The successes of Erdogan abroad and unhappiness it conceals at home

It is realpolitik in its purest form. The bitter irony is that the Palestinians, and even the people of Turkey, remain excluded from its rewards.

At the Türkiye Century Meetings Closing Program in Istanbul, PresidentErdoğan declared last week (25 October) that “Türkiye is transforming into a global power. Today, when peace, tranquility, and stability are mentioned, Türkiye comes to mind first. Compassion, mercy, and justice evoke this noble nation first in people’s minds.”

He went on to claim that “from Syria to Gaza, from the Gulf to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, no equation can be established without Türkiye.” In his telling, “there is now a Türkiye that is respected both in its region and around the world, a nation that exports peace and stability.” His performance is typical of the moments when he blends hyperbole and grievance to inflate the state’s reach and conceal its deepening fragility.

The key is to see Erdogan era Turkish policy towards Israel and Palestine as a dual-track enterprise that mixes maximalist public rhetoric with quiet, intelligence-led bargaining. The first track secures domestic legitimacy, aimed at consolidating the AKP’s base together with nationalist voters who swing between the MHP and the ruling party. It could also be argued that Erdoğan’s fiery rhetoric toward Netanyahu and Israel is, at least in part, sincere. He despises how Israel treats Palestinians, yet he remains one of the most pragmatic and able politicians on the world stage. His principles are malleable, so is his ideology, or what is left of it. He instrumentalizes his emotions to galvanize those of his base and the broader Muslim public whose ear he has held since the One Minute incident in Davos in 2009. The second track stems from this same pragmatic and malleable side, protecting state (read: his rule) interests across several files at once.

Instrumentalisation of Islamist proximity

In essence, Turkey was saying: we have access, credibility, and channels with both sides of the war; if you include us in the postwar framework, we can help you control escalation and shape what comes next. The shift from rhetorical hostility toward Israel to participation in ceasefire talks is therefore not a reversal. It is a calculated use of Turkey’s earlier intimacy with Hamas (let’s call this Islamist proximity) as political capital to secure influence over the day after.

In this sense, Erdoğan’s influence extends beyond Turkey’s borders because his system fuses diplomacy and intelligence in a way that is nimble and transactional. Gaza becomes a stage on which he presents himself as the leader who can speak to every side while extracting concessions that resonate both at home and in Trump’s United States, from arms sales to Syria policy. That is why foreign capitals read his moves in Gaza as a test of how he aims to shape the political landscape of the wider Middle East in the next cycle.

Nevertheless, I do not think that in the short term Turkey will be able to move from symbolic presence to managerial responsibility across logistics and early reconstruction in Gaza, for the simple reason that Israel is not and will not tolerate Turkey there. It is already uneasy about Turkey’s presence in Syria and would certainly dread the possibility of a deeper Turkish footprint nearby.

Some experts estimate that clearing the tons of rubble and waste in Gaza could take a decade.

If debris removal teams and field hospitals are to mark the beginning of a wider reconstruction effort, one that includes modular housing, power and water infrastructure, and port or corridor arrangements, then Egyptian coordination, Israeli acquiescence, and Qatari financing are all indispensable. This indicates an arduous task with too many variables.

We should also recognize that Turkey’s economy is in shambles and that its military and security presence across multiple countries, from Syria to Libya, is stretched to its limit. For this reason, the real Turkish instrument at this moment is the intelligence channel, which can reduce friction on permits, crossings, and security deconfliction. It is true that there are many state-adjacent contractors with long experience in high-risk environments, which means Turkey can scale up quickly if the truce holds and Israel complies with Turkish involvement under pressure from the Trump administration.

In this sense, the fragility of the truce does not erase this logic, since even intermittent lulls generate tasks that someone must perform, and if Turkey performs them capably it can turn competence into influence, and influence into bargaining power on other issues that matter to it. In sum, Gaza diplomacy converts years of cultivated relationships into usable leverage. The problem, as has been the case from the beginning, is the real intent of Israel’s current genocidal government toward Palestine and the Palestinians.

