, including Turkey, is the most explicit evidence of this [aggression],” he stated.

Other senior Turkish officials also lined up to endorse the president’s perspective. In response to a reporter’s question on November 23, Hulusi Akar, a former general who served as chief of general staff and defense minister and currently heads the parliamentary Defense Committee, said the following:

“Is Israel a threat to us or not? It’s a threat, a massive threat. Can the great state of Turkey, with its 85 million citizens, leave their lives to chance? Does it have weapons? Yes. Does it have ammunition? Yes. Is there distance? Yes. Everything is in place except for timing. It’s a matter of timing. So it could happen. Of course, we need to be prepared for this.”

Such remarks were not only intended to shape public opinion in Turkey regarding Israel but also to pave the way for fundamental changes to the National Security Political Document (Milli Güvenlik Siyaset Belgesi, MGSB). This top-secret document, often referred to as Turkey’s “secret constitution” or the “Red Book,” has a unique status, carrying greater influence and priority than other legal texts that govern the actions of Turkish government institutions.

The change was officially adopted in a revised version of the Red Book during a meeting of the MGK on January 22, chaired by President Erdoğan. The last revision of the MGSB occurred in 2020, at which time Israel was excluded from the policy.

As part of this fundamental shift, the Turkish intelligence agency (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MIT) was tasked with developing a comprehensive action plan to limit Israeli influence in Turkey. This included cracking down on intelligence-gathering activities by Mossad, particularly those targeting Hamas and Iranian proxies operating in Turkish territory.

Erdoğan has been a staunch supporter of Hamas, rejecting the group’s designation as a terrorist organization. His government has provided shelter to top Hamas operatives in Turkey, even granting them citizenship. Turkey allows Hamas to raise funds, access the Turkish financial and banking systems to move money and provides logistical support to its members.

MIT provides close protection to several Hamas leaders operating out of Turkey. In recent years, MIT has led a series of sweeping operations involving detentions, indictments and criminal trials targeting individuals that Turkish authorities have labeled as Mossad assets and agents. These campaigns are widely publicized in the government-controlled Turkish media, further reinforcing the narrative that Israel seeks to cause harm to Turkey.

The action plan also aims to marginalize and isolate individuals in media, politics, business, academia and the arts — sectors where the Erdoğan government believes undue influence is being exerted in shaping public opinion in Turkey. In extreme cases, some of these individuals have been recommended for arrest on fabricated charges and through sham criminal investigations, all in an effort to weaken Israeli and Jewish influence on the national agenda.

Nongovernmental organizations believed to be pro-Israel will also face mounting pressure from Turkish authorities, who will fabricate various pretexts to target them and their staff. These organizations will endure targeted inspections, politically motivated investigations by administrative authorities and intense scrutiny of their finances.

The plan envisions both covert and overt actions orchestrated by the Turkish president’s Communications Office (Cumhurbaşkanlığı İletişim Başkanlığı), headed by Fahrettin Altun, often likened to a modern-day Joseph Goebbels. Altun is tasked with shaping the editorial policies of the Turkish media — both pro-government and co-opted opposition outlets — in order to control the national narrative regarding Israel and Jews.

Erdoğan’s neo-nationalist (Ulusalcı) ally, Doğu Perinçek, leader of the Homeland Party (Vatan Partisi), is also complicit in this disinformation campaign. Many commentators in the Turkish media are believed to be Perinçek assets, having long portrayed Israel and the United States as Turkey’s primary enemies. This group is openly pro-Iran and supportive of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, advocating for Turkey’s break from the West and NATO.

Erdoğan’s political ally, HÜDA-PAR, the political arm of Turkey’s pro-Iran Hizbullah group, is also intensifying an anti-Jewish campaign in the country. The group, which entered the Turkish Parliament through Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the last election, proposed a bill to revoke the Turkish citizenship of dual Israeli-Turkish nationals, confiscate their assets and pursue criminal prosecution against them.

The bill, endorsed by Erdoğan’s party, was fast-tracked to the General Assembly without going through the usual committee process, a rare and unusual practice in the Turkish Parliament. While it has not yet been put to a vote, it remains pending, awaiting the right moment to be revisited. Hizbullah claims that many Turkish Jews are serving in the Israeli army as conscripts, volunteers, reservists or in logistical support roles.

More extreme talking points will be disseminated to the Turkish public through social media trolls and bots controlled by Altun’s communications office. To distance the government from these efforts and avoid accusations of antisemitism, some of this dirty work will be outsourced. A flurry of activity across various social media platforms, particularly X and Telegram, is already underway, spreading conspiracies, lies and distorted narratives about exaggerated Jewish influence and power in Turkey.

One of the most troubling talking points, perpetrated by government-directed social media trolls, is the claim that some Jews in Turkey conceal their true identities in order to harm the nation’s security. This narrative draws on the myth of the Sabataycılar (a secret Jewish community that follows Sabbatai Sevi and is said to pretend to be Muslim), among other groups, and attributes Jewish identity to anyone perceived as a threat to the rule of President Erdogan and his allies.

Turkey, a country that has descended into authoritarian rule with little to no checks on Erdoğan’s near-absolute power, has seen a decade-long erosion of the rule of law and a blatant disregard for fundamental human rights. Various groups, including Kurds, members of the Gülen movement and the Alevi community, have long suffered under the rule of Islamist-nationalist politicians who have seized power, dismantled democratic institutions, eliminated an independent judiciary, co-opted the political opposition and silenced the critical press.

Now Turkey’s rulers are focused on targeting Jews, using the conflict between Israel and Hamas as a pretext to mask their true intentions.

Published originally under the title “Turkey’s Covert Campaign Against Jews and Israel Has Been Steadily Intensifying.”