Athens, Greece – Greece has become a key supporter of Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean, a position unimaginable just over a decade ago and seemingly at odds with public opinion.
“I come here not only as an ally but as a true friend,” declared Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv on October 23, while the last Conflict in the Middle East has broken out.
“From the beginning, Greece has supported Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law,” he said.
Unlike other European leaders who have shown similar solidarity, Mitsotakis did not also pay a courtesy visit to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement.
This could anger two-thirds of Greeks, who support neutrality in the current war.
While only 18.4 percent favor a pro-Israeli stance, 11.5 percent want Greece to be openly pro-Palestinian, according to an opinion poll broadcast by Star Channel two days after Mitsotakis’ visit.
Despite defending humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians stuck in Gaza, Greece was one of 45 abstentions in the UN General Assembly. vote calling for an immediate humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas on October 27. A majority of 120 countries voted in favor.
“Eight EU members voted in favor of the UN call for a humanitarian ceasefire. Greece, under Mitsotakis, chose not to be part of it,” MEP from the opposition Syriza party, Dimitris Papadimoulis, told Al Jazeera.
Anyone who “wants humanity and peace to prevail” would take a “more balanced position that also maintains good relations with the Arab world – a position conducive to a solution for the Palestinians,” Papadimoulis said.
Greece, however, joined the European Council’s call for “safe and unhindered humanitarian access” to Gaza on October 27, “including humanitarian breaks and corridors.”
But Greece went beyond declarations by helping Israel.
According to Greek media reports, a large number of US C-17 and C-130 transport aircraft have been stationed at the US air and naval base in Souda Bay, Crete, and at the Greek air base in Elefsina, near Athens, in case a mass evacuation of American citizens from Israel should be necessary.
A historic change
Greece’s official foreign policy position, now supported by both right and left parties when it was in power, is very different from its traditionally pro-Palestinian policy during the Cold War, when Greece and Israel did not yet developed full diplomatic relations.
When Netanyahu’s predecessor, Menachem Begin, invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO’s military wing in 1982, Greek ships took the organization’s leader, Yasser Arafat, to safety in Athens.
At the time, Palestinian expatriates frequently demonstrated in the streets of Athens with the support of the Greek left party, to press their cause on European soil.
Support for the Palestinians was not just sentimental.
Greek tankers transport a third of the world’s crude oil, and this trade has dictated good relations with the Arab world for decades.
Another reason was Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
“Greece was very interested in getting votes from the UN in favor of its position on the Cyprus issue,” Aristotle Tziampiris, professor of international relations at the University of Piraeus, told Al Jazeera. “It was necessary to weigh one Israeli vote against twenty Arab votes. »
The beginning of the rapprochement took place in 1990, when Mitsotakis’ father, former Prime Minister Konstantine Mitsotakis, fully and legally recognized Israel, which he considered necessary “for the restoration and establishment of peace in the region “.
However, close relations between Israel and Turkey in the 1990s posed a problem for Greece.
“The Turkish criterion, a permanent part of the Greek Foreign Ministry, dictates that we cannot have good relations with Israel if that country also develops its relations with Turkey,” a senior Greek government official told Al Jazeera under condition of anonymity.
“We gave them this dilemma and the Israelis at the time had much more strategic interests in Turkey, so we forced them to choose Turkey. »
In 2010, a new clash between the Israeli army and Hamas changed everything.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent a humanitarian aid flotilla to help the Palestinians. Israeli commandos attacked the flotilla, suspecting it of carrying weapons, killing nine people.
The breakdown in Turkish-Israeli relations is a void that the Greek political establishment has worked to fill “with astonishing speed,” Tziampiris said.
“Israel has viewed Greece all these years as a gateway to the European Union that could facilitate its relations with the EU and alleviate its isolation due to Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians,” the government official said.
Greece’s budding friendship with Israel “is neither personal nor partisan, but represents a national strategy that has lasted for almost 15 years,” Tziampiris said.
In a country whose politicians are prone to infighting and frequently place party interests above national interests, this, he said, is “something to be admired.”
Greece had its own reasons for adopting Israel.
It had virtually gone bankrupt that year and needed a bailout from its eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund in Washington. By showing his support for Israel, he moved closer to the United States.
Greece was also part of a nascent energy partnership. 2010 was the year Israel discovered Leviathan, holding approximately 566 billion cubic meters of gas and making Israel overnight the largest owner of exportable gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The following year, Greece and Israel began discussing the construction of EastMed – a 1,900 km long, $7 billion, mostly underwater gas pipeline to transport 10 to 20 billion cubic meters of Israeli gas to Europe via Greece.
Greek oil companies have formed a consortium to build this pipeline, and an Athens-based company already plays a strategic role in the Israeli economy. Thanks in part to Israeli funding, Energean now operates a floating production, storage and offloading platform (FPSO) anchored off Israel, which extracts and liquefies Israeli offshore gas for export.
Defense relationship
When Greek-Turkish relations became strained in 2020, Greece sought to establish relations with Israel’s sophisticated defense industry.
Greece signed its first military agreement with Israel on May 6, 2020, leasing two Heron drones to monitor the Aegean Sea. Greece had been caught off guard by Turkey’s development of its Bayraktar drones and needed the Herons as an interim solution before developing its own drones – something the Hellenic aerospace industry is currently doing in collaboration with Greek universities.
In 2022, Greece would also buy the Drone Dome anti-drone defense system from the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and in 2023 it would buy dozens of Orbiter 3 surveillance and reconnaissance drones, also from Rafael.
Mitsotakis signed cybersecurity cooperation protocols with Netanyahu in June 2020 and invited Israeli investors to use Greece as a base from which to access the EU single market, particularly in IT.
Unlike 2010, when the Greek economy was in difficulty, the invitation has now found a taker.
In February 2021, Israeli defense manufacturers SK Group and Plasan took control of the defunct Hellenic Vehicles Industry (ELVO).
In 2022, Greece and Israeli company Elbit launched a joint flight training center in the southern Greek city of Kalamata. Israel had previously sought training airspace from Turkey. He now had the vast flight information region of Athens at his disposal.
In 2023, Greece purchased 34 Spike NLOS short-range missile defense systems with around 500 missiles from Elbit, Israel, to protect its eastern Aegean islands.
Turkey moved in the opposite direction during this period, offering Hamas leaders passports and offices on Turkish soil.
Erdogan recently frustrated Washington when he said Hamas was not a “terrorist” organization and called Israel an occupier.
This places Greece and Turkey on opposing sides during the Gaza conflict.
“Housing Hamas has always been an issue between Israel and Turkey and when we talked about rapprochement, it was a subject that was on the table, and it is still on the table,” the Israeli ambassador said. Noam Katz at the Greek channel Open TV.
