By Helleniscope -October 22, 20262272
EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis). This is a rather long article, but I assure you that every statement, every word, is wisdom from one of the greatest Greek geopolitical analysts and a friend of Helleniscope: Dimitris Konstantakopoulos. As clouds of war gather over the Eastern Mediterranean, it’s a good idea for all of us to know the truth and, soon, rally around our civil organizations and take action.
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source – please follow the link to the original Greek text: https://www.konstantakopoulos.gr/37536/%cf%80%ce%bf%cf%85-%ce%b2%ce%b1%ce%b4%ce%af%ce%b6%ce%bf%cf%85%ce%bc%ce%b5-%ce%bc%ce%b5-%cf%84%ce%b7%ce%bd-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85%cf%81%ce%ba%ce%af%ce%b1-%ce%ba%ce%b1%ce%b9-%cf%84%ce%bf-%ce%b9%cf%83%cf%81
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
I wrote this article out of indignation. On the morning of Monday, October 19, I turned on a major television channel and heard a journalist, a government official, and a retired military officer bombard their unfortunate viewers with a host of inaccuracies and false information about the legal status of the waters between Greece and Cyprus—precisely where the notorious Greece–Cyprus–Israel electricity cable is supposed to pass.
There is a serious possibility that we are heading toward a dangerous crisis with Turkey because of the electricity transmission cable that we are preparing to lay, which will connect Greece with Cyprus and Israel. How is it possible for the mass media to stuff the citizens of this country with false information? Are they perhaps doing so for a good cause?
According to pro-government sources, the “cable crisis” will be resolved smoothly, with the French intervening so that both Greece and Turkey can declare themselves satisfied.
I hope this information proves correct and that we do not end up in a crisis that would be disastrous for both us and Turkey, for the benefit of Israel. Unfortunately, I cannot be certain, because a major international power is pushing matters in precisely that direction.
And when you have spent several years walking along the edge of a cliff in Greek–Turkish relations, the danger of a provocation is always heightened. https://www.konstantakopoulos.gr/37479/%ce%b7-%cf%84%ce%ad%cf%87%ce%bd%ce%b7-%cf%84%ce%b7%cf%82-%cf%80%cf%81%ce%bf%ce%b2%ce%bf%ce%ba%ce%ac%cf%84%cf%83%ce%b9%ce%b1%cf%82-%cf%83%cf%84%ce%b1-%ce%b5%ce%bb%ce%bb%ce%b7%ce%bd%ce%bf%cf%84%ce%bf
Has the Supposed “Alliance” with Israel Benefited Us?
Even if that happens—even if the crisis is avoided for now—the policies we have pursued with Israel, beginning with EastMed and the supposedly triangular “alliances” with Israel, have so far probably encouraged Turkish aggressiveness rather than deterred it. They don’t seem to haqve increased our security.
This is because Ankara increasingly tends to regard us as nothing more than an instrument of an Israel that is itself highly aggressive toward Turkey. These policies also increase the risk of war, as nearly happened in 2020.
According to the then Minister of Defense, Mr. Panagiotopoulos, we came to the brink of war with Turkey three times that year. https://www.protothema.gr/politics/article/1090421/nikos-panagiotopoulos-sto-thema-treis-fores-ftasame-koda-se-thermo-epeisodio/
Until 2015, Erdoğan’s Turkey had kept dormant the claims against Greece that it had inherited from previous Turkish governments.
I remember how much this fact impressed the late (fr. FM) Petros Molyviatis, who pointed out to me several times during our conversations that the Turkish president had not exploited Greece’s economic crisis.
The Greek – Israeli rapprochement was unrealistic as we pointed out from the outset. In the case of the triangular supposed alliances of Greece and Cyprus, they brought no substantial benefit to Greece or Cyprus. In fact those “alliances” were a form of absorption of the two states. Only after these policies began did Erdoğan respond to what he perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the “strategic encirclement of Turkey.” We don’t mean that the Erdogan’s reactions were or are justified. We say that they can be interpreted to what we were doing.
That is especially so because these policies began in parallel with the coup attempt against him.
The result of all that was that all the previously dormant Turkish claims against Greece were “resurrected,” new ones appeared, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, the “Blue Homeland” doctrine was proclaimed, we came close to military confrontation, and we embarked on an arms race that will destroy us economically without any war even being necessary.
