In shocking statements that turned the compass of security threats inside Tel Aviv, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Reserve Major General Giora Eiland, delivered a resounding surprise after he removed Iran and Hezbollah from the top of the list of existential threats, considering that the greatest and imminent military threat to Israel now lies in Turkey and the ambitions of its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Ottoman Crescent bypasses Tehran…a barter on Syrian soil
In a lengthy interview published by the Hebrew newspaper Maariv, Eiland warned of the growing Turkish influence in the region:
- Türkiye is the next existential threat: Eiland considered that Ankara’s expansionist policies and Erdogan’s hard-line ideological tendencies represent the most dangerous and complex military challenge to Israel’s security in the next stage, superior to the threats of the traditional Iranian axis.
- A deal with Damascus guaranteed by Washington: To confront this expansion, Eiland called on his government to conclude an urgent strategic settlement with the Syrian President under direct American sponsorship and guarantee. It stipulates that Israel withdraws from the areas it recently controlled, in exchange for Damascus’s strict commitment to prevent the introduction or deployment of any advanced Turkish weapons systems on its territory.
Harsh criticism of Netanyahu: 80% of decisions are “personal and political”
The former head of the National Security Council launched a violent attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of putting his own interests ahead of national accounts, stressing that partisan and personal considerations swallow up about 80% of Netanyahu’s decisions, which disrupts the strategic vision in managing the burning fronts.
Anatomy of the October 7 failure: The illusion of the “poor organization”
Eiland reopened the file of the catastrophic intelligence failure on October 7, 2023, revealing structural gaps that toppled the security apparatus:
- Mischaracterization of reality: He considered that the fatal mistake was dealing with the Hamas movement as a mere faction ruling a poor population, while Gaza has effectively transformed since 2007 into an independent entity with borders, a government, and a sophisticated regular army that wages direct war.
- Ignoring alarms on the night of the attack: He criticized the intelligence services’ surrender to the assumption of calm, ignoring the attack plan documents and unusual indicators on the night of the operation, in addition to engineering flaws in the design of the border fortifications and the behavior of the General Staff, which refrained from taking any pre-emptive step to protect the forces.
Island’s reading reveals the depth of the rift in the Israeli security mind, where the complex of past failures intersects with a new strategic panic about Turkey’s military influence getting out of control in Israel’s northern flank.
