Allies by Choice: Why Greece, Cyprus and Israel Need a Strategic Alliance

By Dr. Marios P. Efthymiopoulos

AI generated photo of the leaders of the three countries

From Partnership to Strategic Alliance

Greece, Cyprus and Israel are no longer simply three friendly countries cooperating in the Eastern Mediterranean. Missile warfare, drones, terrorism, cyber threats and attacks on critical infrastructure are increasingly turning their partnership into something more consequential: an emerging strategic alliance.

Greece and Cyprus stand with Israel as allies by strategic choice, but the relationship should now deepen further. Their security environments increasingly overlap across an Eastern Mediterranean in which missiles, drones, terrorism, cyber threats and attacks on energy and critical infrastructure do not respect national borders. The December 2025 Greece-Cyprus-Israel trilateral summit reaffirmed cooperation on security and defence, counterterrorism, maritime security, energy, technology and regional connectivity. The next step should be to turn this repeated coordination into a durable strategic framework with concrete institutions and shared capabilities.

Israel as a Regional Security Provider

Israel brings more to this relationship than military hardware. Its extensive business, technological, security and trade relationships with Europe and the United States give it strategic depth, while its experience confronting missiles, drones, terrorism, cyberattacks and hostile networks has produced capabilities increasingly relevant to the entire Eastern Mediterranean.

Its operational experience in layered air defence, intelligence, cybersecurity and emergency response makes Israel a regional security provider, not merely a supplier of equipment. For Greece and Cyprus, cooperation with Israel can therefore strengthen not only national defence but also resilience against threats to ports, energy installations, communications networks and other critical infrastructure.

Greece’s €3.5 billion Achilles Shield illustrates the scale of what is already taking shape. The planned multi-layered air-defence architecture, incorporating Israeli technology and substantial Greek industrial participation, forms part of Athens’ broader €28 billion military modernization programme through 2036. As I previously argued in Mideast Journal’s analysis of Greece’s investment in Israeli air defence and the emerging Eastern Mediterranean security partnership, Achilles Shield represents far more than another weapons purchase. It is a potential foundation for deeper Greek-Israeli industrial, technological and strategic cooperation.

Its long-term value should therefore be measured not simply by the missiles or radars Greece acquires, but by what the programme leaves behind: co-production, technology transfer, Greek maintenance capacity, secure data integration, skilled employment and joint innovation. Greece should not merely purchase advanced defence systems. It should develop the domestic capacity to maintain, adapt and eventually help improve them.

The opportunity also extends far beyond defence procurement. A deeper Greece-Cyprus-Israel strategic alliance should encourage investment and joint ventures in energy, shipping, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, water technology and critical infrastructure. The economic foundation already exists. According to the European Commission’s latest figures on EU-Israel trade, EU-Israel trade in goods reached €43.3 billion in 2025, while two-way services trade totalled €26.6 billion in 2024. Achilles Shield can become one anchor of a broader economic and technological corridor that creates permanent shared interests alongside shared security capabilities.

Such cooperation should deter coercion without becoming a rhetorical bloc directed against another people. The concern is not Turkish society, but policies that place pressure on Cyprus and affect the strategic balance of the Eastern Mediterranean. Strategic allies should be prepared to defend sovereignty and regional stability while keeping channels for diplomacy open.

Protect Freedom, Confront Antisemitism

A strategic alliance based on democratic cooperation must also protect the principles on which that cooperation rests. Opposing antisemitism is therefore not simply a Jewish or Israeli concern; it is part of protecting pluralism, freedom and democratic society.

Criticism of any government, including Israel’s, is legitimate. Collective blame, intimidation, harassment or hatred directed at Jews is not. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights has found that 96 percent of respondents to its latest survey experienced at least one form of antisemitism in the year before the survey, which was conducted in 2023. Greece and Cyprus should strengthen protection for Jewish institutions, improve reporting mechanisms and police training, and expand university programmes focused on Jewish history, Holocaust education, interfaith dialogue and media literacy.

Build Abraham Accords 2.0

The Greece-Cyprus-Israel partnership should also look beyond the three countries themselves. An Abraham Accords 2.0 framework should protect existing normalization agreements while building practical cooperation with additional partners beyond any single geographical region.

Participation should be based on peaceful relations, mutual recognition and concrete cooperation rather than ideological conformity. Greece and Cyprus are particularly well positioned to help connect Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco with willing partners in Europe, Africa and Asia, while supporting eventual Saudi participation when political conditions permit. Significantly, the December 2025 trilateral declaration itself called for deeper regional cooperation, reaffirmed the importance of the Greece-Cyprus-Israel partnership with the United States through the 3+1 framework, and invited other like-minded partners to participate.

Such a framework should focus on the threats that increasingly transcend borders: terrorism, missile and drone attacks, cyber warfare, maritime insecurity, attacks on critical infrastructure, economic coercion and disinformation. States and non-state actors seeking to disrupt regional cooperation should not be allowed to determine its agenda.

This is where Greece and Cyprus can play an especially useful diplomatic role. Both belong firmly within Europe while maintaining deep historical, political and economic connections to the Eastern Mediterranean and Arab world. They can help demonstrate that stronger cooperation with Israel does not require withdrawing from engagement with Arab partners. The opposite can be true: deeper networks of security, trade, infrastructure and diplomacy can widen the constituency for regional stability.

Turn the Greece-Cyprus-Israel Alliance into Delivery

The greatest danger is that strategic partnership becomes another diplomatic slogan. Each Greece-Cyprus-Israel trilateral summit should therefore produce measurable economic and security objectives, deadlines, responsible institutions and identifiable financing mechanisms.

The choice is between a reactive partnership and an alliance capable of shaping events. Greece and Cyprus should stand with Israel, help expand the Abraham Accords and turn shared interests into durable institutions. Strategic maturity means choosing allies — and then creating enough practical, economic and security value for those relationships to endure.

Marios P. Efthymiopoulos is the Director, Strategy International (SI), an Associate Professor of International Security and Strategy at Vytautas Magnus University – School of Political Science and Diplomacy. He is a regular contributor to MidEastJournal and a frequent commentator on Greek media on Mediterranean and Middle East affairs.