The tightening relationship between Israel and Greece and Cyprus creates a line of resistance to Turkey’s expansionist efforts in the region and a lever for moderating Turkish-led moves. This is particularly true about Turkish intentions to exert pressure on Israel by virtue of its military presence in the area, with emphasis on Syria and the Gaza Strip.
The trilateral Israel-Greece-Cyprus relationship carries security implications, as well as economic and infrastructural ones, and it strengthens Israel’s regional standing, its energy and other ties to Europe, and its security rear. This is made possible, inter alia, through the ability to rely on the air defense systems of the two neighboring states and the option of diverting civilian aircraft and some Israeli Air Force aircraft there in the event of severe damage to infrastructure in Israel.
Turkey’s irritation at this rapprochement, and at the fact that Cyprus and Greece are acquiring some of the world’s most advanced air defense systems manufactured in Israel, points to a very significant Turkish vulnerability that should be exploited because Turkey threatens the vital interests of each of the three states. Such cooperation narrows Turkey’s room for maneuver and makes it harder for it to act with the provocative, arrogant freedom it has shown.
A Multiplicity of Actors Enables Creative Solutions
However, beyond the regional importance and strategic value of the emerging alliance among the three states, which is shaping a new regional architecture in the eastern Mediterranean Basin, it has another significant advantage that is rarely addressed. Typically, when discussing a new regional architecture in the Middle East, one based on expanding the Abraham Accords and normalization processes, the focus is on Israel and the Arab states in the region, and, in a broader approach, also on several critical and much more distant Islamic states, such as Indonesia and Pakistan. Yet the eastern Mediterranean Basin is a far more integral part of the new Israeli-Arab regional architecture, and it would be correct to include it as an inseparable component by extending the architecture to the Hellenic sphere and creating the necessary, vital, and beneficial connection between the Middle East and Europe.
Such a linkage can amplify the regional architecture and turn it into a global strategic center of gravity and an essential point of stabilization and balance vis-à-vis revisionist forces, states, or powers that deny the existing order, or the one they aspire to, and seek to shape a regional order in their own image and with themselves as its center of gravity. Turkey, Iran, and, to some extent, Russia are examples of this.
American leadership alongside regional leadership in this direction can also enable a strategic reversal and help leap over hurdles and obstacles on the path to expanding the Abraham Accords and advancing regional normalization. The complexity of the reality in Gaza, for example, affects the Israeli-Palestinian issue in its broader sense and makes it harder to expand the accords and for Saudi Arabia to move forward in the normalization process, due to the public conditionality regarding a political horizon for two states and a solution to the problem of the Strip. Therefore, instead of beginning with this move, it is possible to start by shaping the expanded regional architecture that includes Greece and Cyprus, linking to India and East Asia, and advancing the Abraham Accords and the normalization process under its auspices. This represents a reversal in the sense of investing effort in linking the Arab Middle Eastern system to India and East Asia, as well as to the Hellenic Basin of the Mediterranean, Greece, and Cyprus.
Such a move does not require, certainly not in its initial stages, a direct connection between Saudi Arabia and Israel or accelerated normalization of relations. The essence and core of the move are not tied to a bilateral relationship between the two states. On the contrary, the multiplicity of actors involved, with emphasis on those beyond the Arab sphere, the Hellenic states, India, and East Asia, allows for blurring the focus on normalization and the expansion of the Abraham Accords here and now. Such a web of actors will allow room for maneuver and time for more creative and feasible solutions, also about the Gaza Strip and, later, to the Palestinian arena in its broader context. Creating a multi-actor space of action, resources, and above all possibilities through intercontinental connections and the creation of an economic and infrastructural hub will enable courses of action and solutions, or at least responses, to the Palestinian issue that do not exist today at the Israeli-Palestinian bilateral level, nor even at the limited and immediate regional level.
Stability and Security in the Long Term
Post–Swords of Iron War Israel is a regional power not only militarily but also technologically and economically. Contrary to the assessments of many experts, the Israeli economy has demonstrated remarkable resilience and, by any standard, impressive growth compared with OECD countries. The gas deal approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December 2025 is the largest in the history of the Israeli economy and positions the state as both an energy power in the eastern Mediterranean Basin and the primary energy supplier to Egypt and Jordan. Connecting energy infrastructure to Cyprus and from there to Greece and the rest of Europe, alongside the potential for cooperation with Cyprus on additional joint gas drilling in the Mediterranean, will enable Israel to connect its domestic power grid to the European grid, provide energy security for its citizens, and also supply it to parts of Europe.
Israel is also a regional and global power in water, green energy and its derivatives, agriculture, biotechnology, cyber, and AI, all the more so once Nvidia completes construction of its massive campus in Kiryat Tivon. Linking India and East Asia to Europe via the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel will become even more significant with the expansion of the regional architecture to include the eastern Mediterranean Basin through the addition of Greece and Cyprus, which contribute their relative advantages with respect to Europe to the international mix and composition.
Israeli stability, in contrast to the conduct that characterizes Syria, guarantees reliability and security for a project such as IMEC and therefore constitutes a proven and essential comparative advantage. Alongside the other significant contributions Israel can add, and thanks to the close and positive ties with Cyprus and Greece, the space of shared interests among the involved actors expands. If we know how to highlight the advantages of such a move also about the Palestinian issue and the possibility of increasing the chances for regulating the conflict, and perhaps even resolving it in the future under the auspices of that regional architecture and the new opportunity spaces it will create, it will be possible to generate for Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states the incentive for such a move, for reversing the strategic order of motion.
The Israeli challenge is to convince the United States, and with its help the potential Arab partners, with emphasis on Saudi Arabia, that the correct order of motion is first shaping the broad framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and only thereafter addressing the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and not the other way around. If this happens, we may be able to bring about the strategic leap that so many clearly aspire to.
