The East Mediterranean Triangle at Crossroads by Jean-Loup Samaan

Author:Jean-Loup Samaan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

The Israel-Greece rapprochement is not only visible in the military realm but also in other sectors such as tourism, culture, education and trade. Prior to the Papandreou visit of 2010, there were around 150,000 Israeli tourists coming to Greece each year. For 2012, they were estimated to reach 400,000.

Witnessing the rise of the bilateral relation, Greek President Karolos Papoulis visited Israel on July 10, 2011. During one interview there, he expressed his view on this recent rapprochement:

Greece and Israel have rich and diverse ties.... Our Ministers and officials systematically consult and work together on all levels and in key areas: energy, defense and security, agriculture, tourism.... We are pursuing astrong relationship—strong on trade, strong on investment, strong on political, and security cooperation. 40

On the other side, Israel also conveyed the message that the relation had never been so high. Israeli Ambassador to Greece, Aryeh Mekel, explained to the online media, Al-Monitor:

Greek-Israel relations today are at an unprecedented peak. In the last three years, the relationship has undergone adramatic changeover due to the decision of the two countries to open anew page and maintain long-term strategic cooperation without connection to relations with other countries. 41

The last specification from Mekel is worth underlining and challenging: is this rapprochement really without any connection to relations with other countries?

True, the Israelis and the Greeks emphasize that cooperation did not come out of the blue in 2010, that the first bilateral economic agreement was written in 1992, and the first military agreement in 1994 —in fact before the one between Israel and Turkey.

Still, the timing of the rapprochement coincides abit too much with the widening gap between Israel and Turkey. This is why Turkish leaders have been obviously scrutinizing these developments. Military exercises engendered low-level tensions in the Mediterranean when, at times, the Turkish Navy would conduct maneuvers near Cyprus at the same time as the joint Israeli-Greek exercises. 42 However, off the record, Turkish officials tend to dismiss their concerns, downplaying the strategic significance of this Israeli-Greek rapprochement. One diplomat sarcastically told us, “If Israel wants to counterbalance Turkey with acountry in profound economic and political troubles like Greece, we [the Turks] should not be worried, the Israelis should!” 43

Israeli officers and diplomats do not hide this strategic fact: Greece is no substitute for Turkey. It has neither the geopolitical reach nor the military might of the historical ally of Israel. Not only is Greece enduring afinancial crisis that is eroding its military capabilities, but it never had the type of leverage Turkey enjoys in the Middle East and that Israel crucially needs today. But as one diplomat formerly assigned in Ankara states, “Greece allows us to avoid complete isolation in the Mediterranean. Look at the current state of our neighbors: Syria, Lebanon, Egypt. Desperate times call for desperate measures.” 44

If the rapprochement with Greece does not exactly look like Israel countering Turkey, it could, at least, be depicted as ahedge against Turkish diplomatic reorientation. Still, the persistent view in the region is that

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