Trump, Erdogan and the F-35 enigma

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 July 2026

Designed as a multirole combat aircraft, the F-35 combines low-observable (stealth) shaping with advanced sensors, data fusion, and networked communications, enabling it to conduct air-to-air combat, precision strike missions, intelligence gathering, and electronic warfare in contested environments.       

       On July 7, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, US President Donald Trump met the media together with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

       Trump used the occasion to announce that the US would ​be lift​ing the sanctions that had been imposed on Turkey in December 2020 under the CAATS (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions)​ Act.

       Turkey had been sanctioned because Erdogan​​, in defiance of Washington’s express warnings, ​had gone ahead and purchased the Russian S‑400​, a long-range surface‑to‑air missile system​ specifically designed as a defense against aircraft such as the F-35​, the advanced multirole stealth fighter that has become the cornerstone of America’s tactical air power.

       Trump was then asked whether Turkey would be allowed to buy the F-35.
       "Turkey has been in many ways much more loyal than other countries that we thought would be loyal,” he replied “…so it is something we definitely would consider."

       That was an astonishing response, given that Turkey is still deploying the S-400 system, specifically designed as a defense system against aircraft such as the F-35.

       It was Erdogan’s decision to acquire the S-400 that got him ejected from the F-35 program back in 2017. As soon as he announced his intention to do so, Washington made it clear that any attempt to fly US F-35s and simultaneously operate the Russian S-400 defense system was an absolute non-starter. It would effectively turn the S‑400 into a live intelligence‑collection platform on the F‑35’s stealth and mission‑system profile.

The S-400 mobile air defense system is designed to detect, track, and engage aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and certain other aerial targets using a combination of phased-array radars, command vehicles, and multiple types of interceptor missiles operating at different ranges and altitudes.

       What was obvious then remains obvious today. If F-35s routinely flew within range of an operational S-400, the Russian-designed radars could collect enormous quantities of data about the aircraft's radar signature, flight profiles, electronic emissions and tactics. Highly classified information about the F-35's stealth characteristics could be exposed.

       That concern explains why Congress enacted legislation barring the transfer of F-35s to Turkey while it retains the Russian S-400 air defense system.

       It has not prevented continued low-level negotiations between Turkey and the US about the possibility of Turkey rejoining the F-35 program. On December 10, 2025, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack wrote on social media that the US was in ongoing discussions with Turkey “regarding their desire to rejoin the F-35 program and their possession of the Russian-made S-400 air defense system. As laid out in US law, Türkiye must no longer operate nor possess the S-400 system to return to the F-35 program."

       By April 2026 Barrack’s stance had hardened. Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum he expressed confidence that the long-running dispute over Turkey's Russian-made S-400 air-defense system was nearing resolution. "I think you're going to see the S-400 [problem] solved soon," he said, adding: "From my boss's point of view, acceptance into an F-35 program is fine."

       There may be political and practical reasons for Trump’s change of heart.

       Deteriorating relations with Iran has made Turkey's strategic value to Washington considerably greater. Turkey controls NATO's southeastern flank and borders Iran, Iraq and Syria. Trump may judge that rebuilding the alliance with Ankara is now a priority.

       Moreover a confidential understanding may have been reached over the S-400. Although nothing has been announced publicly, media reports suggest that there have been discussions about deactivating the system. Reuters notes that transferring the system to a third country is another proposal under discussion.

      Congress has not changed the statutory restrictions of the sale of the F-35, meaning that any proposal to do so could face a significant legal and political battle. Trump may be prepared to challenge Congress. But all he may be signaling is intent rather than a settled policy. All he said was that he will lift sanctions and "consider" F-35 sales.

       If Erdogan is ultimately to win the F-35 struggle, then either Turkey has to remove, export or permanently deactivate the S-400; or Congress has to agree to relax or amend the legal restrictions despite the continued presence of the S-400.

       Currently there is no evidence that the first has occurred, while there is substantial evidence of bipartisan resistance in Congress to the second. That is why, despite Trump's dramatic shift in tone, the path to restoring Turkey's F-35 status remains uncertain.

       Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 17, Barrack threw in a casual remark that raised a few eyebrows at the time, but has not been followed up.

