Episode 24: With Iran down, Turkey steps into the breach - a conversation with Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak.

Ask Haviv Anything

Haviv Rettig Gur

History

4.9 • 640 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

(Update: audio issues corrected)

Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel. I was an ally and vital trading partner for decades -- until the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the Islamist AKP party, who began pursuing a "neo-Ottomanist" foreign policy of Turkish influence and expansionism in the region, and specifically identified Israel as a long-term ideological enemy.

Turkey is now forging alliances on all Israel's borders and looking to found an Islamic defense alliance a la NATO. Earlier this year, Turkish lawmakers formally declared Israel the country's top national security threat.

As Iran's influence retreats in the wake of the war, Erdogan has already energetically stepped into the breach, calling for Israel to be dismantled and trying to position himself as leader of the Muslim political world. Unlike Iran, he may well have the military and geopolitical clout in the region to get it done.

Are the two countries on a trajectory for a clash in, say, 20 years' time? Or can these two Middle Eastern powers find a modus vivendi that prevents more conflict in the region?

We posed this question to Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a scholar at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University who grew up in Turkey's Jewish community and is today one of Israel's top Turkey analysts.

This episode was sponsored by an anonymous sponsor and dedicated to Aviv Atzili, 49, from Kibbutz Nir Oz, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7 was while fighting alongside the kibbutz’s emergency response team. His wife, Liat, was kidnapped that day, but was released as part of the first truce in November 2023.

Aviv's body was located and returned to Israel for burial in a joint IDF-Shin Bet operation in Gaza two days before the start of the Israel-Iran war together with the body of Yaakov Yagil, also from Nir Oz. We remember them.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everybody. Welcome to Ask Kaviv Anything.
0:08.0	The Israeli-Iran war is over about 24 hours. And we've already heard from another leader in the region that he has learned lessons from the war.
0:19.0	This is someone who leads a country that was the very first Muslim country to recognize Israel
0:23.8	and had a longstanding military and economic alliance and close ties, and now does not. There's no economic trade between these two countries,
0:33.7	and there is talk about the need for this country to build out a massive missile arsenal because the lesson from Iran is that ballistic missiles can penetrate the Israeli missile shield, apparently.
0:46.3	There are already clouds gathering. People are talking about an arc of 10, 20 years. This country is dominant right now in Syria. It is the next big question.
0:59.1	Do I want a war? Do I think there is a war? God, no. But nevertheless, this is now one of the
1:04.2	great questions that we're going to be asking. And I am joined today by my wife and producer and just generally the person who makes everything in my life possible.
1:17.1	So be, you know, be careful where you put you, but that was too much joking.
1:21.1	I lost it.
1:21.9	Okay.
1:22.3	I'm joined today by my wife, Rachel Gould, who is going to be helping me ask these questions, and by our expert,
1:29.3	Dr. Chai Aitán, Cohen, Yana Rojak. And I hope I got that right because my Turkish pronunciation
1:35.5	is not as good as it used to be, I guess, would be the joke. He's from the Mosheed Dayan Center
1:40.9	for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and a well-known, often interviewed expert on Turkey and Turkish matters in Israeli media
1:50.0	and in Israeli public discourse. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this episode
1:55.0	is sponsored by an anonymous sponsor. Thank you very much for your sponsorship, who follows in the great tradition of asking that we dedicate this episode to someone who fell on October 7.
2:08.1	Some dedications have been to members of the family who fought in World War II.
2:11.7	It's been a beautiful thing just to watch the sponsorships have almost been as felt as serious and profound and
2:18.8	interesting of a kind of community building act as as the actual episode. So really thank
2:24.6	you to our to our audience, to our Patreon members. You can join us on Patreon. It's $5 a month.
2:30.0	You get episodes earlier. You get to take part in some conversations that we're part of.
	...

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