Turkish March: Is Netanyahu, fearing the polls, dragging Israel into a war?

Here are two things that happened the day before yesterday: the first is an Israeli strike on an airport in Syria, according to reports, to prevent Turkish expansion into areas outside its current range of control.

The second thing that happened is the publication of a poll by the 'channel on behalf', Channel 14, according to which the 'Netanyahu bloc' achieves 63 mandates—a figure that to call 'contradictory' to any objective poll would be an understatement.

This is the time to mention that the one who approved the strike in Syria is the same man who approved the publication of the results of a poll that on the face of it seems absurd.

For Netanyahu's opponents, this was enough, actually—not for everyone. While in the center of the anti-Bibi camp, Bennett and Eisenkot were careful not to attack Netanyahu in a way that could be interpreted by the public as a lack of support for the IDF (and Avigdor Lieberman, who usually has no problem attributing malicious intent to Netanyahu, remained silent), the 'Democrats' of Yair Golan rushed to criticize the Prime Minister for dragging Israel into an unnecessary adventure—on the verge of war with a regional power like Turkey—for election purposes only.

Netanyahu is suspected not only by the 'Democrats', and he knows it well: since Operation 'With a Lion's Heart' in the summer of 2025, he has been careful to back every initiated military move with supplementary statements from the IDF spokesperson or even from the Chief of Staff himself. A somewhat strange habit for someone who does not like, to put it mildly, to share the credit for successful operational activity with others.

This time too, the Chief of Staff stood by Netanyahu, even if not in explicit words: the day after Netanyahu took political responsibility for the strike, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir toured IDF soldiers located on Syrian soil and spoke about thwarting threats to Israel's security.

Dangerous acrobatics

Let's put the Chief of Staff aside for a moment and return to Netanyahu, whom the puzzling poll sought to distance from election considerations. Even if we accept the assumption that this is an exercise for internal needs, he did a good job. Netanyahu's opponents who condemn him both for the containment policy before October 7 and for agreements that could leave Hamas in power and Hezbollah as a leading force in Lebanon, find it difficult to attack him for what on the face of it looks like an opposite policy.

The problem is that with all the political admiration for Netanyahu's move, there is a danger here of getting entangled in a real conflict with a regional power. How real? If we judge by the words of the American envoy to the region, Turkey and Israel were 'on the verge of war'—a danger of war that the citizens of Israel, who already know all the open fronts (from Gaza through Lebanon to Iran), heard about for the first time only after it did not break out.

So did we witness a change in Israel's policy derived from a real security need or aggression for election purposes that almost cost us a high price? Well, the citizens of Israel have no real idea.

Here Chief of Staff Zamir returns to the equation. His standing to the right of Netanyahu, even if indirectly, legitimizes the strike in the eyes of most Israelis—just as he has done several times over the past year and a half, since he was appointed to the position.

The relationship between the Chief of Staff and the Prime Minister's office is strange: there are weeks when it seems that the two are coordinated down to the last detail, compared to weeks when it seems that they are adversarial to each other: Netanyahu's mouthpieces in the media lash out at the Chief of Staff and call him a 'Kaplanist', trying to place on him the responsibility for what is beginning to emerge as a failure in Gaza.

Zamir, for his part, does not hesitate to raise the difficult disputes that the IDF has with Netanyahu and his government on the issue of conscription, and in doing so harms the government in one of the most sensitive areas in the eyes of voters who abandoned it (unless you believe the polls of Channel 14).

Question of trust

Ultimately, this is an issue that the Israeli public has almost no way to judge objectively. On the one hand, it is logical to thwart an emerging threat. On the other hand, Turkey's real influence in Syria is not measured by its entrenchment in one airport or another, but by the almost absolute control it has over the new regime.

Furthermore: Turkey, together with Qatar, has achieved far-reaching influence also in the body known as the 'Peace Council' that will determine (even for Israel!) the future of the Gaza Strip, so why is it suddenly urgent for us to thwart a threat much further from the Israeli border?

Therefore, this discussion also narrows down to the question of whether one believes Netanyahu or not. Whoever does not believe the man will anyway believe any conspiracy that will be tied to his name. Whoever believed him until now will continue to hear 'divine words' in every word of his, even when he chooses, quite strangely, to quote the famous 'don't' of Joe Biden (interesting what someone named Donald Trump thinks about this).

So what is different about the current conflict from previous issues in the PM-Chief of Staff relationship? Two main changes: the first is that the stakes have risen. A liquidation in Gaza that might draw American criticism is not similar to an anti-Turkish action on Syrian soil, which could entangle Israel in something much larger.

The second change is the position of the Chief of Staff: on the one hand, it is the IDF's duty to carry out the orders of the political echelon. On the other hand, at this time, every such step has political significance. In other words: Zamir had to carry out the strike in Syria, but he should have avoided the visit to its territory the next day.