Israeli Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli has described the partnership between Israel, Greece and Cyprus as a united front against regional extremism that he attributes to Turkey. The statement, delivered to a delegation of Christian lawmakers from the United States, reflects the increasingly confrontational language surrounding relations between Israel and Ankara.
“Israel is united with both Greece and Cyprus against Islamic extremism in the region led by Turkey,” Chikli told members of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers during a meeting in Jerusalem on September 8, according to JNS.
The formulation represents Chikli’s political assessment rather than an announced joint doctrine by the three governments. Greece, Cyprus and Israel have developed an extensive trilateral framework covering defence, military exercises, energy, civil protection and diplomatic coordination, but Athens and Nicosia have not formally adopted the minister’s description of the partnership.
Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has repeatedly presented Turkey as a regional security threat. His criticism focuses on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s support for Hamas and Ankara’s broader relationships with Islamist movements. Turkey does not classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation and Erdoğan has publicly described it as a resistance movement, a position that has contributed to a severe deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations.
Relations between Ankara and Jerusalem have become especially strained since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza. Erdoğan has emerged as one of the Israeli government’s strongest international critics, while Israeli officials have accused Turkey of providing political space and support to Hamas representatives.
During the same meeting, Chikli criticised US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who also serves as Washington’s special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq. He accused Barrack of “acting against the interests of the West, Christians and the United States” through his approach to regional stabilisation. The remark highlights disagreement within pro-Israel political circles over Washington’s effort to maintain working relations with Ankara while managing Syria and other regional crises.
The Israeli minister also used the meeting to address the position of Christians in Israel. He praised what he called the country’s “flourishing” Christian community and described it as the safest in the wider Middle East. At the same time, he condemned attacks and harassment directed at Christians by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists.
“We need to better educate our ultra-orthodox youth about Christianity,” Chikli said. “Christianity is our sister religion.”
His audience consisted of American state legislators affiliated with a Christian political organisation, giving the remarks both a regional and a US domestic dimension. Israel has invested heavily in relations with Christian lawmakers and evangelical communities, which remain influential constituencies in American support for the country.
For Greece and Cyprus, cooperation with Israel is based on a broader calculation involving Eastern Mediterranean security, energy infrastructure, intelligence links and defence technology. Shared concerns over Turkish policy have strengthened that alignment, although both governments continue to manage their own diplomatic channels with Ankara.
Chikli’s statement is therefore significant less as a new trilateral agreement than as an unusually explicit Israeli portrayal of the partnership. It places the Israel–Greece–Cyprus framework inside a wider ideological confrontation with Turkey at a moment when military, energy and diplomatic cooperation among the three countries is deepening.