In Cyprus, Turkey hardened its position, increased its troop deployments, and is now building a gas pipeline to the “TRNC” [the self-declared and not recognized by anynody except Turkey Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus].
Well, you can hardly call all that a great success for Greek and Cypriot foreign policy!
A Strategic Miscalculation
When we needed Israel’s assistance, we didn’t get it.
When Israel requested military facilities from the SYRIZA – An.Ell. government in 2015, it received them. But it did not provide the political support the Greek government requested to reach a better agreement in the negotiations with the Troika.
When the Blue Homeland doctrine emerged, Israeli ministers declared that they supported the application of international law in the Mediterranean, but that they would not deploy their fleet to enforce it—leaving us high and dry.
While they had encouraged us to pursue the completely unfeasible EastMed project, they were using its specter as leverage while negotiating with Turkey over a pipeline that would pass through Turkish territory.
And when it comes to the Turkish–Libyan memorandum, I have not seen Israel helping us secure its cancellation.
And rightly so, from its own perspective, since it wants permanent tension and wars in the Mediterranean, Western Asia, and Africa.
Israel itself tells us these things. See, for example, here https://www.defenddemocracy.press/regime-change-in-israel/.
If we want an alliance with such a state, it will obviously demand in return that we participate in the permanent wars it is planning, as well as in its profoundly totalitarian regional and global political project.
We have already had a foretaste of this.
We sent Patriot missile systems to Saudi Arabia at Israel’s request. We concluded a defense agreement with the United Arab Emirates because Israel asked us to. We did the same by agreeing to reinforce the Lebanese army with weapons so that it could fight Hezbollah. And we sent a frigate to the Red Sea.
At the same time, Israeli Predator spyware is monitoring everyone in our country, including the government, the leaders of the Armed Forces, the heads of opposition parties, journalists and activists.
Is this the role we envision for Greece in the future?
What benefit will we gain from assuming these enormous risks and becoming ever more deeply involved in a confrontation with the eastern part of our world?
Of course, the Israelis are not solely responsible for all this.
In Greece, they found a political class and an “elite” ready to sell everything off. Had they encountered a serious state, events might have unfolded differently.
If one looks more deeply, Athenian democracy and thinkers such as Democritus, Protagoras, and Pericles lie at the heart of the Greek tradition.
The modern Greek national project, as it took shape beginning in 1204, is also profoundly anti-colonial and democratic.
It is compatible with neither colonialism and imperialism nor totalitarianism.
An Information Vacuum, a Lack of Seriousness
I hope—though I cannot be certain—that a peaceful settlement will materialize now, rather than a military crisis.
In any event, if the government possessed even a basic degree of seriousness, especially in view of a possible crisis with Turkey, it should honestly and responsibly inform the Greek people and the opposition parties about exactly what it is doing and why.
The mass media should do the same.
The opposition parties should have demanded this long ago.
Although, to be fair, they appear to have lost not only their seriousness but also, long ago, any desire whatsoever to scrutinize anything that serves Israel’s interests or involves Israel.
The cable will extend to Israel.
For example, the question arises: Why did the Greek government consider it advisable two years ago not to proceed with the cable, fearing a Greek–Turkish crisis, but has now decided to move ahead?
Why did it not proceed then, and why is it proceeding now?
Is this a decision of its own free will, or the result of pressure from Israel—which today has more reasons than ever to desire a rupture between Greece and Turkey for its own benefit, and whose influence and control over our country have reached extraordinary levels?
Why does Greece risk a crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean while simultaneously awarding all the contracts for electricity storage batteries in Crete to a Turkish company, or allowing Turkish fishermen to overfish freely in Greek territorial waters in the Aegean?
Why does it risk a crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean while stripping the Eastern Aegean islands—the front line of Greek defense—of their weapons sending them to Ukraine?
Statistics provide the answer, and it is very simple.
The government is unacceptably accommodating toward Turkey on every issue except those issues that interest Tel Aviv.
“Wartime” Tensions Between Israel and Turkey?
It should be noted that Israel is now loudly proclaiming its hostility toward the Erdoğan regime, but not toward Turkey itself.
