Has Greece become Israel's Trojan Horse in the Gulf?
Submitted by Ali Bakir on Wed, 06/24/2026 - 17:17
Tel Aviv would like to remain present inside the emerging GCC security architecture - without needing to be directly welcome at the table
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis greets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman prior to a meeting in Athens on 26 July 2022 (Yorgos Karahalis/AFP) On Over the past several years, and with particular intensity since late 2019, Athens has deepened its ties with the Gulf states in ways few might have predicted.
At first glance, the relationship looks standard: a European nation gains access to energy and investments, while the Gulf states in turn gain a willing European partner.
Looking closer, though, the details tell a different story. Greece’s push into the Gulf has unfolded in two phases, each running in parallel with the same two trends: a tightening alliance with Israel, and deepening friction with Turkey.
The first push, from roughly 2016 to 2021, took shape as an anti-Turkey coalition. Built around the Greece-Israel-Cyprus axis, it sought to draw in France, Egypt, Libya’s Khalifa Haftar, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, and against the backdrop of the 2017 blockade of Qatar, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
While economic, energy and investment cooperation supplied the pretext for this coalition, security and defence were the main substance. The alignment came easily at the time, because Abu Dhabi and Riyadh were themselves informally aligning with Israeli regional policies on multiple levels.
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In this context, Athens was able to sign several strategic agreements with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.
In November 2020, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis signed a strategic partnership with the UAE, and a separate accord on foreign policy and defence, committing each side to assist the other if their sovereignty or territorial integrity were threatened.
That same year, the UAE deployed assets to Greece for joint drills, and the two coordinated on Eastern Mediterranean security within a wider network linking Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, France and Israel.
Extended reach
Similarly, a landmark Greek-Saudi defence agreement in 2021 sent a Greek Patriot battery and personnel to the kingdom, alongside joint air exercises such as Falcon Eye, and a flurry of senior military visits. Greek-Saudi defence and security ties emerged like never before.
But the anti-Turkey coalition architecture collapsed when its premise did. Once the 2017 Gulf crisis was resolved and ties between the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Turkey on the other, were normalised, the Greek-Israeli scheme to enlist GCC states against Ankara lost its foundation.
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A second Greek push towards the GCC states took place from 2023 to 2026, aligning with the same two trends: a strengthened alliance with Israel, and increasing friction with Turkey.
Greece’s aims during this stage have been twofold: to extend the reach and influence of the Greek-Israeli coalition to the Gulf through defence and security ties, and to dilute (and possibly counter) Turkey’s growing weight and role in the Gulf, especially concerning Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.
What makes this push distinct is how completely Athens has fused its security policy with Israel's, to a degree no other European state even approaches
What makes this push distinct is how completely Athens has fused its security policy with Israel’s, to a degree no other European state even approaches, at a time when Israel is a global pariah whose top officials are facing arrest warrants over the state’s genocidal crimes.
The numbers carry the argument. Greece’s flagship air-defence programme, called Achilles’ Shield, is a roughly $3.5bn effort to integrate three Israeli systems into a multi-layered air, missile and anti-drone defence network.
Earlier this year, Athens added some $750m for precision rocket artillery from Elbit Systems, a system positioned along its frontier with Turkey. Israeli firms train Greek fighter pilots, while Israel Aerospace Industries’ 2023 acquisition of the Greek firm Intracom Defense opened the way to local production and technology transfer. Officers now move through one another’s command structures in numbers that make the relationship look less like a partnership than an integration.
The Greek push into the Gulf facilitates Israel’s hegemonic agenda. Israel emerged from the Gaza war diplomatically constricted, legally exposed, and unwelcome across much of the region.
It would like to remain present inside the emerging GCC security architecture without needing to be welcome at the table - and a trusted partner already trying to embed itself in the Gulf's defence circuits, carrying Israeli systems, doctrine and intelligence pipelines, is one way to manage that implicitly.
Quiet recalibration
Ankara is the other half of the equation. Turkey is the only Muslim-majority Nato state with a serious defence industry, a record of aligning with Arab and Islamic causes through the Gaza war, and the geographic weight to back its positions. Since the resolution of the 2017 Gulf crisis, GCC states have been quietly recalibrating towards Ankara, which now reads as a strategic partner rather than a competitor.
Turkey’s efforts to establish a regional security architecture, or an “axis of stability” grounded in regional ownership - with the cooperation and coordination of key regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt - directly contradict Greece’s Middle Eastern policies.
Turkey-Greece tensions: A clash of nationalisms Read More »
If successfully implemented, this initiative could thwart Greece’s regional plans once again. Athens thus feels the need to assert its alliance with Israel and to counter Ankara not only in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also in other arenas where Turkey is active, including the Gulf.
It is therefore unsurprising that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has positioned Greece, Cyprus and India within an Israeli “hexagon of alliances” designed to counter the emerging alignment of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt.
Last December, at the 10th Israel-Greece-Cyprus summit in Jerusalem, the leaders of the three nations pledged to deepen defence and security cooperation. Days earlier, Greek and Israeli media reported on potential plans for a 2,500-strong joint rapid-response force, comprising 1,000 troops each from Israel and Greece, and 500 from Cyprus, with air and naval components. It was openly cast as a mechanism to deter and restrain Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean.
During this period, Athens has concentrated on enhancing its geopolitical significance to the GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, by focusing on energy, infrastructure and connectivity projects - such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), and a fibre optic data cable initiative - in addition to defence and security.
Notably, the IMEC deliberately excludes Turkey and Egypt. Anchored by Israel and India, it extends through the UAE and Saudi Arabia to Europe via Greece, pulling the GCC states closer towards the hexagon coalition.
The fine print
When the US-Israel-Iran war erupted this past February, Greece rushed to offer the GCC states defence and security assistance. Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias toured the Gulf states, visiting the UAE and Qatar in March and April, followed by a trip to Saudi Arabia.
The visits were timed alongside a war in which Greek military facilities served as a logistical artery for the very strikes that triggered Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks across Gulf capitals. A country that relies on Israel for its own air defences, posturing as a security provider for the GCC amid a regional war, appears to be offering something it does not truly possess - unless what it’s really offering is connectivity with another state’s system and agenda.
Where, in that picture, does the Gulf sit - and who is carrying the picture into its rooms?
When a nation becomes a major customer of another’s weapons industry, hosts its training facilities, absorbs its doctrine, integrates its officers, and openly coordinates against a third party, its own foreign policy begins to carry its ally’s imprint.
This is evident in how their deeply enmeshed defence ecosystems behave; information, access and political weight begin to move in both directions almost reflexively. What lands on a Greek desk does not necessarily stay on a Greek desk.
Moreover, the officials who sign cooperation accords in Riyadh are the same ones signing declarations in Jerusalem to define an alliance that is distinguished, in part, by what it stands against. The same Athens that buys Israeli air-defence systems to deter Turkey, is being invited to aid Gulf air-defence planning. The war has only sharpened this contradiction.
This is the fine print that Gulf decision-makers should read before the next round of handshakes. When Greek, Israeli and Cypriot leaders define their alliance by whom it is meant to contain, and when that state is the very one the Gulf is moving towards, a key question emerges - and it answers itself.
Where, in that picture, does the Gulf sit - and who is carrying the picture into its rooms?
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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