Israel, Kurdistan: Act Before the Map Sets

Turkey digs in with jihadists as Israel hesitates in the north

For years, Israel has treated Turkey and the Kurds as background to its concerns in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. That view is now out of date. Turkey has entrenched itself in northern Syria and parts of Iraq, and Iran is trying to build a land route from Tehran to the Mediterranean. In this setting, Israel cannot just react. It needs an alliance strategy and must set it out before the map hardens against it.

Turkey’s military presence in northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan has shifted from short raids to a fixed deployment. Ankara has sent troops, armour and aircraft across the border again and again, then built bases and local structures to hold what it has gained. It presents this as a campaign against terrorism, yet on the ground Turkish units work with Islamist armed groups that rely on Ankara for weapons, money and political cover. Together they are shaping a belt that blocks Kurdish self-rule and gives Turkey leverage over its southern neighbours. The longer this belt remains, the harder it becomes to reverse it or build any useful alliance around Kurdistan.

From Ankara’s point of view, a Kurdish entity on its border could inspire Kurds inside Turkey to demand more rights and, in time, autonomy. Any sign of Western or Israeli backing makes that prospect more alarming. So Turkey moves early. It breaks up Kurdish control where it can and tries to keep outside powers from using Kurdistan as a base.

For Israel, Kurdistan is part of its security, not a side cause. Kurdish regions in Syria, Iraq and Iran lie across the land routes that connect Iran to the Levant. When those areas retain some self-rule, they complicate the plans of any state that wants to move fighters and missiles across that arc. When they are dominated or broken, the road becomes smoother and Israel faces more direct pressure from powers that oppose it.

There is also a long, quiet history between Israel and Iraqi Kurdistan. Since the 1960s, Israeli advisers have backed Kurdish forces against regimes in Baghdad. More recently there have been reports of energy deals, intelligence contacts and political support, especially around the 2017 independence referendum. The relationship has never been formal and is constrained by regional pressure, but it exists.

The risk now is that Turkey and Iran squeeze Kurdistan from different sides. Turkey focuses on Kurdish armed groups in Syria and northern Iraq. Iran presses Kurdish parties and areas further east and south. Baghdad, caught between them, leans towards outlawing or restricting Kurdish armed movements rather than defending them. The likely outcome is a fragmented and dependent Kurdistan with little room to manoeuvre. Israel would lose partners, early warning and possible corridors just when it most needs them.

Israel’s current stance is cautious. It voices sympathy for the Kurds and trades with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, yet avoids a clear line, mainly to keep friction with Turkey manageable. That may look prudent in the short term, but it leaves the initiative with others. Ankara, Tehran and Washington decide what is acceptable in Kurdistan, and Israel reacts to decisions made without it.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces and their Islamist partners are digging deeper into the northern belt. Each month that passes without a clear Israeli position helps to normalise a situation in which Kurdish communities are policed by groups hostile to Israel and tied directly to Ankara. Delay tightens a reality that will be harder and more costly to change later.

A serious alliance strategy would start from a simple aim: no single regional power should control the Kurdish belt from northern Syria across Iraqi Kurdistan into Iran. To support that aim, Israel should deepen its ties with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq through energy projects, investment and limited security cooperation. It should keep channels open to Kurdish actors in Rojava and back arrangements that preserve local self-rule, even if full recognition is not on the table. The point is not to turn Kurdistan into an Israeli outpost, but to keep it from becoming a one-way route for Israel’s enemies.

Making this strategy public matters. An announced Israeli partnership with Kurdish actors would not be treated across the Arab world as a declaration of war. Most Arab governments that have joined the Abraham Accords, or are moving towards normalisation, treat relations with Israel as a long-term project. They are concerned with stability, investment and managing Iran, not with fighting over Kurdish autonomy in the north. The one state that would treat an open Israeli–Kurdish alignment as hostile is Turkey, and it already behaves as a rival in that arena.

These Kurdish ties should sit in a wider picture. Israel already works with Greece, Cyprus and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean and with the United Arab Emirates and other partners further south. An open understanding with Kurdistan would link the northern and southern parts of this network of ties. It would signal that there are limits to how far Turkey can push along its southern border without meeting resistance and reassure Arab partners that this is about balance, not about carving up their territories.

There is a useful precedent. Israel already speaks and acts for Druze communities near its borders. It has drawn a line around their safety, and no regional government seriously tests that line. If Israel spoke with the same clarity about Kurdistan, it would raise the cost of any large assault on Kurdish areas. In such a context, the United States would find it harder to ignore the problem and would be more likely to engage early to head off a crisis rather than issue statements after displacement or massacre had already taken place.

Time is now working against Israel. Today it still has Kurdish partners who are willing to listen and Arab states that take normalisation seriously. It still has room to build a set of alliances that includes Kurdistan as a buffer rather than a gap. If it waits until Turkey has consolidated its gains and the Kurds have been forced into hard bargains, any alliance strategy will be weaker and more expensive. When survival and regional balance are at stake, silence is not neutral; silence favours the strongest power on the ground.