Israel–Turkey Rivalry in Syria:

         Could the Makkah Defence Pact Reshape the Middle East?

                                              By Mitin Sheth (Shanilohit)

                                              Published: August 23, 2026

                                   Estimated Reading Time: 10–11 minutes

The Israel–Türkiye rivalry has moved beyond diplomatic hostility. Post-Assad Syria has become an increasingly sensitive arena where Israeli security concerns intersect with Türkiye's expanding political and military influence. The August 2026 Makkah Joint Defence Agreement among Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan adds another dimension,but calling it an “Islamic NATO” may obscure as much as it explains.

                             

Introduction

For decades, relations between Israel and Türkiye have moved through an extraordinary cycle of cooperation, estrangement and strategic competition. The two countries once maintained close military and intelligence ties, particularly during the 1990s, but their relationship deteriorated sharply during the Erdoğan era as disagreements over Palestine, Gaza and regional influence accumulated. The original version of this article correctly identified Syria as the increasingly important arena in which these competing ambitions could collide. What has changed by August 2026 is that this possibility is no longer merely theoretical.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad's government in December 2024 transformed Syria's strategic landscape. Türkiye developed close relations with the new Syrian leadership under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, while Israel intensified its focus on preventing security threats from emerging across the Syrian theatre. Those two trajectories have increasingly overlapped. On August 18, Israel struck the Abu Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria, reportedly because of concerns over a potential Turkish military deployment there. The incident became serious enough for Washington to begin working on a formal deconfliction mechanism among Israel, Türkiye and Syria to reduce the risk of an accidental confrontation.

At almost exactly the same moment, another strategic development altered the regional equation. On August 7, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, creating a collective-defense framework under which an armed attack against one signatory is to be regarded as an attack against all three. This does not create a NATO-style integrated military alliance, nor is the agreement officially called an “Islamic NATO.” Nevertheless, it introduces a new security framework into an already changing Middle East.

The question, therefore, is no longer simply whether Israel and Türkiye will continue competing in Syria. It is whether that rivalry could eventually interact with a broader realignment of regional defense partnerships.

Executive Summary

Israel and Türkiye are not presently at war, and a direct conflict between them remains avoidable. Yet the strategic distance separating their interests in Syria has narrowed considerably. Türkiye wants a stable post-Assad government with which it enjoys significant political influence, seeks to contain Kurdish armed groups along its frontier, and is expanding defense cooperation with Damascus. Israel remains determined to prevent Syria from becoming a platform for forces or military capabilities it considers threatening and has demonstrated its willingness to use force when it believes those red lines are being approached. The August strike on Abu Duhur exposed how easily those two policies can intersect.

Meanwhile, the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement creates a separate but potentially important strategic variable. The official agreement is defensive, and Pakistan has explicitly said it is not directed against any particular country. It should therefore not be interpreted automatically as an anti-Israel military coalition. However, bringing together Saudi financial weight, Türkiye's NATO membership and growing defense industry, and Pakistan's substantial military capabilities gives the arrangement geopolitical significance. The real question is not whether an “Islamic NATO” suddenly confronts Israel, but whether new regional security structures are emerging as Middle Eastern states seek greater strategic autonomy.

From Strategic Partnership to Strategic Distrust

The deterioration in Israel–Türkiye relations did not happen overnight. During the 1990s, both countries found considerable strategic value in cooperation. Türkiye was an important NATO power with a secular political establishment, while Israel sought partnerships with non-Arab regional states. Military training, intelligence cooperation and defense-industrial relations developed accordingly.

The political environment changed during the Erdoğan era. Türkiye increasingly presented itself as an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause, while repeated confrontations involving Gaza intensified public and diplomatic hostility toward Israel. The relationship became increasingly transactional: trade and selected diplomatic contacts could continue even when political rhetoric became hostile.

Türkiye's policy largely to Erdoğan's ambition to lead the Muslim world. That explanation is too narrow. Ideology and domestic politics matter, but Türkiye is also pursuing traditional national interests—strategic depth, border security, influence in Syria, control over Kurdish security threats, defense-industrial expansion and greater autonomy from both Western and regional powers.

Understanding this broader motivation is essential. Ankara's competition with Israel is not simply ideological hostility. It increasingly involves overlapping security interests.

Post-Assad Syria Changed the Game

The most significant weakness in the original article is that its description of Syria largely reflected the earlier civil-war environment—Israel striking Iranian assets while Türkiye operated against Kurdish forces and supported Syrian opposition groups. The post-2024 landscape is fundamentally different.

Türkiye now enjoys close ties with the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa and has supported Syrian reconstruction, military training and state consolidation. Israel, meanwhile, remains deeply concerned about what kind of military architecture will emerge in the new Syria and who will influence it.