Under a different regime, Mr. Netanyahu would like to restore the close allied relationship between the two countries https://www.newsbeast.gr/world/arthro/13433560/netaniachou-elpizo-na-apofygoume-mia-metopiki-sygkrousi-me-tin-tourkia-den-vlepo-perithorio-exomalynsis-me-ton-erntogan
After all, it was American Jewish neoconservatives, not Obama, who organized the 2016 coup to overthrow the Erdoğan regime, primarily because of its relative independence from the centers of power in Washington that were coming under increasing Israeli control, and also because of Turkey’s “multidimensional foreign policy” (in contrast to Greece’s one-sided policy). We have predicted this coup based on their publications and had to just repost our article after it happened https://www.defenddemocracy.press/turkey-military-coup-possible/.
Now, Israel and Turkey have reached the point of exchanging extremely serious threats of war (*).
If matters lead really to a military confrontation between the two countries, Israel would obviously prefer—and this is one scenario currently being discussed internationally—to strike Turkey, either directly or through proxies, in Cyprus, Somalia, or the Aegean. Look for example here https://jstreetdotorg.substack.com/p/escalating-turkey-israel-rivalry and here https://www.defenddemocracy.press/preparations-for-a-war-between-israel-and-the-turks-are-in-full-swing/.
The “Liberation” of Cyprus and the Greek “Neo-Nationalists”
Israel Hayom, the largest Israeli newspaper and one close to Netanyahu, wrote a year ago that a “plan for the liberation of Northern Cyprus” (the territories of Cyprus under Turkish military occupation since the 1974) should urgently be drawn up jointly with Greece and Cyprus.
It argued that this was necessary not because of the interests of Greece or Cyprus, but because of Israel’s interests and its need to maintain control over the Eastern Mediterranean.
The same newspaper has recently returned to these ideas.
In other words, we are supposed to go to war with Turkey, supposedly with Israeli assistance, in order to serve Israel’s interests.
Let us recall at this point that Israel itself has historically played a crucial role in order that the occupied territories of Cyprus become occupied!
Now it tells us that it wants to “liberate” them.
In my village, they say that the bigger the cheese, the bigger the mousetrap.
And in ancient times, they said: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
I hope History has not chosen this way to punish their descendants!
Naturally, it is much safer for Israel to have third parties attack Turkey on its behalf than to do so itself.
These positions have, of course, been followed by similar ideas now being promoted for implementation by a group of Greek “neo-nationalists” and “super-patriots” friendly to Israel—retired military officers, former diplomats, and assorted second-rate geopolitical analysts.
Indeed, unlike in the past, their “ideas” are now penetrating mainstream establishment media.
Let me add something else at this point.
Under the governments of Kostas Simitis and George Papandreou, I was one of the very few journalists and commentators who, through my columns in Kosmos tou Ependyti and elsewhere, as well as my book “The Abduction of Cyprus” https://www.defenddemocracy.press/mikis-theodorakis-why-we-say-again-no-to-the-annan-plan/ , challenged the foreign policy of PASOK’s “modernizers.”
I also challenged the policies of most of New Democracy and the “anti-nationalist Left,” believing that they represented a Procrustean mutilation of Greek rights and interests for the benefit not of Greece or peace, but of the collective West.
I helped prevent the abolition of the Republic of Cyprus and its transformation into a postmodern protectorate—something its president publicly thanked me for.
Later, through my writing, I advocated for and supported Greece’s opening toward Russia under Kostas Karamanlis, essentially a continuation of the genuinely multidimensional policies of Andreas Papandreou’s governments and of all Cypriot governments up to Anastasiadis.
I was also a determined critic of the Memoranda [the international bailout agreements], primarily because they dismantled Greek state sovereignty—and their terms continue to do so.
I did these things because I believed in them, even at the expense of my own personal interests.
I do not remember today’s “super-patriots,” “neo-nationalists,” and friends of Israel being present in those critical struggles of Hellenism.
Thanks to those struggles, at the very least, the Cypriot state was preserved, and the enormous consequences of its dissolution for mainland Greece were avoided.
This “super-patriotism”—the ideas that “we should fight Turkey tomorrow,” “we should declare a 12-mile territorial sea without examining the consequences,” or “we should militarily liberate the occupied territories of Cyprus”—began appearing gradually after the rupture between Israel and Turkey in 2010.
These ideas have intensified as that rupture has deepened, while the “Israelization” of Greece and Cyprus proceeds unchecked.