       "Greece has S-300s and F-35s," he said.

       Greece, like Turkey, is a member of NATO. Could it possibly be deploying the advanced US fighter and the Russian anti-missile defense system at the same time – the very situation that Washington totally vetoed in the case of Turkey?

       An examination of the facts reveals a complicated but innocuous situation that has little in common with Turkey’s.

       Barrack was entirely accurate when he spoke of ​the S-300​, ​an older​ version with significantly more limited capabilities than the ​S-400. ​Moreover the S-300 system​ operated by Greece was not a Greek purchase.

       In 1997 Glafcos Clerides's government in Cyprus ordered two S-300 PMU-1 batteries from Russia. Turkey threatened military action if the missiles were deployed in Cyprus. After a major diplomatic crisis involving the US, Britain and NATO, Cyprus agreed not to install them. In 1998-99 the missiles were transferred to Greece.

       So Greece inherited the S-300, designed during the late Soviet period and delivered more than 25 years ago.

       US officials have consistently argued that Turkey's case is fundamentally different. Despite repeated US warnings, Turkey deliberately negotiated a major strategic defense contract with Russia in 2017, and it bought the far newer S-400 Triumf, one of Russia's most advanced strategic air-defense systems..

       As for the F-35s, in January 2024 the US State Department approved the sale of 40 Lightning II aircraft to Greece.

       On July 8, following the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told Greek journalists: "Greek pilots will begin training on the Greek F-35s in 2027.”

       Greece’s situation may indeed be different from Turkey’s, but a convincing case could be made for a precedent having been set. 

       Could this be the chink that leads to opening the door for Turkey’s acquisition of the F-35?

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 22 July 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-902969

Iran’s internal power struggle

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 July 2026

 Ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has been an autocratic theocracy, ruled with an iron fist by the supreme leader – first Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini until his death in 1989, and then Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, until he was killed on February 28, 2026 in an airstrike.

 Today’s Iran is no longer what it has been.  What it has become is the subject of controversial interpretations.

 Some believe that Iran is no longer a republic of any kind but has morphed into a dictatorial, mafia-style oligarchy in military uniform.  The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), they maintain, exercises total control over political, economic and strategic decisions, whilst maintaining a theocratic veneer for the purposes of internal and international legitimacy.

They believe the new supreme leader, Motjaba Khamenei, is a puppet of the IRGC, selected under direct military pressure which bypassed the constitutional process. The new Khamenei certainly lacks religious credentials and public legitimacy, and has yet to demonstrate any independent authority.

         Real power, they say, resides in three IRGC hardliners: IRGC Commander‑in‑Chief Ahmad Vahidi; Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr; and senior military adviser to Khamenei Mohsen Rezaei.  All three rejected the renewed negotiations with the US and want to continue the war.

       They are only too aware that Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president since July 2024, wants a ceasefire, and they act systematically to thwart him.  The IRGC has blocked his ministerial appointments and countered his signals of de-escalation.

On July 6 some source of power within the regime authorized Iranian forces to attack three commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, well aware that this would prompt a US reaction.  In response US Central Command struck more than 80 Iranian military targets.  

This supports those who maintain that Iran is governed today by an IRGC which functions simultaneously as an armed force, an economic empire, an intelligence service, a political party and the effective government.

Yet, while many expert commentators do believe that the IRGC has reached a level of power never previously achieved, others are convinced that the internal struggle for dominance is not over and that the IRGC still has to consolidate the level of control it has acquired. They hold that power in Iran today is heavily contested between the IRGC and a more pragmatic political‑diplomatic camp, while the newly elected supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, sits above them as an ambivalent, vulnerable arbiter whose authority is real in law, but fragile in practice.  

On the evening of June 30, Iran’s state news TV channel was broadcasting a pre-recorded interview with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in the ongoing talks with the US over sanctions relief, nuclear constraints and regional de‑escalation. 

Having confirmed that there are “behind‑the‑scenes negotiations” with Washington leading to a possible deal on limiting Iran’s nuclear activity, Ghalibaf was in the middle of a sentence when the screen went blank.  After a second or two, an old speech by Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, was on the air.

