US President Donald Trump finds himself in a difficult position between Turkey and Israel, between Netanyahu and Erdoğan. President Trump, who is visiting Ankara and wishes to preserve his country's relations with Turkey, faces a stark, dangerous, and contradictory choice of interests.
Washington's relationship with Ankara is historic: Turkey hosts the Incirlik base on its soil, and within that base lies the strike force of US troops in the region, most notably the B-52 bombers with their high destructive power.
Turkey also possesses NATO's second-largest ground combat force — 190,000 troops — after the United States Army. And Erdoğan is a personal friend of Trump, who regularly declares his admiration for his strong personality and his shrewdness in managing affairs.
Israel's historic relationship as a state with the United States, on the other hand, needs no proof or evidence. Yet the contradictions between Trump's and Netanyahu's interests regarding the conflict with Iran, and Trump's position on Netanyahu's submission to the far right in Israel, are all factors that raise the level of tension between the two men.
The latest file of tension is Trump's lifting of the ban on exporting the first batch of the newest fighter-bomber aircraft, the F-35, to Turkey — a deal that the Biden administration had suspended.
Having the F-35 in the possession of both the Israeli military and the Turkish military is a major violation of the longstanding American commitment that no country in the Middle East would obtain an advanced weapon comparable to that held by Israel.