“Israelization”
If our country possessed even minimal characteristics of normality, exercised even a minimum of sovereignty, and retained some traces of seriousness, we would certainly not be raising the questions about the Greek – Cypriot – Israeli cable that we raised in the beginning of this article.
But a country cannot be considered even minimally normal when “Mr. Predator,” the “star” of the Israeli intelligence services Tad Dilian https://www.icij.org/investigations/cyprus-confidential/greek-court-convicts-intellexa-founder-tal-dilian-three-others-in-wiretapping-scandal/, who organized the surveillance of the political, military, and other leadership of Greece and Cyprus—including the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff and, most probably make no mistake, the prime minister himself—is publicly threatening, indirectly but clearly, Mr. Mitsotakis himself, writing that he will have the fate of Richard Nixon
Ostensibly, Mr. Dilian is pressing him over his personal judicial future.
We can believe that if we wish.
Our own opinion, though we cannot prove it, is that the threats to Mr. Mitsotakis may concern much broader matters and, in any event, constitute a serious warning to the Greek PM about “data” conserning him and his government. If this is true it means that it is better for Mr. Mitsotakis to do what Israel wants from him.
It may be a coincidence, but since Dilian’s declarations, Greece has officially adopted the outrageous, utterly foolish, and adventurist “military doctrine” of “preventive war.”
The prime minister himself had rejected this doctrine when it was proposed to him years earlier by the then Chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff, General Floros.
Greece has also completed four years of negotiations and signed the procurement contracts for “Achilles’ Shield,” an instrument that ensures Israeli control over the entirety of the armed forces.
It is now proceeding with laying the cable.
The Greek government continues to pursue a schizophrenic foreign policy, depending on which international power center is directing it.
On the one hand, we have the traditional Western advice: “Reach an agreement with Turkey at any (usually Greek) cost,” which the government follows in numerous areas.
On the other hand, we have the Israeli urging: “Break with Turkey, do whatever is necessary so that we can fully control the Eastern Mediterranean, and buy frigates rather than corvettes, even though what you need for the Aegean is corvettes, not frigates.”
The same applies in Cyprus, where, according to someone with deep knowledge of the island’s political situation, Mr. Christodoulides has handed to Israel the keys to his state.
Naturally, this schizophrenia is the worst and most dangerous thing a state—or an individual—can do.
In our case, we are simultaneously accumulating humiliating concessions and defeats, along with dangerous crises.
On the one hand, we sign declarations in Athens that whitewash Turkey for its threats or territorial claims or Cyprus. On the other, we proclaim the doctrine of “preventive war”—in other words, we tell the Turks that we will wage war against them whenever we feel like it, even if they have not attacked us!
On the one hand, the prime minister asks US Congress not to supply Turkey with F-16 aircrafts, infuriating Erdoğan. On the other, he declares that he does not care whether Germany supplies Eurofighters to this same Turkey.
On the one hand, we are ready to go to war to defend the rights in Eastern Mediterranean that we claim—incorrectly—that the Kastellorizo island complex grants Greece. Simultaneously, and during the crisis between Greece and Turkey about those very rights, we undermine our own claim by signing an agreement on EEZ delimitation with Egypt which acknowledges that one of the biggest islands in Mediterranean, Crete, has only 80% effect in the delimitation of exclusive economic zones.
Disagreements over the Cable in Cyprus
The Greek mass media, the overwhelming majority of which are under a clear Israeli influence, have essentially avoided informing the consumers of the “news” they distribute about what is being said in Cyprus itself concerning the cable—even though Cyprus is one of the cable’s destinations.
They confine themselves to presenting the laying of the cable as something comparable to Leonidas’s defense at Thermopylae, and naturally do not trouble us too much with the “details” of the matter.
Yet in Cyprus, even the government itself is divided.
The Minister of Finance opposes the project because, he argues, the studies show it is economically unviable.
The Minister of Energy wants it implemented for political reasons, he says, because the European Union wants it.
Of course, it is far more likely that Israel wants it, rather than the EU.
Other observers argue that Cyprus does not need the cable because it can achieve energy autonomy, even through renewable energy sources.
President Christodoulides avoids taking a very clear position, implying—without saying so explicitly—that the Greek prime minister wants the project and that Greece will assume the geopolitical risks.
There is somethingh I do not quite get.
