By Dr. George N. Tzogopoulos
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 788, April 8, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In July 2010, then Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou visited Jerusalem and met his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. A few weeks later Netanyahu traveled to Athens and held discussions with Papandreou. The long-term significance of those visits could not be acknowledged at that time. But almost eight years later, it is now clear that those talks were a catalyst for the rapprochement that has occurred between two countries that have had a difficult relationship for decades. Greece and Israel are growing ever closer by establishing a strategic partnership and exploring ways to further deepen it.
The deterioration of relations between Israel and Turkey that began at the end of 2008 led the Israeli leadership to look for alternative alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean. A rapprochement with Greece, traditionally at odds with Turkey, made theoretical sense but was practically difficult due to the Greek sympathy with the Arabs and the Palestinian cause. Careful diplomacy was thus required.
While some discussions on the matter began in Athens in the spring of 2009, the turning point occurred in 2010. Prime Ministers George Papandreou and Benjamin Netanyahu opened a new chapter in the bilateral relationship by meeting in Moscow in February of that year. Two important visits soon followed: one by Papandreou to Jerusalem in July and one by Netanyahu to Athens in August.
As a matter of principle, Papandreou was in favor of a multidimensional Greek foreign policy, and he was interested in the security and economic benefits that could accrue from a rapprochement with Israel. More importantly, Greece counted on Israel’s support during a particularly tough and unpredictable period for its national economy. This support was played out in both Europe and the US on several occasions.
In June 2011, for instance, The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu had used his reputation as a leader with a good grasp of economic matters to encourage Israel’s friends to be supportive of the Greek efforts. When Papandreou resigned at the end of October 2011, Netanyahu did not change his approach. Hosting Prime Minister Antonis Samaras two years later, he encouraged Israeli investors and businesspeople to go to and invest in Greece.
Military cooperation has been also remarkable since the ice was broken. Between 2010 and 2012, no fewer than 13 joint Greek-Israeli military exercises were conducted. According to a paper published by the Hudson Institute, bilateral cooperation in the zone between Israel and Crete (a distance of about 1,400 km) has allowed Israeli pilots to engage in bombing drills and the aerial refueling needed to cover a distance equal to that separating the country from Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Further to this, Reuters informs us that Israel has trained in Greece against the Russian S-300 anti-aircraft system.
Greek-Israeli relations have improved further during the administration of the leftist SYRIZA party. Despite the stance of its leader and current premier Alexis Tsipras while in opposition, he has proven to be a real friend of Israel. Ambassador Arye Mekel calls this “impressive and surprising”. Not only is the Greek PM interested in closely cooperating with Israel but he sometimes supports Israeli positions at the EU. In November 2016, Greece defied an EU order on labelling settlement goods. Tsipras is also showing sensitivity in the fight against anti-Semitism, which remains a problem in Greece.
Eight years after the initial rapprochement between Greece and Israel, the bilateral partnership is stronger than ever. Israeli companies are interested in participating in the Greek privatization program, and military exercises – also under the NATO aegis – are multiplying. The January 2018 visit of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to Athens and Thessaloniki was another indication of the excellent status of the bilateral relationship.
The Greek main opposition, the conservative New Democracy party, is ahead in all opinion polls, and it will certainly continue the pro-Israel path of previous governments if it wins the next election. George Koumoutsakos, the head of New Democracy’s international affairs department, paid an official visit to Israel in mid-March 2018 and said that Greek-Israeli relations “could acquire strategic depth in favor of economic progress, stability and peace in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean.” The head of the party’s defense affairs department, Vassilis Kikilias, also visited Israel a few days after Koumoutsakos in another sign of continuity.
Energy developments in the Eastern Mediterranean are only helping the bilateral partnership. Companies are the first to tangibly benefit. In December 2017, for example, Israel Chemicals (ICL Group) signed a contract with the Greek Energean company for the latter to supply up to 13 BCM of natural gas to the former at a total consideration of $1.9 billion over a 15-year period. For their part, the governments of Greece, Israel, and Cyprus are frequently convening trilateral summits for the purpose of finding areas of collaboration around prior and forthcoming natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean. In spite of the high cost, the construction of the EastMed pipeline to transfer energy resources from the Levantine Basin to Europe remains the only viable solution that can enhance regional security in a turbulent neighborhood.
