If King Antiochus IV Epiphanes could travel through time to Hanukkah 2025, he would probably express discontent with the attitude of his successor, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis, unlike the monarch whose defeated legacy is the festival of Hanukkah, was welcomed to Israel during the final few hours of the Festival of Lights, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
The three leaders addressed the media, reaffirming their commitment to regional security, energy, and technological advancement.
The Israel-Greece-Cyprus relationship has been shaped by changing regional realities and sustained by shared interests, particularly as the eastern Mediterranean became more contested and unpredictable.
The partnership began to take shape in the late 2000s, after Israel’s relationship with Turkey deteriorated sharply. As Ankara moved away from strategic cooperation with Jerusalem under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israel was forced to rethink its regional posture. Greece and Cyprus, both long wary of Turkish ambitions, having suffered under Turkish aggression and, having been historically distant from Israel, became natural, if initially unlikely, partners.
Energy cooperation provided an early opportunity. Offshore gas discoveries allowed the three countries to work together on practical projects such as export routes, pipelines, and electricity interconnectors. These initiatives created a basis for trust and regular coordination, while also bringing Israel closer to Europe through two EU member states.
“We will advance the India-Middle East-European Union Corridor,” Netanyahu said at Monday’s trilateral summit. “This is an idea that has been brought forward before, but we think we have to put it into reality.” He described the project as a combination of maritime routes, energy pipelines, and cable connectivity linking Asia and Europe via Israel, Cyprus, and Greece.
Energy alone will not define the eastern Mediterranean
This is all substantive for Israel. For decades, Greece and Cyprus had been among Israel’s more critical voices in European forums. Regular trilateral summits and ministerial meetings marked a real diplomatic change, even if political differences remained.
Over time, however, it became clear that energy alone would not define the eastern Mediterranean.
Major projects such as the EastMed pipeline proved too costly and complex, and shifting global energy markets reduced their strategic value. While energy cooperation did not disappear, as gas exports via Egypt continued and undersea electricity links remained under discussion, it no longer carried the same political weight.
What has carried the relationships forward is security cooperation.
Even before energy projects stalled, military ties were expanding. Israeli pilots trained in Greek airspace after access to Turkish skies was restricted. Joint air, naval, and ground exercises became more frequent and more sophisticated. Intelligence sharing deepened. Cyprus, too, expanded its security coordination with Israel and hosted IDF training activities.
By the early 2020s, this cooperation had become institutionalized. Defense agreements were signed and operational coordination became a normal aspect of military activity.
Greece faces persistent tensions with Turkey in the Aegean Sea and worries about escalation through miscalculation. Cyprus continues to live with the reality of a divided island and a large Turkish military presence. Israel, meanwhile, is increasingly attentive to Ankara’s growing presence in Syria, attempts to entrench itself in Gaza and the eastern Mediterranean, and how that could affect its operational freedom.
Against this backdrop, Netanyahu warned that “the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean are being tested by aggression, terrorism, and instability,” adding that the trilateral partnership “provides strength, clarity, and cooperation that will prevail over chaos.”
“To those who fantasize that they can re-establish their empires and their dominion over our lands, I say, forget it. It’s not going to happen – don’t even think about it,” Netanyahu warned in a thinly-veiled threat to Turkey.
These are not identical challenges, but they intersect. All three countries value stability, freedom of navigation, and respect for sovereignty in a region where those principles are frequently tested.
That brings us to Monday’s summit. Israel has learned the hard way over the past two years who its friends are and who aren’t.
Greece and Cyprus have stood with Israel - Greece even held a Greek Independence Day ceremony at Kibbutz Beeri to show solidarity – and now the relationship moves to the next level.
Mitsotakis said that since the last trilateral summit in 2023, “we’ve now entered a new geopolitical phase,” one that “creates some serious risks, but also a profound window of opportunity to shape a regional security architecture that can deliver peace and prosperity.”
Antiochus IV Epiphanes must be turning in his grave.