If Cyprus doesn’t particularly want the project, but the EU and Israel do, why don’t they send their own navies and air forces to protect the cable’s laying?
Why must we be the ones to pull the snake out of the hole?
Are we perhaps useful idiots?
The Legal Status of the Waters in the Eastern Mediterranean
We hear many lies on television and radio about the legal status of the waters between Greece and Cyprus.
This was, in fact, my original motivation for writing this article.
So, to avoid confusion, the area through which the cable will pass belongs to neither a Greek, Turkish, nor Cypriot exclusive economic zone (EEZ), regardless of what Athens, Ankara, and Nicosia say.
For an EEZ to exist legally between neighboring states, it is not enough for those states merely to proclaim one.
They must agree on its delimitation—as with the continental shelf—or turn to international mediation, arbitration, or an international court.
None of this has happened, and we do not know whether it will happen within the next 500 years.
Whichever future EEZ the area eventually belongs to, cable laying is permitted, and indeed, without authorization.
All that is required is notification.
In other words, if the EEZ were Greek, no one would need to be notified, since Greece itself is carrying out the surveys.
If it were Turkish, Turkey would have to be notified.
The dispute has arisen because both states believe that, indirectly, if Athens notifies Ankara, this could be interpreted as implicit recognition of the existence of a Turkish EEZ in the area.
That is the legal framework.
However, issues of this kind are not exclusively legal.
They depend on a broader strategic framework that a government must always consider if it wants its policies to lead its country to a better situation rather than a worse one.
Footnote (*): The Threat of Israeli–Turkish War
Israeli officials and official security organizations have anticipated the possibility of a future military confrontation with Turkey and have exchanged with this country barely concealed threats. .
An official Israeli document, the Nagel Committee Report, characterized Turkey as a potential “strategic threat” h https://epc.ae/en/details/featured/israel-s-perspective-of-the-turkish-challenge-a-real-danger-or-creating-a-new-external-enemy , a position former Prime Minister Bennett also adopted.
Netanyahu’s own speech at the United Nations was, moreover, “prewar” in character—the kind of speech intended to prepare the atmosphere for war with Turkey.
In this case, such a war could even involve Greece, a country Netanyahu mentioned in his speech alongside five others as part of a “close allied core.”
As for Erdoğan’s speech, it was certainly no coincidence that he called upon the international community to help prevent Israel’s plans in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In this way, he placed the confrontation with Greece and Cyprus within the international framework of Israel’s “aggressive plans.”
Such a position risks being accepted by a large part of world public opinion and by governments internationally, especially given that Israel has managed to become a “pariah state.”
The departure of 40% of the world’s states during Netanyahu’s speech to the General Assembly was unprecedented and demonstrates Tel Aviv’s isolation.
In the past, Greece enjoyed enormous prestige worldwide.
The same was true of Cyprus, thanks to its great anti-colonial revolution of 1955–1959 and (its President) Archbishop Makarios’s international stature.
After 1974, Greece and Cyprus were internationally regarded as victims of Turkey.
That was what made possible the adoption of United Nations resolutions demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Cyprus and declaring the breakaway state illegal, as well as the embargo imposed by the US Congress on supplying US weapons to Turkey.
But much has changed since then.
Greece and Cyprus not only were instructed by Western capitals to forget the issue of Turkish threats, in their international political and public communications, but also took leading roles in supporting Ankara’s accession to the European Union.
Now they are beginning to be perceived internationally as instruments of Israel.
This represents a dramatic deterioration in the balance of soft power, moral authority, and political-diplomatic influence between Greece and Turkey.
Turkey’s principal adversary today is not Greece or Cyprus.
It is Israel.
Athens and Nicosia become first-priority adversaries for Ankara insofar as they are perceived as being tightly controlled by Israel and therefore capable of being used against Turkey.
Once they are regarded as such adversaries, Turkey will escalate its threats and pressure against Greece and Cyprus wherever possible.
There is also a serious danger that the two countries will become involved in situations of uncontrollable mutual escalation that could lead to war.
This is because both sides will find themselves in positions from which retreating without incurring “unacceptable” political cost will be objectively impossible.
Such situations will also make provocations much easier to carry out.
Moreover, worsening Greek–Turkish relations will inevitably trigger a sharp rise in pro-war political forces, particularly the far right, in both countries.
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