Beginning in the early 19th century, the Ottoman Empire, founded in north-west Turkey in 1299, was becoming a weaker power than it was in 1683. That year its armies laid siege to Vienna after invading the Balkans, Greece, parts of Persia and, of course, our own Middle East. Its decline began when it fell behind Europe’s technological advances.
It was Lord Byron who, after swimming “for glory” from Sestos to Abydos across the straits at Çanakkale, to test the legend of Leander’s efforts to meet Hero, went on to lead a war of Greek liberation that further set in motion the Empire’s degradation. He was the man for it, described by Lady Caroline Lamb, Byron’s lover, as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”
Byron traveled to Greece in 1823 to fight the Ottomans on behalf of Greek independence. On January 5, 1824, he arrived on the mainland, formed the Byron Brigade, and provided large sums of money and inspiration to the Greek uprising.
However, by mid-February, he became ill, never saw serious military action, and died of fever on April 19 in the city of Missolonghi, where a massacre of over 10,000 Greeks was later carried out by Turkish and Egyptian forces on September 14, 1825, as part of that war.
Today, Greece is independent, the Ottoman-occupied Land of Israel is now the state of Israel, and almost two dozen Arab/Muslim states exist after hundreds of years of Ottoman Empire oppression and, over too many years, too cruel a rule.
Just last week, 111 years after Sarah Aaronsohn’s train journey from Istanbul to Haifa during which she witnessed many thousands of Armenians being deported, abused, and massacred with bodies floating in rivers, we learned Israel’s government will be recognizing the Armenian Genocide of some 1.5 million persons.
Nevertheless, we in Israel should recognize the probability that a renewed Ottoman Empire could be planned. President Recep Erdogan speaks of “gönül sınırları” (“borders of the heart”) as a vision of an expanded Turkey.
On June 6, the interior minister of Turkey, Mustafa Ciftci, declared, “Just as we saw the liberation of Damascus, Aleppo, and Karabakh, with God’s help, one day we will also see the liberation of Jerusalem.”
“As in the past, these lands will be ours once again,” he added.
The next day, Israel’s Foreign Ministry responded on its Twitter/X account. It wrote, “Wake up and smell the coffee. The corrupt Ottoman Empire is gone. Forever.”
Yet it serves no purpose to ignore words such as his. In his Seven Pillars of Wisdom, TE Lawrence described the Ottoman soldiers of World War I as “stubborn fighters.” Are they still?
Turkey's talks of "peace"
As many academic studies detail, Erdogan employs both “the Ottoman legacy and political Islam to… advance his vision of Turkey as a regional – and ultimately global – power.” That was the view of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s Ely Karmon, published on June 25 last week.
Karmon was even more concerned, writing that there is an “emerging immediate strategic threat in Erdogan’s rhetoric and policies.”
It was a Christian target that first fell to Erdogan. In 2020, he converted the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. Erdogan stated his commitment to keep the building open to the public when not in prayer, but covered the interior Christian imagery when in session and drew the curtains back otherwise.
Already in August 2016, Israeli prosecutors charged a Jerusalem resident, Saif al-Din Abd al-Nabi, with transferring funds to local terrorists from a Hamas operative in Turkey. Nadav Shragai of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs published a paper in June 2020 detailing that Turkey distributes tens of millions of dollars annually for projects connected to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem’s Old City and eastern neighborhoods.
Erdogan has been engaged in boosting “al-Aqsa tourism” by Turkish citizens and Muslims from around the world. Perhaps as part of that, ever since 2010, beginning with the Mavi Marmara flotilla, Turkish ports have seen the launching of many of the Gaza Flotilla boats.
During a mosque visit on Eid al-Fitr in March 2025, Erdogan called for Israel’s destruction, saying, “May Allah destroy Zionist Israel in His holy name.”
On June 21, this paper published that the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have “unmasked five Hamas terrorists” who have been directing “military actions” in Israel and the West Bank from Turkey.
Oded Ailam, former head of the anti-terrorism unit of the Israeli foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, was recently quoted declaring that Turkey had gradually become the “coordination center for Hamas activities.”
Also last week, we learned from US Vice President JD Vance that the Trump Administration considers Turkey eligible to receive F-35 fighter jets. It is reviewing how Turkey can legally get the fighter jets and is even advancing a $700 million sale of F-110 jet engines to Turkey. The review is required because the country still possesses the Russian system that had prevented an earlier deal.
The Turks are not only stubborn. In 2017, more than a dozen Turkish security officials instigated violence against protesters. The demonstration took place outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC, during Erdogan’s visit. He called the arrests a “scandal.” On October 7, 2025, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found Turkey liable for the violence.
Is Turkey truly an appropriate member of the Gaza “Board of Peace?” Is its involvement in Syria genuinely beneficial to America? Is its half-century occupation of Northern Cyprus legal?
What type of regional “peace” is Erdogan planning? Is the NATO Summit scheduled to take place in the Turkish capital on July 7-8 signifying a downplaying of controversial Turkish domestic affairs and acceptance of a resurgent Turkey?
Perhaps the answers point to a reconstructed neo-Ottoman empire in the works?
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.