AUG 27 — Malaysia has every reason to watch Gaza closely. But Kuala Lumpur should not allow the continuing tragedy there to obscure another potentially dangerous development: the growing strategic friction between Israel and Turkey.
Israel’s August 18 strikes on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib were militarily limited but strategically significant.
Eight strikes reportedly hit the runway and storage areas without causing casualties. The facility had been largely inactive for years.
What made the attack important was not simply what Israel bombed, but whom Israel appeared to be addressing.
Israel subsequently argued that Syria had been close to violating a security understanding by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at the airbase.
Ankara denied that Turkish forces were present and said its military cooperation with Syria was focused on training and the exchange of expertise.
Turkey strongly condemned the attack, describing it as an assault on Syria’s infrastructure, territorial integrity and unity.
Malaysia should take notice.
The Middle East is entering a phase in which regional rivalries increasingly overlap. Israel’s security concerns are no longer confined to Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas or other familiar adversaries.
Turkey’s expanding influence in post-Assad Syria is increasingly becoming part of Israel’s strategic calculations.
That creates an entirely different order of risk.
Turkey is not a non-state actor. It is a major military power, a member of NATO and one of the most influential states in the Muslim world.
Ankara also possesses a sophisticated defence industry, including increasingly capable drone, missile and electronic-warfare technologies.
A confrontation between Israel and Turkey would therefore represent something qualitatively different from many of Israel’s previous military engagements.
Abu al-Duhur demonstrates how easily such a confrontation could begin unintentionally.
The airbase lies relatively close to Turkey. American special envoy Tom Barrack warned after the strike that Washington was working towards a deconfliction mechanism involving Turkey, Israel and Syria precisely because misunderstandings between heavily armed states could have serious consequences.
The danger is escalation through miscalculation.
An Israeli aircraft approaches Syrian territory. Turkish radar detects it.
Ankara is uncertain about the intended target. Defensive systems are activated. An aircraft is challenged or shot down. Israel retaliates.
A political dispute can suddenly become a military crisis.
This is precisely why Malaysia must analyse Israeli behaviour beyond the immediate Palestinian question.
Malaysia has longstanding political sympathy for Palestine and has consistently supported Palestinian self-determination.
Yet Malaysian diplomacy cannot afford to view every Middle Eastern development exclusively through that prism.
The regional security architecture itself is changing.
Turkey has emerged as one of the principal external supporters of Syria’s new government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Ankara wants a stable Syrian state, greater control over security threats along its southern frontier and sufficient influence over Syria’s reconstruction.
Israel, meanwhile, appears determined to prevent the emergence of military infrastructure in Syria that could restrict its freedom of action.
These strategic objectives can collide even when neither country actively wants war.
This is particularly important because the United States has relationships with both countries.
Washington therefore finds itself attempting simultaneously to reassure Israel, maintain its NATO relationship with Turkey and stabilise Syria.
Indeed, Barrack described the Israeli strike as an unnecessary escalation, while subsequent reporting indicated that Washington was concerned about how easily the episode could have spiralled.
Malaysia should consequently encourage deconfliction rather than simply observe events from afar.
There are at least three reasons.
First, instability involving Turkey would reverberate throughout the Muslim world.
Ankara possesses political, economic and military weight considerably beyond Syria.
Second, Malaysia and Turkey maintain substantial diplomatic, economic, defence and educational ties.
Any serious Israeli-Turkish confrontation would inevitably create diplomatic pressures across the wider Muslim world.
Third, the episode reinforces an important principle for Malaysian foreign policy: the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states must remain central to international order.
Whatever Israel’s security concerns about potential Turkish deployments, repeated unilateral military attacks inside another state’s territory risk normalising a regional environment in which powerful countries increasingly determine acceptable security arrangements through force.
That precedent should worry Asean too.
Southeast Asia depends heavily on norms restraining stronger states from imposing security preferences militarily on weaker neighbours.
Malaysia cannot reasonably defend sovereignty and international law in Southeast Asia while treating their erosion elsewhere as strategically irrelevant.
There is also a larger lesson.
The Middle East is becoming increasingly multipolar. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are all developing overlapping networks of influence, while China, Russia and the United States remain deeply involved.
Malaysia therefore needs a wider strategic map of West Asia.
Palestine remains indispensable to Malaysian diplomacy. But so too must Syria’s sovereignty, Turkey’s security concerns, Gulf stability and the prevention of conflicts among major regional powers.
Abu al-Duhur may ultimately be remembered as a relatively small military episode.
But small incidents sometimes reveal large geopolitical transformations.
Israel’s strike suggests that the strategic contest over Syria is increasingly becoming intertwined with the emerging Israel-Turkey rivalry.
Malaysia should watch this fault line carefully.
The objective should not be to choose another side in another Middle Eastern rivalry.
It should be to prevent yet another regional confrontation from becoming a war that nobody originally intended to start. - malaymail
* Phar Kim Beng is professor of Asean Studies, and director at the Institute of International and Asean Studies, International Islamic University Malaysia.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
