An Israeli-designed and delivered air-defense system will soon be protecting Greece, once Israel’s harshest European critic and now a close Mediterranean ally.
That is the upshot of the eye-popping NIS 10 billion deal signed Monday, one of the largest defense-export agreements in Israel’s history.
The reversal of fortunes is astounding.
For much of the last three decades of the 20th century, Greece was to Israel what Spain and Ireland are today: implacably hostile. In some ways, even worse. In 1982, Greece sent ships to Beirut to safely evacuate Yasser Arafat and thousands of PLO terrorists.
And that is only one astonishing element of this story.
Greece seeks Israeli protection amid growing European divisions
The other is that here is a frontline European power - a vital NATO ally on Europe’s southeastern flank and a key member of the EU - turning to Israel for its defense. The same Israel that other European countries, including Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium - and, come the end of the month, Britain - are spurning and seeking to boycott.
Those boycotts are ostensibly aimed “only” at products from east Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the Golan Heights. But the fear is that, because of the difficulty in determining exactly where every Israeli product or component originates, they will inevitably open the door to wider boycotts of Israel itself.
The contrast could hardly be sharper.
One part of Europe is looking to Israel for protection; another wants to boycott it. Ireland would not let its new government jet be fitted with an Israeli-made system designed to help it land in fog. Greece is entrusting the protection of its population and critical infrastructure to Israeli-made systems.
But the sale does more than highlight the countervailing trends in Europe, where political hostility toward Israel and strategic dependence on it are moving in opposite directions. It also shines a spotlight on Israel’s remarkable defense prowess.
Greece turns to Israel’s multilayered defense system
Greece is interested in the same type of multilayered system that protects Israel because it has seen how effective that system has been over the last three years in defending the country against missiles, rockets, and drones launched from Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, and elsewhere. Greece watched and now wants that same level of protection for itself.
Under the agreement, dubbed Achilles Shield, Israel will provide Greece with an integrated national air-defense network. It will incorporate David’s Sling to intercept ballistic missiles and heavy rockets; SPYDER and BARAK MX systems to defend strategic sites against threats ranging from drones to cruise missiles; sophisticated MMR radars; Drone Dome counter-drone systems; and a national command-and-control network to tie everything together.
This is not merely an arms sale. It is the export of an entire defensive architecture - developed under fire, tested in war, and refined through repeated attacks by enemies using a wide variety of weapons.
Other European countries, feeling increasingly threatened by the cold winds blowing from Russia and the growing shadow of Iranian missile tech, are likely to follow suit. Governments want what works, especially when the lives of their civilians are at stake. Just ask Finland, which quietly extended its defense cooperation framework with Israel for a decade, guaranteeing the smooth, long-term deployment of its newly acquired David’s Sling system despite fierce domestic opposition.
Israeli-Greek alliance gains significance amid Turkish ambitions
Then there is the Turkish angle.
With Turkey increasingly trying to throw its weight around the region - from expanding its influence in Syria to forming a military pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - this deal further cements an Israeli-Greek alliance that, while not formally aimed at a common adversary, clearly provides protection against one.
And here there is yet more historical irony.
When Greece emerged as a fierce critic of Israel in the 1970s - Athens didn’t formally recognize Israel until 1990 - one reason was Turkey. Following the Turkish invasion and occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974, Greece hoped to counter Ankara by courting the Arab world. It needed, among other things, Arab votes at the UN to pass anti-Turkish resolutions.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Athens viewed the Arab world as a diplomatic shield against Turkey and, in return, championed the PLO. Today, that old calculation is obsolete. What Greece now needs is not the diplomatic shield against Turkey that the Arab world once provided, but the physical shield that Israel can deliver.
That is the measure of this transformation: Greece, once fiercely hostile to Israel, now looks to the Jewish state for its defense.