This creates an unusual situation. During the Assad era, Israel's principal strategic concern in Syria centred heavily on Iran, Hezbollah and weapons transfers. In the emerging Syrian order, Iranian influence has been weakened, but Türkiye's influence has increased. That does not make Türkiye equivalent to Iran in Israeli strategic thinking, but it introduces a different potential constraint.

The August 18 strike demonstrated the seriousness of this emerging problem. Israel attacked the Abu Duhur airbase in Idlib province, reportedly seeking to prevent a potential Turkish military deployment. Syria condemned the attack, while Türkiye denounced it. U.S. envoy Tom Barrack subsequently said Washington was trying to establish a deconfliction mechanism among the three parties because misunderstanding or miscalculation could produce dangerous consequences.

The danger is therefore not necessarily that Ankara or Jerusalem chooses war. It is that their expanding military footprints create circumstances in which one side interprets the other's action as crossing a strategic red line.

Why Türkiye Matters to the New Syria

Türkiye possesses advantages in Syria that Israel cannot easily replicate. Geography is the most obvious. Türkiye shares a long border with Syria and has spent years developing political, military and economic relationships across northern parts of the country. Syrian stability directly affects Turkish border security, refugee policy and the Kurdish question.

Ankara also has a rapidly expanding defense industry. Turkish drones, electronic warfare systems and precision weapons have become internationally visible, while its armed forces possess extensive operational experience across Syria and Iraq. Türkiye's role in training and supporting the new Syrian security architecture could therefore produce long-term influence rather than temporary intervention.

Israel views this through a different security lens. A Turkish-supported Syrian military infrastructure does not automatically constitute an Israeli threat, but permanent Turkish deployments or advanced military capabilities in sensitive areas could alter Israel's freedom of action over Syria.

That is why airbases matter.

An airbase is not merely a runway. Depending on what is deployed there, it can support aircraft, drones, surveillance systems, air defense and logistics. Israeli concern over potential Turkish use of Syrian facilities therefore reflects a larger question: who will shape Syria's future military architecture?

Israel's Red Lines Are Also Changing

Israel's Syrian strategy has historically emphasized preventing advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and restricting Iranian military entrenchment. The post-Assad environment requires a broader calculation.

Israel has continued military operations in Syria and maintains forces in areas of the southwest occupied following Assad's fall. On August 22, Israel conducted another strike in southern Syria, saying it had targeted an individual posing an immediate threat to Israeli soldiers; Damascus condemned the strike as a violation of Syrian sovereignty.

These developments illustrate a larger strategic dilemma. Israel wants to ensure that a new Syrian state does not eventually become capable of threatening its northern frontier. Yet sustained Israeli military action can also weaken Damascus, complicate U.S. attempts at stabilization and create incentives for Syria to seek deeper security cooperation with Türkiye.

A policy designed to prevent one threat can therefore contribute indirectly to the emergence of another strategic alignment.

The Risk Is Miscalculation, Not an Inevitable War

An Israel–Türkiye conflict might eventually expand across Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Those possibilities belong in scenario analysis, but they should not be presented as likely outcomes.

Both countries possess powerful reasons to avoid direct war.

Türkiye is a NATO member. Israel has an exceptionally close security relationship with the United States. Washington therefore has strong incentives to prevent two important American partners from entering an armed confrontation. Economic costs would also be severe, and neither country would gain easily achievable strategic objectives from a prolonged conflict.

Nevertheless, the Abu Duhur incident shows why accidental escalation deserves serious attention. A Turkish military team, aircraft or defense system located at a Syrian facility struck by Israel could transform a dispute over Syrian security into a bilateral military crisis.

This is precisely why a deconfliction mechanism matters.

Such mechanisms do not eliminate rivalry. They create channels through which militaries can communicate before an incident becomes a war.

Then came the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement

on August 7, 2026 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. Official statements describe its purpose as strengthening collective deterrence and expanding defense cooperation. Most significantly, the agreement states that an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against all three.

This is a major development, but terminology matters.

The agreement is not officially called “Islamic NATO.” Nor does the publicly available material establish a NATO-equivalent integrated command, permanent combined force structure or institutional machinery comparable to the North Atlantic alliance.

Pakistan's foreign ministry has explicitly described the pact as defensive and said that it is not directed against any country.

Therefore, the original article's statement that a recently formed “Islamic NATO” led by Türkiye included Pakistan, Qatar and other countries is no longer the wording I would retain. There is now something more concrete and more analytically useful to discuss: a formally announced trilateral collective-defense agreement among Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan.

Qatar should not be listed as a signatory unless it actually joins.

Is It Really an “Islamic NATO”?

The comparison is tempting because of the collective-defense clause. NATO's famous Article 5 is built around the principle that an attack against one member is considered an attack against all. The Makkah agreement contains superficially similar language.