 Iranian hardliners had succeeded in cutting off a television interview with the country’s chief peace negotiator, as he was defending the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

In reporting the incident, the UK’s Daily Telegraph said that the censored sections included Ghalibaf’s response to reports that international inspectors would be allowed to visit Iran’s nuclear sites, his account of how frozen Iranian assets would be released, and details of the agreement’s proposed $300bn fund for post-war reconstruction.

Most importantly, Ghalibaf was about to discuss the new supreme leader’s equivocal message about the deal with the US, in which he had remarked that “in principle I had a different opinion” but had nonetheless authorized the agreement.  Hardliners had seized upon the remark as proof that the supreme leader was basically opposed to the negotiations that his own government was pursuing, even though he had given his approval to do so.

The television blackout prompted Parliament’s media center to issue a rare public protest, accusing state TV of violating normal protocol.  This led to a public debate about who controls the airwaves.  

Vahid Jalili, deputy chief at Iran’s state broadcaster, is the brother of Saeed Jalili, a former negotiator aligned with the Paydari Front, Iran’s most uncompromising conservative bloc, which opposes talks with the country that killed the former supreme leader.  For the Paydari Front and its allies, resistance to the US is the ideological core of the revolution.  

The Ghalibaf TV incident was not the first of its kind.  Just ten days previously, on the evening of June 20, Mahmoud Nabavian, a cleric and former member of Iran’s negotiating team, had gone on the air to allege that in agreeing to the US-Iran MoU,  the Iranian negotiating team had gone way beyond their brief,  and that the terms they had agreed to did not reflect the conditions that the supreme leader had previously set.

In a television interview, he began reading out what he claimed was classified correspondence from the supreme leader.  He claimed Khamenei had written to the negotiating team saying: “What was agreed upon in the Pakistan talks is completely different from what was supposed to happen, and was a condition for the legitimacy of the talks, and the talks must be stopped.”

The TV broadcast was cut off abruptly, and soon afterwards the public relations office of the news network announced that it "accepts the resignation of the relevant director general of the network" and would charge him with "negligence in professional management."

Commentators said Nabavian could not have gained access to the supreme leader’s letters without the complicity of a hardline source.

So what is the true situation within Iran? Evidence from reports in Iranian and international media points to a multi‑layered contest for supremacy being waged within the upper echelons of Iran’s governance.  

Many believe that Iran is currently operating with four overlapping centers of authority: the supreme leader, the IRGC, the president, and senior IRGC-aligned political figures – and that each is vying for supreme power.​  All, however, are probably united behind Khamenei's pledge to avenge his father's death;  the ideology that has driven the revolution since 1979 lives on. 

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Hardliners in Tehran are running the show while the Iran's supreme leader watches", 15 July 2026: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-902329

Is the Gaza peace plan dead?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 7 July 2026

US President Donald Trump’s 20‑point plan for Gaza, announced on September 29, 2025, linked a one‑off hostage/prisoner exchange to a transition period in which Gaza would be demilitarized and placed under tightly managed international oversight.

The new governance features a technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza​ (NCAG) – a Palestinian body running services and reconstruction.  It would operate under the strategic control of a Trump‑chaired “Board of Peace” and an international security presence.

Hamas is to be removed from governing authority and stripped of its military capacity​.  In its place vetted local forces and international troops ​would enforc​e a terror‑free, demilitarized Gaza.   Meanwhile massive, externally directed reconstruction and investment programs ​would get under way.

In due course the Palestinian Authority would inherit Gaza from this interim committee, but only if the PA completes a prescribed reform program on security, corruption, and governance.  At that point a unified Palestinian administration over Gaza and the West Bank, backed by elections, is envisaged.

Beyond that, the plan holds out the prospect of US‑backed negotiations toward a Palestinian state, but only once the demilitarization process is in progress, and the reformed PA proves it can govern Gaza within this heavily circumscribed framework.

The plan was formally adopted by the UN Security Council on November 17, 2025 in Resolution 2803.  Eight Arab and Islamic states had already issued a joint statement welcoming Trump’s effort and confirming that they were ready to work with the US on implementing it: Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE.  Even Hamas had agreed to some parts of the proposal, including hostage release and transferring authority, while maintaining that other elements – such as its own disarmament – required further negotiation.

