Turkey’s foreign policy toward Israel: co-existing of ideology and pragmatism in the age of global and regional shifts

This article analyses constant shifts in Turkey’s foreign policy toward Israel since the Arab Uprisings through the foreign policy analytical categories of friction, discord, rapprochement, and alignment. This analytical framework illuminates the curious relationship between ideology and pragmatism in Turkey’s foreign policy toward Israel under the AKP. Conceptually, the paper also draws on the newly developing literature on emotions in International Relations. It is argued that one of the consequences of the ‘quest for strategic autonomy’ has been to enable ideology and pragmatism to coalesce more easily in AKP’s foreign policy and its perception of the changing global order, including in its relations with Israel. The article analyses the different episodes in Turkey–Israel relations since the Arab Uprisings: friction in 2010–2013, followed by a rapprochement in 2013(16)-2018, and discord in 2018–2020, and the recent episode of rapprochement after 2020 which is again cut short by the 2023 Gaza–Israel War.