Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 12 December 2024. © Richard Kemp

The Turkish foreign ministry has strongly condemned Israeli military action in Syria, including the IDF’s advance into the buffer zone between Israel and Syria. ‘Israel is once again displaying its occupation mentality,’ according to Ankara. Never mind that Turkey has invaded, illegally occupied, and ethnically cleansed large areas of northern Syria since 2016.

Jerusalem has temporarily deployed its forces into largely uninhabited areas of critical terrain to prevent Syrian rebels from using them to threaten Israel. It has also been conducting precision attacks against weaponry that would otherwise fall into jihadist hands.

Turkey, meanwhile, has carried out airstrikes against Kurds in northern Syria, while its proxies have killed and kidnapped civilians. Looting and burning homes, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army has seized the northern towns of Tal Rifaat and Manbij, previously held by the US-backed and largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces which played a key role in vanquishing the Islamic State.

Turkey’s condemnation of Israel’s legitimate defensive actions is perhaps understandable for a regime that wants to deflect from its expansionist activity in Syria. Outspoken criticism has also been heaped on Israel’s actions by Iran, again hardly surprising as the ayatollahs lick the wounds inflicted by their ignominious withdrawal from Syria and the devastation wreaked on their number one proxy, Hezbollah, both from Israeli military assault and the loss of Syrian territory vital for its survival.

However, right on cue, the UN, never willing to miss an opportunity to attack Israel, also demanded that the IDF pull back from the buffer zone and cease its air strikes against Syrian military assets. France, too, leapt onto the anti-Israel bandwagon. Search as I might, I have seen only tumbleweed at the UN and across much of the media on Turkey’s egregious assaults against northern Syria in the last few days, even though there have been reports of several hundred killed.

Israel is accused of breaching the 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria following the Yom Kippur War. Israel’s position is that, (more…)