Among the many truths the war in Gaza has exposed, here is one: Israel’s alliance with Turkey is a trap.

Israel inked a mutual defense agreement with Turkey in 1996. Among its benefits, the deal linked the two countries’ militaries in joint training, provided Israeli arms to Turkey ($2 billion worth as of 2007) and granted Israel’s air force overflight privileges.

Far more, the deal gave Israel a much-needed, highly respected ally in a neighborhood full of enemies. Those itching to pick a fight with Israel simply haven’t been eager to contend with Turkey’s million-man army, the second-largest force in nato after the United States. This reality helped stabilize the volatile Middle East for years. The Islamic Affairs Analyst went so far as to say that Israel’s foes—mostly notably Iran—respected Turkey enough that the Jewish state’s survival was all but assured as long as the pact held up.

But there’s the rub. Just a glance at events in the past couple of years shows that this deterrent effect has weakened. Israel’s enemies have started to turn loose.

Not coincidentally, over that same period, Turkey has shifted from being a hedge against those enemies to actually supporting them. This is a grave loss for Israel.

Nothing makes this clearer than does the Gaza conflict.

There is a clarion warning in recent events about what to expect from Turkey in the future, if only the Jews would heed it.

“We will kill you”—thus read a message scrawled on one of the largest synagogues in the Turkish city of Izmir. Public graffiti screams messages like “Kill Jews” and “Israel should no longer exist in the Middle East.” Large, angry protests fill the streets of cities across the country, including a rally last Sunday of 200,000 in Istanbul square. Near Istanbul University, a Jewish shop owner found a sign on his door warning customers not to patronize the place, “since this shop is owned by a Jew”; other posters went up saying, “Jews and Armenians are not allowed but dogs are allowed.”

As Israeli forces pound Gaza, this is how the people of Turkey are responding.

“There haven’t been such widespread and spontaneous anti-Israel sentiments before,” says columnist Sami Kohen of the Turkish daily Milliyet. “It’s not just the Islamic circles. It’s also the secularists and the nationalists. The protests have been representative of the whole of Turkish society. I don’t remember seeing such a public reaction on any other issue before.”

Can Israel afford to ignore such realities?

After years of walking a line in allying with the West, Turkey is increasingly embracing its Muslim identity. An early sign of just how much came in 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian elections. Where most of the world turned its back on the terrorist group, Turkey not only recognized it as a legitimate government, it accepted a Hamas delegation in Ankara led by the group’s leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.

In the summer of 2007, the Turks elected a former Islamist, Abdullah Gül, as their president. Under Gül’s leadership, Turkey became one of the few governments in the Middle East to recognize Hamas’s administration when it seized the Gaza Strip. Later that year, Turkey became an almost lone voice protesting Israel’s attack on a Syrian nuclear facility. And in 2008, the Gül government hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Istanbul and established political and economic ties with Tehran.

Remarkably, none of this alarming behavior raised much concern within the Israeli government. When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided he wanted to secretly pursue a peace deal with Syria last year, he used Turkey as the mediator, as if Turkey’s respect for Israel’s interests had remained just as it was in 1996.

Olmert’s blind pursuit of a peace pact with an avowed enemy of Israel—Syria—drawing on the help of a country that is supporting and cooperating with more avowed enemies—Hamas and Iran—is deeply revealing, and prophetically relevant.

The entire peace process, actively pursued since Oslo in 1993, is predicated on Israel’s wish, unfounded in reality, that its enemies sincerely want peace. This tendency to invest faith in sources that warrant no faith is a grievous wound in Israel’s national character. As devastating as it has been for Israel to this point, it will yet prove to be far more so.

If the Israeli government still felt it could trust Turkey, that nation’s response to Israel’s counterattack on Hamas should have corrected the misconception. Despite its supposedly being the Jews’ strongest ally in the region, Turkey’s reaction—not just in the street but also by the government—was on par with Iran’s.

“What Israel has done is nothing but atrocity,” President Gül said. “Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents,” said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, amid volley after volley of reproach. Of Olmert, with whom he had been working on the Syria peace deal, he said, “He betrayed me and harmed the honor of Turkey.” To Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, he said, “History will judge you with what you have done as having painted a black stain on the history of humanity.”

The prime minister has been speaking with leaders all over the Middle East and Europe pushing for an end to the fighting—and 100 percent of his demands fall on Israel. In Ankara’s view, Israel bears all the blame for the Gaza war. “Hamas abided by the truce. But Israel failed to lift embargoes,” Erdoğan said—a ridiculous lie. He has refused to take calls from Olmert unless Israel stops the war. When Livni offered to visit Ankara, the official response she received was, “If she doesn’t want to talk about a ceasefire, she shouldn’t come.”

Meanwhile, Turkey is more than happy to meet with Hamas and its terrorist sponsors. The president and prime minister met with Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili a week ago. Turkish and Hamas officials, including Khaled Mashaal, have directly met in Damascus at least twice since the start of the Gaza war. Having just joined the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member, Turkey has pledged to be Hamas’s mouthpiece in the United Nations. “Hamas officials have full confidence in Turkey,” Erdoğan said on Al Jazeera television last Sunday. This week Turkey called on the UN to impose sanctions on Israel.

Hold these actions up against what I wrote last week: the fact that many Arab leaders are siding more with Israel than with Hamas. They are more concerned about Iran’s ascendancy than they are about angering their own people by failing to condemn Israel. By stunning contrast, Turkish leaders clearly feel they have more to gain from attacking Israel than they have to lose in allowing Iran a victory in Gaza.

This is no friend of Israel! That is the patent truth.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Olmert’s office has dismissed questions about whether the Turkish-Israeli alliance is fracturing. “Our relations won’t be hurt,” his staff have said, “they will remain strategic.” They explain that the leaders are simply posturing for the people in order to position themselves for coming elections.

Even if that were true—and it’s almost laughable to assume so—shouldn’t the fact that the Turks hate Israel and that their leaders must denounce the Jews in order to retain popular legitimacy be of supreme concern to Israel regarding the value of this alliance?

What is it about Israel that causes it to brush aside such reality? To continue searching for and believing and seeing only good intentions in its most stubborn enemies? Under circumstances such as Israel is in today, this is no virtue. It contains the seeds of the death of the state!

Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, Gaby Levy, requested an urgent appointment with Prime Minister Erdoğan last week. He was rebuffed—told that a meeting was impossible as long as attacks on Gaza continued. So what did Israel do? Ehud Olmert asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Middle East envoy Tony Blair to mediate between Israel and Turkey!

That’s right: Israel asked Germany for help to try to preserve an alliance with a country actively working with Israel’s enemies against Israel’s interests.

The problem with Turkey is not simply a matter of Turkish leaders needing to appear to snub Israel in order to appease their people. The problem is far deeper and is ignored at Israel’s peril.

And Israel’s problem is not a lack of enough mediation and diplomacy!

Israel’s problem is that it continues to seek help from nations that do not have its interests at heart.

If Israel would look honestly at the situation, it would recognize that about Turkey.

And it would also recognize it about Germany.

Biblical prophecy reveals the inevitable outcome of these relationships. They are visible already in embryo. They will come as no shock to those attuned to the prophetic truth as it unfolds in geopolitical reality. But Israel—credulous, vulnerable, trusting and blind to the very end—will be absolutely shocked by the monstrous betrayals that will result from its alliances with both Turkey and Germany.

Read “Why Turkey Matters” and Jerusalem in Prophecy to learn from your own Bible the truth about how this tinderbox situation will end.