The first phase of the plan – ceasefire plus hostage and prisoner exchange – was achieved and ended large‑scale Israeli–Hamas hostilities.  For phase two the UN resolution authorized a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) to help demilitarize Gaza and train Palestinian police, with US coordination and contributions from Arab and other states.

As of mid‑2026, Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania had pledged troops, while Egypt and Jordan have agreed to train Palestinian police.  However no ISF units have actually deployed inside Gaza, while the $100 million earmarked by the UAE for police training remains frozen.

Meanwhile the military geography on the ground has been changing.  Since the ceasefire the IDF has steadily reduced the area controlled by Hamas from 47% of the Strip to 40% or even less. In May 2026 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he intended to expand Israel’s control to 70% of Gazan territory. However territory and population are not in balance.  No more than 15% of Gaza’s population remains in Israeli-controlled areas; at least 85%, and perhaps more, are living in wretched conditions in the coastal zones and urban enclaves held by Hamas.  Reports speak of overcrowding, problems with sanitation and access to services, and a severe lack of water.

Gaza’s traditional water sources have been badly degraded by the war, leaving much of the population reliant on minimal supplies, some trucked in daily. Trump’s 20‑point plan and its Board of Peace envisage substantial investment in repairing Gaza’s water infrastructure, but in reality these water‑sector reconstruction measures remain largely at the planning and pledge stage.

More generally, despite Trump's announcement that billions has been pledged through the Board of Peace, the Financial Times reported on May 27 that no donor money has actually reached the World Bank, and that informed sources said “not one US dollar” had yet been spent on Gaza reconstruction through the Board's funding mechanisms.

Turkish and Egyptian construction giants, US and European firms, and Gulf‑based companies are preparing bids to benefit from the envisaged multi‑billion‑dollar rebuild.  Most projects are at planning or competition stage, except for one large‑scale build actually under way.

A Gaza‑based contractor, Masoud & Ali Contracting Co (MAC), is constructing an Emirati‑funded housing compound for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in an Israeli‑controlled part of southern Gaza.  In addition a few businesses and contractors have started some limited reconstruction.

In mid-2026 Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan can best be described as wilting. While still formally in play, phase two seems to have stalled.  The ceasefire is repeatedly violated, Hamas demilitarization and therefore Israeli withdrawal have not occurred, and reconstruction in accordance with the plan remains minimal.

This is not precisely the picture presented on March 24 by Nickolay Mladenov, the UN High Representative for Gaza and director‑general of the US‑backed Board of Peace, in his first appearance before the UN Security Council.  He was present to brief members on progress in implementing the Gaza peace plan endorsed the previous year in Security Council Resolution 2803.

Mladenov informed the council that a plan, developed with and guaranteed by the US, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, “is now in place for the decommissioning and reintegration of armed groups in Gaza.”  He described the principle at the heart of the framework as: “one authority, one law, one weapon.”

This formula, he stressed, applied without exception to all armed active militias in the Strip, explicitly including Hamas. The objective was the complete decommissioning of weapons in Gaza and their transfer to the control of the technocratic Palestinian authority.

Mladenov said that the first priority, after consolidating a total ceasefire and emergency humanitarian measures, would be to identify and remove heavy weapons systems and military‑grade infrastructure, including tunnels. Subsequent stages would expand disarmament in parallel with staged Israeli withdrawals. The process would be supervised by Palestinian security forces answerable to the National Committee.

Crucially, Mladenov linked compliance with disarmament to the start of large‑scale reconstruction, arguing that collecting the most dangerous weapons was a precondition for economic recovery.

Meanwhile, starting on June 30 the Board of Peace held a two‑day “reset” meeting at a Cyprus resort,
bringing together Board officials, the NCAG, and allied advisers to review stalled plans for post‑war governance, reconstruction, and a transition away from Hamas rule.  Participants later called the talks “highly productive”.

So the Gaza peace plan is not dead; it is languishing.  It could surely be nursed back to health.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem post online, 7 July 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-901467