Aftershocks of the Al-Aqsa Flood: The Turkish Earthquake, Resembling the Syrian One

March 21, 2025

Nasser Kandil

• It is certain that the al-Aqsa Flood was neither a planned war of liberation under optimal conditions nor a war of attrition with predefined roles for each participating front, each engaging from a position of action and reaction. Rather, it was a massive eruption, more akin to overturning the regional and international table, to prevent an even graver outcome. That outcome was the launch of Saudi-Israeli normalisation, as outlined in U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan, announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi, under the banner of an “India-to-Europe corridor” passing through Saudi Arabia and “Israel”. This project included a military-security component aimed at executing a surprise war to eliminate the resistance in Gaza and Lebanon, either in one decisive blow or in stages. The al-Aqsa Flood revealed that the plans and contingencies for such an operation had long been in place.

• This great collision triggered a seismic event whose aftershocks continue to reverberate – an impact between two massive blocs, whose tectonic layers interact along invisible fault lines, much like the geological plates that grind beneath the earth’s surface. On one side stands the alliance of Israel, the U.S., and their anti-resistance coalition. On the other, a front spanning multiple regional states, comprising the forces of resistance. The war erupted without a predetermined timeline, stripping both sides of the element of surprise, which had been crucial to achieving a swift and decisive end. Instead, both have suffered deep strategic wounds. The war persists, and as long as the resistance remains standing, it is difficult for the American-Israeli front to declare victory. Moreover, as long as this war continues, the prospect of launching an even more intense campaign in the near or medium term remains elusive. The conditions that made such a war possible in the first place are unlikely to be replicated, neither for Israel nor on a regional scale.

• The resistance has suffered heavy losses, some of which may prove irreplaceable. These losses have altered strategic trajectories across the region, much like the war’s impact on Lebanon. Yet this does not negate the fact that the damage inflicted upon the occupying entity is difficult to repair, particularly regarding the Israeli army’s ability to wage a ground war, the credibility of the Iron Dome in safeguarding the home front, and, consequently, the growing doubts about the army’s ability to guarantee the security of the entity itself. This doubt strikes at the heart of Israel’s existential crisis. The other pillar of this crisis, deterrence, embodied in the capacity to launch a swift, decisive war, had already collapsed long ago. With such colossal mutual losses, every display of force on the battlefield increasingly resembles an act of denial rather than a true assertion of victory.

• At the heart of this moment, the Lebanese resistance, facing its own losses, most notably the absence of its historic leader, became a pivotal factor. Alongside U.S. sanctions and Israeli strikes, this loss created a favourable environment for a swift Turkish offensive to topple Syria, paving the way for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its leader to march into Damascus as “liberators”. Yet this Turkish gambit, entailing a drastic shift in relations with two key allies, Russia and Iran, was built on the assumption that the U.S. and Israel would guarantee its success. The thinking was that, given the enormous strategic gains Washington and Tel Aviv would reap from seizing Syria, they would reward Turkey by immediately lifting American and other Western sanctions on Damascus, allowing Syria’s economy to breathe, dismantling the U.S.-protected Kurdish enclave in the northeast, reclaiming Syria’s looted resources, and ultimately facilitating an American-Israeli withdrawal, leaving Turkey as the new power broker in both Syria and the broader region.

• The flaw in Turkey’s gamble was that it relied on the dividends of the al-Aqsa flood, on the strategic shockwave it had unleashed, while miscalculating American and Israeli priorities in this phase of the war. Israel, battered by the conflict’s fallout, was in no position to afford Turkey any grand prizes. Instead, chaos deepened within Syria: sectarian fractures widened, the state grew more fragile, and Israel, shielded by U.S. sanctions, found encouragement to preserve Kurdish and Druze-controlled areas as armed enclaves with distinct identities. The massacres along Syria’s coast, targeting the Alawite community, further deterred Arab and Western investors from betting on a new Syrian regime, leaving the country stuck in a graver deadlock than before Ankara’s intervention.

• Inside Turkey, an economy weakened by years of crisis collided with a strategic vacuum. Past attempts to resolve internal woes by expanding Turkish influence abroad, from Azerbaijan to Libya, had failed. Now, the collapse of Ankara’s bid to control Syria delivered yet another blow. The fallout of this opportunistic investment in the al-Aqsa Flood’s consequences proved catastrophic. Turkish Islamists split: some, rallying behind Gaza, accused their government of playing political games with the Palestinian cause while the Israeli flag still flew over its embassy, even as non-Islamic states severed ties with Israel.
Unlike the supporters of Gaza, who gained some of the Justice and Development Party’s popularity in the last elections, others emerged under the banner of neo-Ottoman ultranationalism and racist Islamic fascism. They embraced a fanatical and violent agenda yet failed to create the conditions necessary for Syria’s resurgence under a new regime. Syria’s descent into further turmoil was enough to provoke the Alevis (Turkey’s Alawites) and Kurds against the government, preceded by business elites, whose dreams of profiting from Syria’s reconstruction had evaporated. The resulting upheaval struck Turkey like an earthquake, bearing the fingerprints of the al-Aqsa flood.

• The flood continues to surge, its impact now global, reshaping the world’s consciousness, rewriting the narrative of Palestine, and recalibrating Israel’s place on the international stage. Today, Turkey and Syria endure the aftershocks of the seismic rupture it unleashed. And as the dominoes continue to fall, no one can predict where the next wave will land. Will it claim the manipulators or the manipulated, or perhaps a share of both?