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Istanbul is known not only as the bridge between Europe and Asia, but between East and West.

I stood on that bridge -- literally -- in April, looked both ways, and wondered which way Turkey would go.

The signs are not encouraging, and perhaps I was too late in asking the question. And regardless of the behavior of, and Islamist influence within, the Turkish government, a move away from Israel is a landmark event, if only because of how that relationship began.

Once Israel survived its war of independence, it was clear the Jewish state needed allies to contain the spread of Arab anti-Jewish violence. Three emerged: Iran, Ethiopia, and Turkey, forming a non-Arab ring around the Middle East and North Africa -- Iran to the east of Iraq, Ethiopia to the south of Egypt (Sudan did not gain independence from Egypt/United Kingdom until 1956), and Turkey to the north of Syria.

As detailed by Ronen Bergman in "The Secret War with Iran," Mossad founder Reuven Shiloah called it the Peripheral Alliance Strategy, codenamed Klil ("perfection"). In August 1958, the Mossad signed a cooperation agreement with its Turkish counterpart, the MIT; the agreement, after it was expanded to include the Iranian SAVAK, was called "Trident," though Mossad called it "Ultra-Watt."

"The Trident agreement called for periodic meetings between the heads of the intelligence bodies of the three states, with a different country serving as host each time," Bergman writes. "Israel considered this an unprecedented strategic achievement, having positioned itself as the central axis between two Muslim countries in a military-intelligence pact. In regional disputes that arose between Turkey and Iran, Trident served as a platform and Israel as arbitrator."

The Mavi Marmara, the flotilla ship on which Israeli forces were attacked last week, is Turkish-owned, and affiliated with members of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party. As such, Erdogan has been the ringleader of the anti-Israel backlash, bringing the simmering Israel-Turkey tension to a public boil.

Of course, Turkey has often pulled a reverse-Arab on the world -- say nasty things about Israel in public, but in private continue to cooperate with the Israelis. So are Erdogan's threats simply for the sake of populism? Probably not this time, Svante Cornell, research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Washington, D.C.'s John Hopkins University, told me.

"The Palestinian cause is an important one in Turkish public opinion, but it is support for Palestinians, not Hamas, that resonates in the Turkish public," Cornell said. "In other words, there would be no justification for siding with Hamas against Fatah, as the AKP government has practically done, if it was about populism. Likewise, chummy ties with Iran and opening up to the Sudan of Al-Bashir carry no real weight domestically. They can only be explained ideologically."

Even anti-Israel populism itself is dangerous considering the public mood, Cornell continued. Whipping up anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment among the Turkish populace solidifies a vicious circle.

"It is about a reorientation of Turkish foreign policy toward the East and Islamic causes, where Israel is the major symbolic issue, but far from the only one, as the Iran and Sudan issues show," he said.

"In sum," Cornell offered, "I think the Turkish-Israeli relationship is in some serious trouble."

Michael Young, columnist for Lebanon's Daily Star, has expressed concern that the perceived desire of the United States to step back from its leading role in world affairs tells regional actors that there is a coming power vacuum in the Mideast.

"If one had to wager on the shape of the region in the coming years, it would be reasonable to put money on America's enemies," Young wrote on June 3. "Iran, Syria, armed Islamist groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas, even American allies such as Turkey that have chosen to fundamentally overhaul their connection with Washington and Israel, are showing themselves to be far more adept at playing to Middle Eastern vicissitudes than the Obama administration."

No one is better positioned to capitalize on that than Turkey -- a member of NATO and erstwhile applicant to the European Union. And because of that -- because Erdogan appeals to anti-Israel intellectuals as well as the Arab and Muslim street -- Erdogan may be seeking to answer a question posed by the Jamestown Foundation's Emrullah Uslu: Is Erdogan, Uslu wrote in January 2009, "a new Nasser in the making?"

That's why my question -- which way would Turkey go -- was too late. By the time I stood on that bridge, it had become clear Turkey would embody a 21st century version of its East-West link. It will combine the violent Islamist elements of the East with the high-minded elite anti-Semitism of the West.

In a chess shop inside Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, the shopkeeper took one look at my traveling companion and me and said "you're Jewish, right?" Yes, we responded. Surprising us, this was his take on the conflict: "Terrorists are animals; I stand with Israel."

We spent about an hour with Ergun in that shop. As much as we appreciated the solidarity, however, one thing is clear: When Ergun leaves his shop each night, no matter which he way walks, his will be an increasingly lonely voice.

Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.