Abstract: This paper discusses the start of a new chapter in Turkish-Israeli relations in the context of the new Middle Eastern strategic landscape. The growing regional influence of Iran since 2003, the failure of the Arab democratization process, the projection of Russian military power in the Middle East, the possibility of a unified Kurdish political entity in northern Iraq and Syria, and the transformation of US strategic calculations in the region have all altered the basic foreign policy paradigms of regional powers. For Turkey, all these factors have led to a strategic re-interpretation that, coupled with political and economic incentives, not only compels Turkish leaders to normalize the country’s diplomatic relationship with Israel, but also to deepen it to a status of a new regional alliance. This is in fact a major departure from the foreign policy perspective followed by Justice and Development Party governments since 2002, as well as from Turkey’s traditional strategic perspective. With the brief exception of the period of instability after the military attempted to intervene in civilian politics on February 28, 1997, Turkey has traditionally approached Israel as a strategically significant regional power merely because it provided access to the American policy-making process. Hence, the possible formation of a new alliance with Israel outside of the US strategic paradigm is an interesting development that will have repercussions for the entire region.