But similarity of wording does not create institutional equivalence.

NATO possesses decades of integrated military planning, command structures, interoperability standards, exercises, logistics systems and political consultation mechanisms. The Makkah pact is new, and its practical military arrangements remain far less clear publicly.

It is therefore more accurate to describe it as an emerging trilateral collective-defense framework.

That formulation does not diminish its significance. Saudi Arabia contributes enormous economic and financial resources. Türkiye possesses NATO experience, a major military and an increasingly sophisticated defense-industrial base. Pakistan brings a large professional military and nuclear weapons capability.

Together, the three represent a potentially consequential strategic combination.

But potential is not the same as operational integration.

Would the Makkah Pact Back Türkiye Against Israel?

This is where analysis requires particular restraint.

The agreement's collective-defense wording naturally raises the question of what would happen if Türkiye were involved in an armed confrontation with Israel. Yet the publicly released agreement does not provide enough information to conclude automatically that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan would enter such a war.

Context would matter enormously,who initiated hostilities, where an attack occurred, how the parties interpreted the treaty, what diplomatic mechanisms had been exhausted, and how Washington and other powers responded.

Saudi Arabia has its own interests and does not simply follow Turkish regional policy. Pakistan has traditionally supported the Palestinian cause but would have extraordinary reasons to avoid entering a direct Middle Eastern war. Türkiye itself would have strong incentives to prevent a Syrian confrontation from reaching the threshold at which collective defense commitments were tested.

The Makkah pact therefore changes strategic calculations more clearly than it changes immediate war plans.

Its deterrent value may lie precisely in making escalation less attractive.

Pakistan's Nuclear Capability Requires Careful Treatment

 Pakistan's nuclear status adds weight to an Islamic alliance. That point needs considerable qualification.

Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state, but its participation in a defense agreement does not automatically extend a nuclear guarantee to the other signatories. No publicly available text of the Makkah agreement cited here establishes such a guarantee.

We should therefore avoid language suggesting a Saudi or Turkish nuclear umbrella unless official evidence emerges.

The strategic significance is subtler. Pakistan's nuclear status increases its overall military and geopolitical weight, but conventional defense cooperation and nuclear deterrence are distinct concepts.

For serious geopolitical analysis, that distinction is essential.

Saudi Arabia May Be the Most Interesting Player

Focusing exclusively on Türkiye and Pakistan could obscure perhaps the most significant aspect of the new agreement: Saudi Arabia's role.

Riyadh has traditionally relied heavily on the United States for its external security architecture. A trilateral defense agreement with Türkiye and Pakistan suggests an interest in diversifying strategic partnerships while retaining existing Western relationships.

That does not necessarily represent an anti-American shift. It can equally be understood as strategic hedging, a regional power building additional options in an increasingly uncertain security environment.

Saudi participation also complicates any simplistic interpretation of the pact as an anti-Israel bloc.Riyadh's interests include regional stability, economic transformation, containing disruptive conflicts and maintaining relationships across multiple power centers.

The Makkah agreement is therefore better understood as evidence of a more multipolar Middle Eastern security order than as the birth of a religious military front against Israel.

What Happens to the Israel–Türkiye Balance?

Israel retains formidable advantages in intelligence, advanced air power, missile defense, cyber capabilities and precision-strike capacity. Türkiye possesses strategic depth, geographic proximity to Syria, a much larger population, substantial conventional forces and a defense industry whose capabilities have expanded rapidly.

But comparing platforms alone misses the larger point.

An Israel–Türkiye confrontation would not resemble a conventional two-state war fought in isolation. Syria, NATO, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other regional actors would immediately become diplomatic variables. The Eastern Mediterranean could acquire additional significance, while economic and energy relationships would create further constraints.

This complexity actually reduces the usefulness of asking, “Who would win?”

The strategically important question is: How could both countries prevent competition from crossing the threshold into direct conflict?

  Washington Has Become the Essential Deconfliction Actor

The events of August 2026 provide an answer.

Following the Abu Duhur strike, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said Washington was working to establish a formal deconfliction mechanism among Türkiye, Israel and Syria.

This may prove more consequential in the immediate future than dramatic speculation about regional war.

A functioning mechanism could establish notification procedures, clarify military red lines and create emergency communication channels. Similar arrangements have been used in crowded military theatres where rival forces operate in proximity without necessarily wanting to fight one another.

The need for such a system is itself revealing. Israel–Türkiye rivalry has reached a stage where informal assumptions may no longer be sufficient.

Competition now requires management.

Syria Is the Test Case

The future of Israel–Türkiye relations may therefore depend disproportionately on what happens in Syria.

If Türkiye's military cooperation with Damascus expands while remaining transparent and geographically limited, Israel may eventually accommodate some degree of Turkish influence. If Israel continues striking facilities that Ankara considers essential to Syrian reconstruction or Turkish security, however, tensions could deepen.

