On Monday, Greece and Israel signed a $3.5bn defence deal to construct an built-in, multilayered defence community to guard Greek territory dubbed the Achilles Protect. The bundle brings collectively the David’s Sling and Spyder interceptors, the Barak air and missile defence system and multimission radars, alongside a separate deal including Drone Dome methods to guard strategic websites from UAVs.
It’s the largest defence deal ever concluded between the 2 nations. It’s also one of the crucial important export agreements in Israel’s latest historical past.
What makes the settlement notably putting is that it comes as Israel’s international standing is at considered one of its lowest factors in a long time. And Greece is not any outlier, on condition that 65 % of its residents now view Israel unfavourably. Why, then, has Athens now chosen to overtly deepen its ties with Israel in essentially the most politically delicate of areas: defence and navy know-how?
Firstly, the shadow of Israel’s battle with Iran looms giant. In early March, an Iranian drone struck Cyprus, Greece’s neighbour and shut companion. This seemingly bolstered anxieties that have been already seen in 2024. After Israel, with the assistance of the US, downed roughly 300 Iranian drones and missiles, Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias known as on Athens to develop its personal antidrone “dome”.
The deal is subsequently partly the product of pragmatic necessity as nations scramble for navy options to rising drone threats. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for instance, are buying antidrone know-how from Ukraine, one other nation capable of market its merchandise as battle-tested.
Regardless of its political drawback, Israel has a sensible head begin, on condition that it has lengthy practised “arms diplomacy”, utilizing its defence business as a springboard to domesticate deeper bilateral ties with potential consumers.
The second issue driving the Achilles Protect deal is one other longstanding tenet of Israeli grand technique: the “periphery doctrine”. This advocates that Israel develop ties with non-Arab states and peoples on the periphery of the Levant to counter the hostility between Israel and its rapid neighbours. It’s a recognition that shared threats can produce strategic partnerships. And within the case of Israel and Greece, that shared menace is Turkiye.
The irony is that Turkiye – as a non-Arab state and the gateway between the Center East and Europe – was Israel’s shut companion within the early days of the periphery doctrine. In 1949, Turkiye was the primary Muslim nation to recognise Israel. In subsequent years, Ankara and Tel Aviv developed strong however clandestine safety ties.
This labored as Israel supposed in that it opened the door to more and more public and broader bilateral relations, which continued even after the Islamist-oriented AK Occasion, or Justice and Growth Occasion, got here to energy in Turkiye in 2002.
However each side fell out in late 2008 after Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip. Subsequent divergences over Israeli insurance policies in direction of the occupied Palestinian territory have progressively unravelled their deep ties.
Bilateral commerce has collapsed since Ankara imposed an embargo on Israel in 2024. There are now not direct flights between the 2 nations. In June, US President Donald Trump claimed that US strain stopped Turkiye from becoming a member of the conflict on Iran, on Tehran’s aspect. This may occasionally sound far-fetched, but it illustrates how Israel and Turkiye not solely disagree on many geopolitical points, however more and more see one another as rivals and even threats.
What’s outstanding is how rapidly Greece has stuffed the void. In earlier years, Tel Aviv’s partnership with Ankara precluded nearer ties with Athens. However no extra: in late 2025, Israel, Cyprus and Greece signed a “Joint Motion Plan” that mandates enhanced navy cooperation.
Power has bolstered this strategic convergence. The invention of considerable fuel reserves within the japanese Mediterranean inspired Israel, Greece and Cyprus to cooperate on pipelines and maritime safety.
And, as was the case with Turkiye, extra in depth bilateral ties adopted safety cooperation: some 744,000 Israelis visited Greece in 2025, in contrast with the height of 558,000 Israeli vacationers who travelled to Turkiye in 2008.
The growing regional division into competing blocs has additionally pushed the burgeoning Israel-Greece relationship. In February, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu floated a “hexagon alliance” of Israel, Greece, Cyprus, India and unnamed Arab and African nations.
Six months later, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Settlement. This alliance broadly overlaps with what commentators earlier labelled the “Islamic coalition”.
That is an evolving dynamic and inter-bloc collaboration is as widespread as intra-bloc divergences. Nevertheless it demonstrates that the disaster of confidence within the US as a safety guarantor extends past the Gulf states and predates the latest conflict on Iran. It additionally portends complications for Washington’s policymakers, on condition that these more and more competing states are all US allies.
The Achilles Protect deal is subsequently the brand new manifestation of an outdated Israeli technique that has been accelerated by the US-Israel conflict on Iran. Public scepticism might complicate Greece-Israel relations, however Israeli-Turkish ties deepened for many years regardless of equally unfavourable public attitudes.
In brief, within the japanese Mediterranean and elsewhere, rising in style outrage at Israel’s insurance policies will proceed to coexist uneasily with deepening safety cooperation at an elite degree. The irony is that the identical conflicts which have broken Israel’s worldwide standing have additionally elevated the worth of its navy expertise and defence know-how.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