The rapprochement between Greece and Israel initially aroused some skepticism as to its likely duration in view of the unprecedented nature of the initiative, stereotypes from the past, and possible counter-maneuvering by Ankara. In 2018 the landscape is much clearer. Mutual suspicions are disappearing and Greece is becoming a reliable ally of Israel, while Turkey is manifesting its Islamist, neo-Ottoman aspirations on all fronts. The creation of a geopolitical bloc among Greece, Israel, and Cyprus is no longer a utopia and is supported by the US. The sky might be the limit for Greece and Israel, as President Rivlin recently argued. The younger generation of Greeks and Israelis is prepared to accept and even serve this goal.
Dr George N. Tzogopoulos is a BESA Research Associate, Lecturer at the Democritus University of Thrace, and Visiting Lecturer at the European Institute of Nice.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
How right you are. I’m glad that someone recognises, from my description, that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. Even 16 years after my experience, It seems Hugo, that your visit just confirmed that Anti-Semitism is so ingrained in the Greek psyche that it’s just as natural as eating.
Isn’t it a shame that poor Turkey has not yet found it’s own gas deposits….
Which is why the upbeat article does not fill me with pleasure, only reminds me to
“Respect, But Suspect”… X10……!!
Edgar G. Said:
Reminds me of 25 years ago some business bought me to Athens for a few visits. The sheer amount of misogyny, chauvinism, racism, jokes of bad taste and Anti-Semitic snide was remarkable. Could be my Greek hosts were only being more honest than elsewhere. But what came to my ears stood out in terms of what I had experienced in polite society before or afterwards both in Western or Eastern Europe.
The atrocities committed on the Greek people in the 19th century uprisings, wars and crises, the massacres, the Greek genocide during the 20th century, the population transfers, the pogroms against the Greek population which saw the percentage of Greeks drop from one third of Istanbul’s population to zero today. All this could not dampen anti-Semitic tropes and Arab sympathies in Greece.
Now finally, Erdogan’s banging on the gates of Greece, his appetite for the oil & gas in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, his threats against Cyprus and vitriol against all things infidel apparently has elicited some new warmth for a cooperation with Israel.
This is welcome news for the Jewish State and it should make good use of this as much of possible. But as in the case with Saudi Arabia, this is no true friendship. Enjoy it as long as it lasts, don’t let it go to your head, always verify and be wary.
Very interesting in view of the fact that only a couple of years back s report said that Anti-Semitism was at about 65% in Greece. And I recall that many years ago, in 1977 to be exact, When I had just driven across Europe from,Calais to Athens, I just missed the boat to Haifa. Easter happened to coincide with Pesach that year. I had been pulling a travel trailer that I had just picked up in England, after getting the electric connections installed in Oxford. I’d never pulled a trailer like this before and had no idea of the dangers. No sway bar, I’d never even heard of it. The thing was bouncing all over the place most of the way, pulling the back of my car off the road etc.
The trip took 2 1/2 days travelling ar over 60 m.p.h. sleeping at garage parking aras. Never slept so well in my life for about 6 hrs nightly. The worst roads I ever saw were all the way through Yugo-Slavia, seemed as if made from logs placed across the road. Cut the speed down to about 20-25 m.p.h.
In Athens there was NO Israeli Embassy, and eventually found a tiny office in a very dark narrow street with a few Yiddishe bochers sitting around, on and at a desk etc. They put me wise to the “low profile” Greece-Israel situation. As well, the whole city seemed full of Arabs, like herdsmen, with long staves, long dresses and stinking like hell Awful.!. They were sleeping everywhere, filled every seat at airport, usually fast asleep or walking around. Approaching 25 paces from the door, you could smell them already-even with the door closed………!!.
Spent the next 10 days in a trailer park in Kiffisia, about 10 ml. from Athens were the only ones there, until an English couple pulled in about 4-5 days later. We used to have sing-songs and beer, I had a banjo-uke. Got on the ship, lowering the trailer to the deck too fast,they damaged a “leg”. When we got to Haifa, we were worried about the immense amount of goods we had..e.g.65 yards of double width cloth for making childrens’ clothes is only ONE example. . Enough curtaining for Buckingham Palace. The Customs seemed very merry that morning. When I opened a huge suitcase packed to the brim and held my breath, the Guy said , half singing, “close it up, I didn’t see nothing”, exactly like Schultz in “Hogan’s Heros”., and refused to look at anything else. In the big shed, claiming the rest of our stuff, everyone seemed to be “making whoopee” so I asked…./??.
What happened was that Maccabi Tel Aviv had just won the European Basketball Cup for the first time. Everyone was half shicker. I saw a fork lift drive deliberately into a crate of goods and the guys helping themselves. They offered me some too but in those days….being still relatively new to Israel, I had scruples.
More to come this time next year.
What would the Maccabees say? (Just kidding.)