Damascus itself also has agency. Syria's government does not necessarily want its territory transformed into an arena for Israeli–Turkish confrontation. Its long-term interest lies in recovering sovereignty and reducing the freedom with which foreign states conduct military operations inside its borders.

The paradox is striking: a stronger and more stable Syrian state could ultimately reduce Israel–Türkiye friction by creating clearer rules. A fragmented Syria allows competing foreign security interests to overlap repeatedly.

A New Middle East Is Emerging

The deeper story extends beyond Israel and Türkiye.

For years, Middle Eastern geopolitics was often analysed through relatively familiar axes: Iran versus Saudi Arabia, Israel versus Iran, Türkiye versus Kurdish movements, and the United States versus various regional challengers.

Those categories are becoming less sufficient.

Türkiye cooperates with some states while competing with them elsewhere. Saudi Arabia is diversifying its strategic relationships. Pakistan is becoming connected to a Middle Eastern collective-defense arrangement. Syria is rebuilding after Assad. Israel faces a regional environment in which Iranian influence has changed but other centers of power are becoming more assertive.

The Makkah pact is one manifestation of this transition.

It may eventually become a powerful security institution. It may remain primarily a political deterrence framework. At present, it is too early to know.

But it should not be ignored.

Conclusion:Not Yet an “Islamic NATO”But No Longer Just a Hypothesis

Whether an emerging “Islamic NATO” could influence an Israel–Türkiye confrontation. At the time, that framing rested too heavily on speculation.

August 2026 has changed the analytical landscape.

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have now signed a real collective-defense agreement. Its official language states that an armed attack against one will be considered an attack against all. At the same time, Israel has demonstrated its willingness to strike a Syrian airbase over concerns involving potential Turkish military activity, while Washington is attempting to establish a mechanism specifically designed to prevent Israel, Türkiye and Syria from stumbling into a larger confrontation.

These developments do not mean an Israel–Türkiye war is approaching. Nor do they mean the Makkah pact is an anti-Israel alliance.

They mean something more subtle and perhaps more important: the regional security architecture is changing.

Türkiye is becoming more deeply embedded in post-Assad Syria. Israel is attempting to preserve its freedom of action and prevent new threats from developing there. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan are experimenting with collective deterrence outside traditional Western frameworks. Washington, meanwhile, remains indispensable precisely because many of these emerging powers maintain important relationships with the United States even while pursuing greater strategic autonomy.

The greatest danger is therefore not necessarily deliberate war. It is miscalculation at the intersection of several changing security systems.

Syria has become the place where those systems increasingly meet.

And the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement ensures that what happens between Israel and Türkiye can no longer be analysed solely as a bilateral rivalry.

Mitin Sheth (Shanilohit)

(Senior Columnist, Janmabhoomi Group of Newspapers | Author | Geopolitical Analyst | Strategic Book Reviewer)

Selected References

Republic of Türkiye, Directorate of Communications - “Türkiye and Saudi Arabia Sign a Joint Defense Agreement,” August 7, 2026.

https://www.iletisim.gov.tr/ENGLISH/haberler/detay/turkiye-and-saudi-arabia-sign-a-joint-defence-agreement?

Government of Saudi Arabia — “Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan Issue Joint Statement of the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defense,” August 9, 2026.

https://my.gov.sa/en/news/2835346?

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan — “Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defense,” August 7, 2026.

https://mofa.gov.pk/press-releases/makkah-al-mukarramah-summit-for-joint-defence?

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan — Message on the Signing of the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement. 

https://mofa.gov.pk/press-releases/message-to-the-nation-on-the-signing-of-the-makkah-joint-defence-agreement?

Reuters — “U.S. Working on Deconfliction Mechanism Among Turkey, Israel and Syria,” August 18, 2026. Reports U.S. efforts to prevent accidental confrontation following the Abu Duhur strike.

Associated Press — “Israel Strikes an Air Base in Northwest Syria to Prevent Turkish Troops from Deploying,” August 18, 2026. Contemporary reporting on the Abu Duhur incident and Israel–Türkiye tensions.

Disclaimer

This article is an independent geopolitical analysis based on official statements, publicly available information and reputable open-source reporting. Scenario analysis concerning possible escalation does not predict or advocate armed conflict. The Makkah Joint Defense Agreement is referred to by its official name; the term “Islamic NATO” is used only when discussing public comparisons with the emerging framework.

"Independently authored work. AI tools were used only for supportive tasks (research, translation, editing, image generation, and grammatical/punctuation correction). Final content and creative direction are the author’s own".

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2026 Mitin Sheth (Shanilohit). All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted without prior written permission from the author, except for brief quotations permitted under applicable copyright law.