The Art of Transactional Survival

The Erdoğan government will surely attempt to cash in on the mediation success of Trump’s so-called peace plan across Libya and Syria. It will also use it with the United States and Europe, since a reputation for indispensability and problem-solving is a currency, the Turkish government knows how to spend. Today these Western powers would have to agree that Turkey must be in the room for ceasefire maintenance in Libya or for security arrangements and reconstruction in Syria. It also becomes an argument for the Trump administration that rewarding Turkish cooperation is cheaper than trying to isolate it. The Gaza mediation is therefore less a standalone achievement than a mechanism for rebalancing Turkey’s regional portfolio and repairing lines to the United States without abandoning the multi-vector posture that keeps channels open to Qatar, Egypt, and, when necessary, Iran and Russia.

It is realpolitik in its purest form, and none of it should come as a surprise. Yet the Palestinians remain excluded from whatever benefits this game may yield. Reports in the Israeli press already speak of American tech magnates exploring “riviera-like projects” in Gaza. Such a grotesque prospect, when the decades-long injustices and the recent genocide inflicted on its people have neither ceased nor been held to account.

Istanbulites Speak to Themselves

There is also a bitter irony for the people of Turkey. While Turkey’s foreign policy and intelligence actors are praised as clever and competent mediators, and Erdoğan as the tough leader who delivers, the country is experiencing its most authoritarian period, including the interregnums of junta rule. Erdoğan’s most formidable challenger, the mayor of Istanbul, has been arrested on unsubstantiated charges of corruption and, more recently, espionage, along with several colleagues from Istanbul mayorship.

Almost every day, an artist, journalist, or businessperson is detained on flimsy accusations of inciting hatred, insulting the Turkish state or the president, or under vague corruption pretexts. This is the environment the ‘tough cookie’ leader of Turkey who has never ever let Trump down has created at home after two and a half decades in power.

A miasma of unhappiness and joylessness hangs over society as the middle class has all but vanished and the cost of living has become an unbearable burden, dragging many toward the poverty line.

The fear of reprisal from the state is very real, even for the average, semi-political individual, adding another layer of strain to daily life. I hear this from every corner of Istanbul whenever I am in town. It is a constant anxiety that sits beneath ordinary conversations, shaping how people speak, where they meet, and what they dare to say. As in Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, or Minsk, Istanbulites now prefer to gather and dine at home. Not only because eating out has become unpredictably and outrageously expensive, but because home feels safer, more relaxed, more private.

At one of these dinners, a friend said something both tragic and absurd: ‘Have you noticed how many people talk to themselves these days in Istanbul?’ I looked puzzled. ‘Because people are too afraid to voice their grievances to others,’ he said. ‘They whisper them to themselves as they walk. Life is hard. We all look slightly unhinged which might be the sanest way to be.’ A city famous for its colourful chatter and noise now murmurs to itself. A metropolis of sotto-voce half-sentences, where madness and reason have begun to resemble each other.

In a parallel reality, it is the age of impunity and arbitrary power. Erdoğan is not alone in taking outrageous authoritarian steps, the list starts with US president and goes on. In this environment, Erdogan arrests his opponents and persecutes the main opposition because he can. However, we should also acknowledge that he now operates in a tighter political space than in previous cycles, since the loss of key municipalities in 2024 and fatigue over inflation and living costs have narrowed his popularity at home. Yet being less popular does not mean a weaker grip on power. This is authoritarian resilience par excellence. The system he leads still commands the central instruments of state, the media environment remains fully curated, and the capacity to project strength abroad endures.

Sometimes foreign policy performance helps compensate for domestic wear and tear by delivering narratives of competence and necessity. The promise and possibility of securing resources (read: spoils for his cronies) from Gaza, Syria or elsewhere eases economic pressures, since domestic audiences are sensitive to the difference between symbolic victories and tangible improvements in daily life. That is why Erdoğan seeks outcomes that can be measured in contracts signed, energy delivered, refugees managed, and security stabilized. That has always been his style of foreign transaction.

In the end, every gesture of diplomacy returns to the same equation of control, loyalty, and gain. As with many authoritarian regimes, statecraft is, in truth, the art of survival through short-term, instrumental exchanges.